The _Argonauta_ had on board Colonel Corijo of the Third Spanish Cavalry, his first lieutenant, sergeant-major, seven other lieutenants, and ten privates and non-commissioned officers. The steamer also carried a large cargo of arms and Mauser ammunition. She was bound from Satabanao, Spain, for Cienfuegos, stopping at Port Louis, Trinidad, and Manzanillo. Half an hour later the _Eagle_ hoisted a signal conveying the intelligence that she had been fired upon by Spanish boats coming out of the river. She immediately returned the fire with the 6-pounders, and held her ground until the _Marblehead_ came up. Both vessels then fired broadside after broadside up the entrance to the river. The boats coming down were two torpedo-boats and one torpedo-boat destroyer. After twenty minutes of firing by the _Eagle_, during the last five of which the _Marblehead_ participated, the Spanish vessels ceased firing. _April 29._ A cablegram from St. Vincent, Cape Verde, reported the departure from that port of the Spanish squadron, consisting of the first-class cruisers _Vizcaya_, _Almirante Oquendo_, _Infanta Maria Teresa_, and _Cristobal Colon_, and the three torpedo-boat destroyers _Furor_, _Terror_, and _Pluton_, bound westward, probably for Porto Rico. _April 30._ The American schooner _Ann Louisa Lockwood_ was taken by the Spaniards off Mole St. Nicolas. The capture of a small Spanish schooner, the _Mascota_, near Havana, by the torpedo-boat _Foote_, closed the record of the month of April. Anxiously awaiting some word from Manila were the people of the United States, and it was as if everything else was relegated to the background until information could be had regarding that American fleet which sailed from Mirs Bay, in the China Sea, on the afternoon of April 27th. CHAPTER IV. THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY. _May 1._ “Manila, May 1.—The squadron arrived at Manila at daybreak this morning. Immediately engaged the enemy, and destroyed the following Spanish vessels: _Isla de Cuba_, _Isla de Luzon_, _Reina Christina_, _Castilla_, _Don Antonio d’Ulloa_, _Don Juan d’Austria_, _Velasco_, _General Lezo_, _El Correo_, _Marques del Duero_, _Isla de Mindanao_, and the water-battery at Cavite. The squadron is uninjured. Few men were slightly injured. The only means of telegraphing is to American consulate, Hongkong. I shall communicate with him. “DEWEY.” All the world loves a hero, but idolises him when he performs his deeds of valour without too many preliminaries, and, therefore, when on the seventh of May the telegram quoted above was flashed over the wires to an anxiously expectant people, it was as if all the country remembered but one name,—that of Dewey.