The "Scuttle Butt Navigators," or, as the "Yankee" boys called them,
the Rumor Committee, were very busy that bright day in May. According to
them we were to sail seaward and discover Cervera's fleet, the
whereabouts of which was then unknown. We were to sail south and bombard
Havana. The older, wiser heads laughed at such rumors, and said it was
foolishness, but all were ready and anxious to listen to the wildest
tales.

All the time the ship was getting under way the routine work was going
on. The sweepers had obeyed the order given by the boatswain's mate,
accompanied by the pipe peculiar to that order, "Gun-deck sweepers,
clean sweep fore and aft; sweepers, clean your spit kits."

At twenty minutes past nine the bugle sounded the first or officers'
call to quarters, a call that sounded like "Get your sword on, get your
sword on, get your sword on, get your sword on, get your sword on right
away!" Ten minutes later came "assembly," and the men rushed to their
places at the guns and their stations in the powder divisions.

After our division had been mustered, "Long Tommy," the boatswain's mate
and captain of our gun, said to "Hay," "I think we'll have some shooting
to-day. I saw the gunners' mates rigging a target."

"Good!" said "Hay," "what does it look like?"

"Why," explained Tommy, "it's a triangular sail, having a black spot
painted in the middle, supported by a raft, also triangular, which is
floated by three barrels, one at each corner."