While the giants were thus manoeuvring the little "Gloucester" had come pluckily into action. Running in close under the Morro batteries, Commander Wainwright had fired some shots at the enemy's cruisers. Then realizing that his light guns could do them no vital harm, he almost stopped the way on his ship, and waited to engage the destroyers. Out came the "Furor" and "Pluton," turning eastward as they cleared the entrance, and dashing for the "Gloucester" with a mass of foam piling up over their bows. The "Indiana," the rearmost of the battleships, fired some long-range shots at them, but it was a stream of small shells from the "Gloucester's" quick-firers that stopped their rush. The "Furor" was soon drifting towards the cliffs, enveloped in clouds of escaping steam. The "Gloucester's" fire had killed her helmsman, wrecked her steering gear, and cut up several of her steam-pipes, making her engine-room uninhabitable. The "Pluton," not so badly crippled, but with her hull penetrated in several places, was next turned back. The "New York," hurrying up from the eastward at the sound of the firing, escorted by the torpedo-boat "Ericsson," fired on her at long range. The "Pluton" kept her engines going just long enough to drive her ashore under the Socapa cliffs. The "Furor" sank before she could reach the land. [Illustration: BATTLE OF SANTIAGO SHOWING PLACES WHERE THE SPANISH SHIPS WERE DESTROYED & DOTTED LINE SHOWING GENERAL DIRECTION OF THE RUNNING FIGHT, THUS-----] There was now a running fight, the four Spanish cruisers steaming westward close to the wooded shore, the American ships following them up and pouring in a deadly fire from every gun that could be brought to bear. It was soon evident that the Spaniards could not get up anything like their trial speed, and their gunnery was so defective that there was small chance of their stopping any of their pursuers by well-aimed fire, or even of inflicting any appreciable loss or damage on them. The "Maria Teresa" was the first to succumb. As she led the line out of the harbour she had received the converging fire of the American ships, but she had not suffered any serious injury. Until the American ships got up full steam the Spaniards had gained a little on them. An Englishman, Mr. Mason, who watched the cruisers from a hill near Morro, till at ten o'clock the curve of the coast westward hid them from view, thought they were successfully escaping. So far as he could see they had not been badly hit, and none of the Americans were yet abreast of them. But soon after the ships disappeared from the point of view near Morro, and when the "Maria Teresa" was only some six miles from the entrance, she suffered a series of injuries in rapid succession that put her out of action.