"Don't think I'm blamin' you," the boy replied, quickly, pressing his comrade's arm in a friendly fashion. "If you never did anything more, I'd feel as if you'd been mighty good to me, for I couldn't have run across many sailors who'd lay themselves out to help a stowaway."
Bill Jones was interrupted by a shout,--Teddy will never know who uttered it, or what the words were,--and instantly, without the slightest apparent cause, all was seeming confusion on board the ship.
It was to the lad as if the very air bristled with excitement; he saw men darting here and there, heard sharp, quick words of command, and as if at the very same instant, the _Texas_ seemed to leap forward with a bound, huge clouds of black smoke suddenly pouring out of her stacks.
"The Spaniards! The Spaniards!" Bill Jones yelled in the lad's ear, at the same time pointing toward the entrance to the harbour, from out of which could be seen the dark hull of an enemy's ship.
It was as if in that small fraction of time very much took place.
Teddy saw long lines of signal-flags run up to the _Brooklyn's_ masthead; he heard the roar of a 6-pounder as the _Iowa_ fired the first shot at the foe, and understood, rather than saw, that every vessel in the squadron was under a full head of steam almost immediately.
At one instant the blockading squadron lay motionless and apparently lifeless off the harbour, rocking lazily on the long swell, and then, before one could speak, as it were, every listless hull was a war machine, quivering with life, and pouring forth deadly shot and shell.
The transformation was so sudden and complete that it is little wonder Teddy and Bill Jones stood transfixed with astonishment until the chase was well under way.
One after another of the Spanish cruisers came at full speed out of the harbour which it had been believed was closed by the hull of the _Merrimac_, and as each ship rounded the point her guns were discharged at the Yankee squadron. The dense smoke pouring out of their stacks; the clouds of spray from their bows, glistening like diamonds in the sunlight of that Sabbath morning as it was thrown aft by the fierce impetus of the huge vessels to mingle with the smoke that came from every gun; the roar and thunder of the discharges; the shrieking of the missiles, and the spouting of water as the metal fell short, made up a scene of war in its most terrific phase.