“For a moment the _Texas_ tarried there to let the smoke clear, and to see accurately the condition of the enemy, but while her gunners were taking aim for a final broadside a half-naked quartermaster on the _Vizcaya_, with clawing hands on the halliards, hauled down the fever-hued ensign from her peak and hoisted the white flag instead. “‘Cease firing!’ commanded Captain Jack Philip of the _Texas_. “So far as the _Vizcaya_ and the _Infanta Maria Teresa_ were concerned, the battle—and for that matter the war—was ended. “Huge volumes of black smoke, edged with red flame, rolled from every port and shot hole of the _Vizcaya_, as from the _Teresa_. They were both furnaces of glowing fire. Though they had come from the harbour to certain battle, not a wooden bulkhead, nor a partition in the quarters either of officers or men had been taken out, nor had trunks and chests been sent ashore. Neither had the wooden decks nor any other wooden fixtures been prepared to resist fire. Apparently the crew had not even wet down the decks. “But the _Texas_ tarried at this gruesome scene only for a moment. They wished only to make sure that the two Spaniards were really out of the fight, and when they saw the _Iowa_ was going to stand by both, away they went to join the race between the _Brooklyn_ and the _Oregon_ on our side, and the _Cristobal Colon_ and _Almirante Oquendo_ on the other. “In spite of the original superior speed on the part of the Spaniards, and in spite of the delay on the part of the _Texas_, the Spaniards were not yet wholly out of range, though the _Cristobal Colon_ was reaching away at a speed that gave the Spanish shore forces hope. “Under battened hatches the Yankee firemen, stripped to their trousers, plied their shovels and raised the steam-gauges higher. The Yankee ships were grass-grown and barnacled, but now they were driven as never before since their trial trips. The Spaniards had called us pigs, but Nemesis had turned us into spear-armed huntsmen in chase of game that neither tusks nor legs could save. “For while the _Colon_ was showing a speed that was the equal at least of our own _Brooklyn_, long-headed Commodore Schley saw that she was hugging the coast, although a point of land loomed in the distance to cut her off or drive her out to sea. “Instead of striving to close in on the Spaniards, Schley headed straight for that point,—took the shortest cut for it, so to speak,—and in that way drew steadily ahead of the _Colon_, leaving to the _Oregon_ and _Texas_ the task of holding the Spaniards from turning out across the _Brooklyn’s_ stern. [Illustration: U. S. S. IOWA.] “It was a splendid piece of strategy, well worthy of the gallant officer, and it won. “The task of the battle-ships was well within their powers. It is not without reason that both the _Oregon_ and the _Texas_ are the pride of the nation as well as of their crews.