ched the skipper's arm under the shrouded
binnacle. "I s'y sir," he whispered excitedly, "they're--_there!_
There, anchored at the inshore station, just off the bar! My eye, but
hain't they beastly idiots? They'll smash to pieces."

The skipper looked and Murguia tried to look. But they saw nothing.
Except for the booming of the surf, they might have been on a landless
sea, alone in the black night. Don Anastasio was shaking at such a rate
that his two companions in the dark wheelhouse were conscious of it. He
cursed the quartermaster for a pessimist. The skipper, though, was brave
enough to believe.

"We're expected, that's gospel," he muttered. But he did not change his
course, for he knew that on his other side there was a second fleet,
tugging at drift leads off the entrance to the main ship channel. It was
near hopeless, but he meant to dart between the two.

"Now for a reception as 'ull touch us to the quick, as Loo-ee Sixteenth
said----" The skipper cut himself short. "Aye, aye, sir," he cried,
"they've spied us!"

"They haven't!" groaned Murguia. "How could they?"

"'T'aint important now, sir, how they could. There might be a gleam in
our wake. But any'ow they 'ave."

They had indeed. Less than a mile to port there suddenly appeared two
red lights, two sullen eyeballs of fire. Then, a rocket cleft the
darkness, its slant proclaiming the fugitive's course. Hurriedly the
_Luz's_ quartermaster sent up a rocket also, but in the opposite
direction. It was useless. A third rocket from the signaling blockader
contradicted him.

"We're bein' chased," announced the skipper. "One of 'em 'as slipped her
chain and got off."

As _La Luz_ had gained the open, the skipper let his quartermaster
take the wheel. "'Old her to the wind, lad," he cautioned. "A beam sea
'ud swamp us." Next he whistled down to the engine room. They were to
stoke with turpentine and cotton. At once Murguia began to fidget. "It,
it will make smoke," he whined.

"An' steam. We're seen a'ready, ain't we, sir?"

"But it costs more."

"Not if it clears us. Soft coal 'ud seem bloomin' expensive, sir, if we
got over'auled."

The race was on. In smooth water it would scarcely have been one. But
the boiling fury cut knots from the steamer's speed, while the Federals
sent after her only their sailing vessels, which with all canvas spread
bent low to the chase. They had, however, used up time to unreef; and
with the terrific rolling they would not