h gunboat stole
slowly into the bay from the sea and dropped anchor with a loud
rattling of chain in the hawse-pipe. A boat was lowered, and a single
man sculled it ashore; then lifting out a small cask and bag, he placed
them high on the sands and looked around.

Spying the sleeping man, half immersed now, he approached and felt of
the damp clothing and equally damp face. Not noticing that he breathed
softly, the man crossed himself, then moved quickly and nervously
toward his boat, muttering, "Muerto, muerto!" Pushing out, he sculled
rapidly toward the anchored craft, and disposed of the boat and his
clothing as had been done before; then he swam to the gangway and
climbed aboard.

Shortly after, the sleeping man, roused by the chill of the water,
crawled aimlessly up the sand and slept again--safe beyond the
tide-line. In three hours he sat up and rubbed his eyes, half awake,
but sane.

Strange sights and sounds puzzled him. He knew nothing of this starlit
beach and stretch of sparkling water--nothing of that long black craft
at anchor, with the longer beam of white light reaching over the sea
from her pilot-house. He could only surmise that she was a war-vessel
from the ram-bow,--a feature of the government model which had
impressed him at Key West,--and from the noise she was making. She
quivered in a maze of flickering red flashes, and the rattling din of
her rapid-fire and machine guns transcended in volume all the roadside
blastings he had heard in his wanderings. Dazed and astonished, he rose
to his feet, but, too weak to stand, sat down again and looked.

Half a mile seaward, where the beam of light ended, a small craft, low
down between two crested waves, was speeding toward the gunboat in the
face of her fire. The water about her was lashed into turmoil by the
hail of projectiles; but she kept on, at locomotive speed, until within
a thousand feet of the gunboat, when she turned sharply to starboard,
doubled on her track, and raced off to sea, still covered by the
search-light and followed by shot and shell while the gunners could see
her.

When the gun fire ceased, a hissing of steam could be heard in the
distance, and a triumphant Spanish yell answered. The small enemy had
been struck, and the gunboat slipped her cable and followed.

The tired brain could not cope with the problem, and again the man
slept, to awaken at sunrise with ravenous hunger and thirst, and a
memory of what seemed to be horrib