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Not so the remaining torpedo-boat, however, which, leaving the two big ships to fight out their duel for the present, was pursuing the yacht at the utmost speed of her forced draught. Capture or destruction soon only became a matter of a few minutes.
Many years ago Spain had a famous admiral whose name was Oquendo, and in recognition of his services the Spanish Government made a law that there should always be a ship in their navy bearing his name. That is how they had the Almirante Oquendo, which means Admiral Oquendo. The names of the torpedo-boat destroyers were the Furor and the Pluton.
In it he said: I was at Culebra, Porto Rico, at the time in command of a fleet consisting of over fifty ships, including every battleship and every torpedo-boat we had, with orders from Washington to hold the fleet in hand and be ready to move at a moment's notice. Fortunately, however, the whole matter was amicably adjusted and there was no need for action.
Moderate size, no overloading with armour, speed, good coal supply, and as many quick-firing guns as can be mounted that is my idea of the best type of warship at present. The policy of building monstrous ships is doubtful, when they can be sunk by a torpedo-boat.
Wrenn did not see that she was glancing about discontentedly, for he was delightedly listening to a lanky young man at the next table who was remarking to his vis-a-vis, a pale slithey lady in black, with the lines of a torpedo-boat: "Try some of the stuffed vine-leaves, child of the angels, and some wheat pilaf and some bourma.
Once a strange ship steamed up too close, and instantly the nearest torpedo-boat was slipped like a greyhound from the leash, and sped across the water toward it; but the stranger proved harmless, and the swift, delicate, death-fraught craft returned again. It was very pleasant, sailing southward through the tropic seas toward the unknown.
The dynamite gun-boat therefore had kept ahead at full speed, determined to carry out her instructions if she should be allowed to do so; but her speed was not as great as that of a crab, and when the torpedo-boat had given up the chase, and the dreaded crab was drawing swiftly near, the captain thought it time for bravery to give place to prudence.
We have departed from Him in will, having reared up puny inclinations and fleeting passions against His calm and eternal purpose, and so bringing about the shock of a collision as destructive to us as when a torpedo-boat crashes in the dark against a battleship, and, cut in two, sinks.
It was urged that the explosions in the water might have been produced by torpedoes; that the torpedo-boat which had been destroyed was so near the repeller that an ordinary shell was sufficient to accomplish the damage that had been done. To gainsay these assumptions was imperative on the Syndicate's forces. To firmly establish the prestige of the instantaneous motor was the object of the war.
Spain’s finest squadron, consisting of the four first-class armored cruisers Maria Teresa, Vizcaya, Almirante Oquendo, and Cristobal Colon, with two torpedo-boat destroyers, lay in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, blockaded by a powerful American fleet of battle-ships and cruisers under Admiral Sampson. They were held in a close trap. The town was being besieged by land.
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