In a moment the monitor itself hung out a string of lights which winked, changed color, vanished, reappeared, and again vanished, leaving only a red light at the masthead. In a moment an answering signal-rocket was thrown up by an invisible war-ship in the direction of Fort Taylor, and instantly two powerful search-lights were focused upon a pale, whitish object, far out at sea, which looked in the bluish, ghostly glare like the mainsail of the _Flying Dutchman_. Before I had time to form a conjecture as to the significance of these mysterious signals and apparitions, I was startled by a sudden flash and the thunder of a heavy gun from the darkness ahead; and away out at sea, in the strip of green water illuminated by the search-lights, a heavy projectile plunged into the ocean, near the sail of the _Flying Dutchman_, and sent a column of white spray thirty feet into the air. Then I understood what it all meant. The _Wilmington_, was engaged in night gun practice. For half an hour or more the war-ship threw solid shot and explosive shells into that illuminated strip of green water, and the thunder of her cannon, which could be heard all over the island, suggested to the startled negro and Cuban population that the Spanish fleet had arrived and was bombarding the city. Then the _Miantonomoh_ hung out another string of colored lanterns, the uproar ceased, and the pallid, ghostly canvas of the _Flying Dutchman_ suddenly vanished as the search-lights left it and resumed their slow, sweeping exploration of the harbor, the channel, and the open sea. CHAPTER IV WAR CORRESPONDENTS AND DESPATCH-BOATS