Schley, who was but a short distance away. "It is fourteen hundred yards to the Vizcaya, sir," he said.
These were the last words he ever uttered, for an instant after there was the whistling of a shell, and those standing around were horrified to see Ellis's headless body drop to the deck below. The poor fellow had been killed instantly, in the very midst of his duties. What a shock this was to those about him I will leave my readers to imagine. Never until now had they realized what this awful war meant. "Poor Ellis, he was such a fine man!" murmured one comrade as he turned away. And then his face grew even more sober. "But he s the first on board of this ship. What of those poor Dons yonder, who are going down by the wholesale?" And though they were enemies, his heart beat in sympathy for the poor wretches who were struggling madly amid shot, shell, fire, and water for their lives. Fortunately the Iowa was already coming to the succor of the defeated ones.
"We're going to catch it now, lad," remarked Caleb to Walter, as he pointed through a rift in the cloud of smoke hanging over the gun. "There
