Stories by American Authors Volume V Part 12

"Is your boom clear?"

"All clear."

Bang! A shot, this time from the Spaniard came skipping along the water in the direction of the launch, and flew over the heads of the daring pair.

"Hang them! They've seen us."

"Rig out your boom. We're in for it now!"

The man in the stern pushed shut the door of the boiler furnace, and turned on full steam.

The little craft fairly leaped ahead.

The two men set their teeth. He of the stern lashed the tiller amidships, and crept forward, aiding the other to push out the long boom which projected from the bow.

Ten seconds pa.s.sed. Then the torpedo on the end of the boom struck the "El Cid" under the stern. There was a crash--a vast upheaval of water and fragments.

The great ironclad rolled over on her side and lay half submerged.

Of the two men who had done this, one swam ash.o.r.e bearing the other, wounded to the death.

A mighty cheer arose from the Chilian fleet, repeated from the sh.o.r.e with redoubled volume.

"El Cid" lay sullen and silent; two of her guns were pointing under water, two up to the clouds.

The "Arapiles" fired the last sh.e.l.l at her own admiral--now a corpse, torn to pieces by the torpedo.

Then some one scrambled along the deck of the wrecked monster and lowered the Spanish flag.

"I think we'll keep that money," remarked Grant, as he lit another cigar.

The Chilian fleet had relieved New York. Elated by her victory over Peru, and thirsting for revenge against Spain for the latter's merciless bombardment of Valparaiso in 1866, the Chilians, as soon as they had learned of the declaration of war against the United States, tore up the treaty of truce and armistice made with Spain in 1871, and announced themselves an ally of this country. Realizing the weakness of our navy, and the unprotected position of our seaports, Chili instantly dispatched her three ironclads to New York. They made the voyage with remarkable celerity, stopping only for coal and provisions, and reached the beleaguered city just in the nick of time, as has already been detailed.

It was fortunate that the "Zaragoza" had been obliged to put so far out to sea that she could not return in season to take part in the conflict, otherwise the result might have been different.

As it was, when she came back a day later, and discovered the position of affairs, she took to her heels without delay.

It is not necessary here to speak of the greeting which the Chilians received, or the thanks which were lavished upon them by the people of the United States. Neither need we picture the dismay of the citizens of New York when they came to realize the fearful damage which had been inflicted upon their city. Fully one-half of the town lay in ruins. The metropolis was the metropolis no longer. The proudest city of the Great Republic had been at the mercy of a conqueror, and, as if this humiliation were not deep enough, she owed her preservation from utter destruction to the guns of an insignificant Republic of South America.

Six months after the relief of the city, a Chilian sailor belonging to the "Huascar," which was lying off the Battery, stopped to watch a crowd of workmen who were busily engaged in clearing away the ruins of some tenement buildings near Tompkins Square.

The face of one of the workmen had evidently attracted the foreigner's attention, as he gazed at him intently and curiously.

Suddenly there was a sharp detonation. The crowd scattered in all directions. An unexploded sh.e.l.l which had lodged in the building had been struck by a pick in the hands of one of the laborers, and had been fired.

The sailor helped carry out the dead.

Among the victims was the man at whom he had been so intently looking a moment before. This one he took in his arms and bore him apart from the rest.

Nervously he tore open the dead man's shirt. On the bared breast was a curiously shaped mole.

The sailor sank on his knees in prayer beside the body for a moment.

Then he turned, and addressing an officer who, with a file of soldiers, had come upon the scene, and was directing the removal of the dead, he asked in broken English, pointing to the corpse:

"Will you give me this?"

"Why?"

"He was my brother--_Leon Sangrado_."

The war had found a victim in him who had caused it.

[3] _Fiction, October 31, 1881._

WHY THOMAS WAS DISCHARGED.[4]

BY GEORGE ARNOLD.

Brant Beach is a long promontory of rock and sand, jutting out at an acute angle from a barren portion of the coast. Its farthest extremity is marked by a pile of many-colored, wave-washed boulders; its junction with the mainland is the site of the Brant House, a watering-place of excellent repute.

