gain.

It was a long journey. The creek was crooked and winding. Night came on
before he reached the river. Then he paddled on till midnight. Ten hours
of hard toil had passed when he saw the dark hull of a gunboat nearby.

"Ship ahoy!" he cried.

"Who goes there?" called the lookout.

"A friend. Take me up."

A boat was lowered and rowed towards him. The officer in it looked with
surprise when he saw a mud-covered man, with scratched and bleeding
face.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Lieutenant Cushing, or what is left of him."

"Cushing!--and how about the _Albemarle_?"

"She will never trouble Uncle Sam's ships again. She lies in her muddy
grave on the bottom of the Roanoke."

Cheers followed this welcome news, and when the gallant lieutenant was
safe on board the _Valley City_ the cheers grew tenfold.

For Lieutenant Cushing had done a deed which was matched for daring only
once in the history of our navy, and that was when Decatur burned the
_Philadelphia_ in the harbor of Tripoli.

CHAPTER XXVI

HOW THE "GLOUCESTER" REVENGED THE SINKING OF THE "MAINE"

DEADLY AND HEROIC DEEDS IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN

IF you look at a map of the country we dwell in, you will see that it
has a finger pointing south. That finger is called Florida, and it
points to the beautiful island of Cuba, which spreads out there to right
and left across the sea of the South.

The Spaniards in Cuba were very angry when they found the United States
trying to stop the war which they had carried on so mercilessly. They
thought this country had nothing to do with their affairs. And in
Havana, the capital city of the island, riots broke out and Americans
were insulted.

Never before in the history of the United States navy had there been so
terrible a disaster as the sinking of the _Maine_ by a frightful and
deadly explosion in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, on February 15, 1898,
and never was there greater grief and indignation in the United States
than when the story was told.

Do you know what followed this dreadful disaster? But of course you do,
for it seems almost yesterday that the _Maine_ went down with her
slaughtered crew. Everybody said that the Spaniards had done this
terrible deed and Spain should pay for it. We all said so and thought
so, you and I and all true Americans.

Before the loss of the _Maine_ many people thought we ought to go to war
with Spain, and put an end to the cruelty with which the Cubans were