of troops marching to the station. Beyond the town one could
follow the silver rails through the green plantations for miles, as
plainly as on a map, until they finally disappeared on the horizon.

Now the whistle of the tug sounded shrilly, blowing scattered flakes of
white steam into the air. The quick, clear tolling of church-bells rang
over the roofs of the bright houses of the city. It was twelve o'clock
and the sun's rays were scorching hot.

One of the naval officers pulled out his watch to see if it were
correct, and then said: "Shall we go down and get something to eat
first, Ben?"

"The steamers from Havana ought really to be in sight by this time,"
answered Ben Wood; "they left on the twenty-sixth."

"Well, yes, on the twenty-sixth. But some of those transport-ships
palmed off on us are the limit and can't even make ten knots an hour.
Their rickety engines set the pace for the fleet, and unless the
_Olympia_ wishes to abandon the shaky old hulks to their fate, she must
keep step with them."

Lieutenant Gibson Spencer swept the horizon once more with his
marine-glass and stopped searchingly at one spot. "If that's not the
_Flying Dutchman_, they're ships," he remarked, "probably our ships."

The light-house keeper, a slender Mexican, came on the gallery, saying:
"Ships are coming over there, sir," as he pointed in the direction which
Spencer had indicated. Lieutenant Ben Wood stepped to the stationary
telescope in the light-room below the place for the lamps, and started
to adjust the screws, but the heat of the metal, which had become
red-hot beneath the burning rays of the sun, made him start: "Hot hole,"
he swore under his breath.

Lieutenant Spencer conversed a moment with the keeper and then looked
again through his glass at Corpus Christi, where the tug was just making
fast to the pier. The third barge knocked violently against the piles,
so that a whole shower of splinters fell into the water.

"Gibson," cried Lieutenant Wood suddenly from his place in the
light-room, his voice sounding muffled on account of the small space,
"those are not our ships."

Spencer looked through the telescope and arrived at the same conclusion.
"No," he said; "we have no ships like that, but they're coming nearer
and we'll soon be able to make out what they are!"

"Those ships certainly don't belong to our fleet," he repeated after
another long look at the vessels slowly growing larger on the horizon.
They had t