The battery was indicated by a long thin streak of yellow earth. The first shot went high, ploughing the chaparral on the hillside. The _Chancellorville_ wore an air for a moment of being deep in meditation. She flung another shell, which landed squarely on the earth-work, making a great dun cloud. Before the smoke had settled, there was a crimson flash from the battery. To the watchers at sea, it was smaller than a needle. The shot made a geyser of crystal water, four hundred yards from the _Chancellorville_. The cruiser, having made up her mind, suddenly went at the battery, hammer and tongs. She moved to and fro casually, but the thunder of her guns was gruff and angry. Sometimes she was quite hidden in her own smoke, but with exceeding regularity the earth of the battery spurted into the air. The Spanish shells, for the most part, went high and wide of the cruiser, jetting the water far away. Once a Spanish gunner took a festive side-show chance at the waiting group of the three nondescripts. It went like a flash over the _Adolphus_, singing a wistful metallic note. Whereupon the _Adolphus_ broke hurriedly for the open sea, and men on the _Holy Moses_ and the _Chicken_ laughed hoarsely and cruelly. The correspondents had been standing excitedly on top of the pilot-house, but at the passing of the shell, they promptly eliminated themselves by dropping with a thud to the deck below. The cook again was giving tongue. "Oh, say, this won't do! I'm damned if it will! We ain't no armoured cruiser, you know. If one of them shells hits us--well, we finish right there. 'Tain't like as if it was our _business_, foolin' 'round within the range of them guns. There's no sense in it. Them other fellows don't seem to mind it, but it's their _business_. If it's your _business_, you go ahead and do it, but if it ain't, you--look at that, would you!" The _Chancellorville_ had sent up a spread of flags, and the _Holy Moses_ and the _Chicken_ were steaming in. V They, on the _Chancellorville_, sometimes could see into the bay, and they perceived the enemy's gunboats moving out as if to give battle. Surrey feared that this impulse would not endure or that it was some mere pretence for the edification of the town's people and the garrison, so he hastily signalled the _Holy Moses_ and the _Chicken_ to go in. Thankful for small favours, they came on like charging bantams. The battery had ceased firing. As the two auxiliaries passed under the stern of the cruiser, the megaphone hailed them. "You--will--see--the--en--em--y--soon--as--you--round--the--point. A--fine--chance. Good--luck."