"Looks as though I couldn't hit the side of a barn at a hundred feet," muttered the Ensign to Ridge, who stood beside him, thrilled by the novel experience. Then he sighted his gun for a third shot, sprang back, and jerked the lanyard. A flash, a roar, a choking cloud of smoke, and then a yell from the _Speedy's_ crew. In the glare of the search-light the fugitive steamer was seen to take a sudden sheer, that a minute later was followed by a crash, and then she remained motionless. Instantly the _Speedy_ was slowed down and moved cautiously towards the wreck, with busy lead marking soundings every few seconds. The beacon for which the chase had steered no longer blazed; but in a few minutes the search-light disclosed a wooded shore. "Have a boat ready, Mr. Comly, and prepare to go on board with half a dozen men." "Ay, ay, sir." "May I go with you?" asked Ridge, eagerly. "Certainly, if the Captain says so." But, to the young trooper's disappointment, Captain Boldwood refused permission. "Your business is of too important a nature for you to assume any needless risks outside of it," he said. So Ridge could only watch enviously the departure of the boat with its crew of armed men. It had not been gone two minutes when a bright flame shot from the steamer's deck. "They have set her on fire and abandoned her!" exclaimed the Captain. "I pray to God, Comly may be cautious. Quartermaster, show the recall." The words were hardly spoken when there came a great blinding flash, an awful roar, and the _Speedy_ listed to her beam ends. A vast pillar of flame leaped a hundred feet into the air, a huge foam-crested wave rolled out to sea, and then all space seemed full of flying fragments. The wreck had been destroyed by an explosion of her own cargo. "Lower away the yawl! Quick, men! There may be some left to pick up. Yes, Mr. Norris, you may go now." They rescued Comly, bleeding from a wound in the head, and three of his crew, all more or less injured, but the others had gone down with their boat, crushed beneath a hurtling deck beam. The _Speedy_ stood off and on until daylight enabled her commander to locate the scene of catastrophe and examine what was left of the shattered steamer. He found that she had been run ashore on one of the small outlying cays that are numerous off Cardenas Bay, and with other floating wreckage he picked up a life-preserver on which was painted, "_Manuel Ros_, Barcelona."