Finding it useless to try to work her off, Captain O’Shea had the engines stopped. The plight was soon discovered by the gun-boat, which brought her search-light to bear on the tug. The Spanish commander laughed, no doubt, when he perceived that he could train his remaining guns and smash the _Fearless_ to pieces at his leisure. It was point-blank range at a conspicuous target, and the tables had been turned. Captain O’Shea comprehended the fate that was about to overtake his helpless ship. His boats had been cut adrift and there was no means of conveying his people to the shore. They could only swim for it and try to find footing on the reef. “’Tis no use showing a white flag and offering to surrender,” he said to himself while the sweat ran down his face. “We fired on them and we rammed their ship.” There was a life-raft on the deck-house roof, and he was about to order it shoved overside in order to send Nora Forbes and Miss Hollister ashore in charge of Van Steen and the mate. It was a forlorn hope, because the gun-boat would most likely fire at anything seen afloat. Just then Jack Gorham climbed to the bridge and respectfully saluted the captain. “We are up against it, Jack,” said O’Shea. “The Spaniard yonder is taking his time. He will anchor bow and stern and then shoot us to splinters. I will be grateful if ye will lend the mate and young Van Steen a hand with the ladies. If ye can fetch the beach, take to the woods and try to find the camp of General Gomez.” “I have a proposition, sir,” returned the soldier, and for once his voice was unsteady with excitement. “When we were tangled alongside the gun-boat, some cases of cargo was jolted off our deck onto her deck where the woodwork and plates was all tore away. For God’s sake, put your search-light on her for a minute, quick, before she swings her smashed side away from us. She’s still turnin’.” “And for what?” queried O’Shea, but he leaped for the lighting-switch, confident that the soldier knew what he was talking about. “Two of them cases was nitro-glycerine, sir, and for a wonder they slid so easy that they didn’t go off. I know them when I see ’em. Just give me one sight of them.” The search-light of the _Fearless_ swept across the gun-boat, which was slowly shifting her position to find the middle of the channel and a safe anchorage. There was cramped room to manœuvre, and she was swinging in a small arc which exposed for a little time the shattered side that had been rammed by the tug. A gaping hole above water disclosed the main-deck forward, and the search-light of the _Fearless_ played and flickered in and out, white and brilliant. It illuminated the wreckage and the heap of wooden cases which lay as they had slid across the fragments of bulwark that bridged the narrow gap between the interlocked vessels.