_June 11._ It was three o’clock on Saturday afternoon; Colonel Huntington’s marines were disposed about the camp according to duty or fancy; some were bathing, and a detail was engaged in the work of carrying water. Suddenly the sharp report of a musket was heard, followed by another and another until the rattle of firearms told that a skirmish of considerable importance was in progress on the picket-line. The principal portion of the enemy’s fire appeared to come from a small island about a thousand yards away, and a squad of men was detailed with a 3-inch field-gun to look out for the enemy in this direction, while the main force defended the camp. After perhaps an hour had passed, during which time the boys of ’98 were virtually firing at random, the men on the picket-line fell back on the camp. Two of their number were missing. The battalion was formed on three sides of a hollow square, and stood ready to resist an attack which was not to be made until considerably later. The firing ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Skirmishers were sent out and failed to find anything save a broad trail, marked here and there by blood, which came to an end at the water’s edge. There were no longer detonations to be heard from the island. The 3-inch gun had been well served. The skirmishers which had been sent out returned, bearing the bodies of two boys in blue who had been killed by the first shots, and, after death, mutilated by blows from Spanish machetes. Night came; heavy clouds hung low in the sky; the force of the wind had increased almost to a gale; below in the bay the war-ships were anchored, their search-lights streaming out here and there like ribbons of gold on a pall of black velvet. No signs of the enemy on land or sea, and, save for those two cold, lifeless forms on the heights, one might have believed the previous rattle of musketry had been heard only by the imagination. Until nine o’clock in the evening the occupants of the camp kept careful watch, and then without warning, as before, the crack of repeating rifles broke the almost painful stillness. [Illustration: U. S. S. MARBLEHEAD.] The enemy was making his presence known once more, and this time it became evident he was in larger force. Another 3-inch gun was brought into play; a launch from the _Marblehead_, with a Colt machine gun in her bow, steamed swiftly shoreward and opened fire; skirmish lines were thrown out through the tangle of foliage, and only when a dark form was seen, which might have been that of a Spaniard, or only the swaying branches of the trees, did the boys in blue have a target. It was guerrilla warfare, and well-calculated to test the nerves of the young soldiers who were receiving their “baptism of blood.”