"We were bound, do you see, to Callao, where the admiral discovered that a large Spanish ship was about to sail for Europe, with great treasure aboard.  Besides her, there was a Spanish squadron of considerable force lying in the harbour, under the protection of the guns of the forts. The admiral was up to all sorts of dodges, so he hoisted American colours, and, as two United States' ships of war were expected with another ship, stood in.  A fog, however came on, and the _Lantaro_, one of our squadron, parting company, his plan was defeated.  However, we fell in with a Spanish gunboat in the fog, and took her.  Fogs and light winds baffled us for some time; but the admiral was not a man to be turned aside from what he had intended, so at last we got in before the forts, and with springs on our cables began blazing away at them and the fleet, of which there were altogether some fourteen vessels.  Well, I was telling you of the admiral's little son.  Of course his father was very anxious about him, for it was no child's work we were about, so he locked him up as he fancied safe in his after-cabin.  As soon, however, as the firing began, the youngster thought he should like to see some of the fun; so what does he do, but work his way out through the quarter-gallery window, and find his way up on deck.  `Go down below, sir, this moment,' says the admiral when he sees him.  `You'll be having your head shot off if you stay here.'  The shot was flying about us pretty thick by that time, let me tell you.  `No, no, daddy,' says he. `Let me stay here.  You stay, and de oder midshipmens stay; why shouldn't I?'  He couldn't speak quite plain yet, do you see.  `Take him below out of harm's way, one of you,' says the admiral, turning to me. You see he had plenty to do watching the enemy and issuing orders, and had not time to look after the boy.  So as the admiral ordered, I seized up the young gentleman, and was going to carry him off below, when he began to kick up such a hubbub, and to kick, and scratch, and bite, it was as hard work to hold him as it would have been to gripe a rattlesnake.  `Put me down, I say--put me down,' he sung out.  `I'll not go below.  I want to stay on deck and fight the enemy.'  Well, I saw that there was no use in taking him below, because, as no one could be spared to look after him, he would have been soon up again; besides, to my mind, a shot finds its way into one part of a ship as well as another.  So I put him down again, and there was his little lordship as busy as any powder-monkey, handing up the powder to the gunners.  Well, as I was saying, the shot was falling pretty thick about our ears, when a round shot takes off the head of a marine standing close to the small boy, scattering the brains and blood of the poor fellow right over the small chap, almost blinding him.  The admiral was looking that way.  His tall figure bent forwards.  I thought he would have fallen from the agony of his mind.  He believed his child was killed.  In an instant, however, the little hero recovered himself, and dashing the blood from his face, ran up to his lordship.  `Don't be afraid, papa,' says he; `I'm not hurt--the shot did not strike me.  Tom says the ball isn't cast that can kill mamma's boy.'  That was true enough, for he'd heard some of us say, what we believed, that he couldn't come to harm any more than his father could.  The admiral's face brightened again, when he saw that no harm had happened to the boy.  I suppose after this he thought as we did, for he let him stay on deck during the whole action; and a pretty sharp one it was, when I tell you we had two hundred guns firing away at us for a couple of hours.  If it hadn't been for the fog, we shouldn't have had a stick standing at the end of it.  After this we had several brushes with the enemy.