Had there been two enemy vessels, Trehallow, as senior officer present, would not have ordered the searchlights to be run. In those circumstances it would have been bad tactics. Whilst you are "picking up" one opponent, the other will, to a certainty, pour in a withering fire. But when, as in the present case, it is possible to concentrate the dazzling beams upon a solitary hostile craft, the latter is practically blinded. She cannot fire with any degree of accuracy right into a bewildering glare, while her gun-layers, in the knowledge that they are literally "in the limelight" and in momentary anticipation of the arrival of a death-dealing salvo, become "jumpy" and possibly panic-stricken. It was a matter of a few seconds before the beams picked up their objective. The _Cerro Algarrobo_ was eight thousand yards away, and had just turned eight points to port, or at right angles to her previous course. With the discharge of her quick-firer she had resorted to a very old trick--one that stood a fair chance of success before the era of searchlights. She had dropped overboard a balsa-raft with a lighted lantern, in the hope that her pursuers would concentrate on that and give her an opportunity to escape in the darkness. But now she lay revealed, with two powerfully-armed destroyers, both capable of giving her six or seven knots, well within effective range. The _Cerro Algarrobo_ was heavily armed and was protected on the water-line. She had a very numerous crew, well trained in modern naval warfare. Had the cruiser been manned by Britons and the destroyers by the pirates, the former would have been more than a match for her opponents. But the dominant factors--the man behind the gun and the cool, calculating brain in the conning-tower--were absent. The hot-blooded South American strain--partly Spanish, partly negro, with a touch of Indian and a flavour of a dozen other races--was no match for the British seaman. Already, in her brief encounter with the _Complex_, the Rioguayan cruiser had "bitten off more than she could chew". She had lain in wait for the decoy ship in the belief that the latter was unarmed and unsuspecting, and that she could, with impunity, fire upon the already sinking British ship. Instead, she had been sent in headlong flight, with gaping holes in her upper works and fifty of her crew _hors de combat_ And worse was to come. The 4.7's were getting to work. Splashes of lurid light marked the explosion of the deadly missiles right on their target. The Rioguayan vessel replied, but feebly, most of her projectiles falling short and wide of the zigzagging destroyers. In five minutes the _Cerro Algarrobo_ was on fire fore and aft. Her masts and funnel had disappeared, her topsides were torn by ragged gashes through which lurid flames poured fiercely. She was still making way, but at a very reduced speed, and showed a pronounced list to starboard. "Cease fire!"