The attractions of this spot are not numerous. There is surf-bathing all along the outer side of the beach, and good swimming on the inner. The fishing is fair; and in still weather yachting is rather a favorite amus.e.m.e.nt. Further than this there is little to be said, save that the hotel is conducted upon liberal principles, and the society generally select.

But to the lover of nature--and who has the courage to avow himself aught else?--the sea-sh.o.r.e can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep of ever-shifting waters, the flying mist of foam breaking away into a gray and ghostly distance down the beach, the eternal drone of ocean, mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in the parlors by night--all these are active sources of a pa.s.sive pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark blue sky wherein great silvery ma.s.ses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance--tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotos, is not this a diversion well worth your having?

There is an air of easy sociality among the guests at the Brant House, a disposition on the part of all to contribute to the general amus.e.m.e.nt, that makes a summer sojourn on the beach far more agreeable than in certain larger, more frequented watering-places, where one is always in danger of discovering that the gentlemanly person with whom he has been fraternizing is a faro-dealer, or that the lady who has half-fascinated him is Anonyma herself. Still, some consider the Brant rather slow, and many good folk were a trifle surprised when Mr. Edwin Salsbury and Mr.

Charles Burnham arrived by the late stage from Wikha.s.set Station, with trunks enough for two first-cla.s.s belles, and a most unexceptionable man-servant in gray livery, in charge of two beautiful setter-dogs.

These gentlemen seemed to have imagined that they were about visiting some backwoods wilderness, some savage tract of country, "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," for they brought almost everything with them that men of elegant leisure could require, as if the hotel were but four walls and a roof, which they must furnish with their own chattels.

I am sure it took Thomas, the man-servant, a whole day to unpack the awnings, the bootjacks, the game-bags, the cigar-boxes, the guns, the camp-stools, the liquor-cases, the bathing-suits, and other paraphernalia that these pleasure-seekers brought. It must be owned, however, that their room, a large one in the Bachelors' Quarter, facing the sea, wore a very comfortable, sportsmanlike look when all was arranged.

Thus surrounded, the young men betook themselves to the deliberate pursuit of idle pleasures. They arose at nine and went down the sh.o.r.e, invariably returning at ten with one unfortunate snipe, which was preserved on ice, with much ceremony, till wanted. At this rate it took them a week to shoot a breakfast; but to see them sally forth, splendid in velveteen and corduroy, with top-boots and a complete harness of green cord and patent-leather straps, you would have imagined that all game-birds were about to become extinct in that region. Their dogs, even, recognized this great-cry-little-wool condition of things, and bounded off joyously at the start, but came home crestfallen, with an air of canine humiliation that would have aroused Mr. Mayhew's tenderest sympathies.

After breakfasting, usually in their room, the friends enjoyed a long and contemplative smoke upon the wide piazza in front of their windows, listlessly regarding the ever-varied marine view that lay before them in flashing breadth and beauty. Their next labor was to array themselves in wonderful morning-costumes of very s.h.a.ggy English cloth, shiny flasks and field-gla.s.ses about their shoulders, and loiter down the beach, to the point and back, making much unnecessary effort over the walk--a brief mile--which they spoke of, with importance, as their "const.i.tutional." This killed time till bathing-hour, and then another toilet for dinner. After dinner a siesta: in the room, when the weather was fresh; when otherwise, in hammocks hung from the rafters of the piazza. When they had been domiciled a few days, they found it expedient to send home for what they were pleased to term their "crabs" and "traps," and excited the envy of less fortunate guests by driving up and down the beach at a racing gait to dissipate the languor of the after-dinner sleep.

This was their regular routine for the day--varied, occasionally, when the tide served, by a fishing trip down the narrow bay inside the point.

For such emergencies they provided themselves with a sail-boat and skipper, hired for the whole season, and arrayed themselves in a highly nautical rig. The results were, large quant.i.ties of sardines and pale sherry consumed by the young men, and a reasonable number of sea-ba.s.s and blackfish caught by the skipper.

There were no regular "hops" at the Brant House, but dancing in a quiet way every evening to a flute, violin, and violoncello, played by some of the waiters. For a time Burnham and Salsbury did not mingle much in these festivities, but loitered about the halls and piazzas, very elegantly dressed and barbered (Thomas was an unrivalled _coiffeur_), and apparently somewhat _ennuye_.