“We’re on the reef,” he cried in anguish. “What shall we do? Hit her, O’Neil,” he called beside himself; “he must not escape.” Sydney had rushed aft with several sailors close at his heels and taking the tow-line of the native boat astern, they hauled it up clear of the backing screws until the outrigger was alongside the gangway. “Make room for ten of our sailors,” he shouted to Martinez. “We want men who know how to shoot.” While the water boiled above the swiftly revolving propellers slowly hauling the gunboat backward from its perilous position on a coral reef, all but two of the natives in the fishing boat climbed nimbly aboard and ten eager sailors, their rifles in hand, scrambled in. The sharp detonations of the three-pounder added to the confusion of the scene. As he saw the “Mindinao” was again afloat, Phil turned his eyes to the fleeing enemy. The boat, still untouched, was sailing swiftly away with an ever-increasing breeze behind it. Then his eyes opened in surprise and joy as he saw what Sydney had been doing. “Come on, O’Neil, she’s nearly out of range,” he called excitedly. The sailor turned, took in the situation at a glance and seizing a rifle from a sailor near him followed his captain. “She’s dropped her sail,” he cried, as a swift look over his shoulder to mark the effect of the last shot revealed but a small black speck on the water. “I am sorry, Syd, but I must leave you to look out for the ship,” Phil said as he leaped for the side of the native boat and grasped Colonel Martinez’s hands. “Keep us in sight and see if you can work her through the reefs.” Sydney drew a long face, but he appreciated that Phil’s greatest desire was to be in at the death, when Espinosa was captured. The boat shoved off and the bamboo sail, far bigger in proportion than the sails carried by American boats, was quickly hoisted. The boat appeared to skim over the surface of the water. The gunboat slowly dropped astern, but now the proa had again hoisted its sail and the distance between the two boats seemed to be ever the same. “We’ll catch him if we have to chase him the whole fifty miles of water and then some,” O’Neil cried angrily. “I don’t see how I could have missed him.” Phil smiled feebly. “You were beginning to get pretty close,” he said. “They lowered their sail so as to offer a smaller target for you to aim at.” “I thought I’d done it with a shell,” the boatswain’s mate replied disappointedly. “Well, if we get within the range of this little piece of iron,” patting his rifle, “I’ll take great pleasure in writing my initials on that Espinosa’s yellow carcass.” The midshipman did not take this soft-hearted sailorman seriously. In a fight, he knew he was as brave as twenty men, but with a vanquished enemy he was as gentle as a woman. “If we can catch him alive, I don’t wish to kill him,” Phil answered now, in Spanish, to include Rodriguez, who had not understood the declarations of the disappointed sailor.