Just then Kennedy faced around toward us and we saw that he was laughing.

“What do you think?” he said.  “It’s a fire after all.”

“A fire?  Where?” we gasped simultaneously.

“In the furnaces.  I saw a big flame leaping from the funnel.  Gee! they must be whooping her up below to beat the band.  Coal piled up to the top of the flues.”

“It’s oil,” exclaimed Tommy, gravely.  “They are feeding the fires with crude oil.  That means the last resort, fellows.  The ‘old man’ is trying to get every ounce of steam possible.”

Our curiosity satisfied, we felt more at ease, and we lounged at our stations and listened to the banging of furnace doors and grating of shovels in the fire room below.  Occasionally one of us would venture an opinion or try to exchange views, and “Stump” even started a story, but in the main we were quiet and watchful.

From the swaying and trembling of the hull it was evident the “Yankee” was being pushed at her utmost speed.  Mess gear rattled in the chests, the deck quivered, and from down in the lower depths came the quick throb-throb of the overworked engines.  Presently the red glare caused by the upleaping flames from the funnel died away, and darkness settled down again.

“I guess we are making it,” observed Tommy.  “We have been a good two hours racing at this gait, which means a matter of almost forty miles.”

“They might let us take a run on deck,” grumbled Flagg.  “What’s the use of holding up this gun all night?  It’s getting monotonous.”

“Here comes the ‘Kid,’” exclaimed “Dye.”  “He may have some news.”

The youngster brought a message to Lieutenant Greene.  As he started off, he whispered: 

“We are going to ‘secure’ in a few moments.  It has been a great scoot.  I heard the captain say to ‘Mother Hubbub’ that it would go down in history as a masterly retreat.”

“Was it a Spanish fleet?” queried “Hay.”

“They are not certain.  The skipper now thinks that it was a convoy of transports bringing the army of occupation.  He didn’t stop to find out, though.  Say, you fellows look tired.  Why don’t you ’pipe down’?”

He scurried off with a laugh, and we were just settling back for another siege of it when the welcome order came to “secure.”  The order was executed in a jiffy, and then those who had the off watch piled into their hammocks with a celerity seldom equalled.  Santiago was reached early the following morning, and before the day was over we heard that our neighbors of the night before were, as the captain had suspected, a fleet of transports bringing troops from the United States.

“Which doesn’t alter the fact that we displayed wisdom in taking a ‘sneak,’” commented Tommy, grimly.  “It’s a clever chief who knows when to retreat.”

The great gray ships still tossed idly on the rolling blue sea when we took our station at the right of the line.