ming
peopled with a few spectral and barely animate feminine shapes,
Stuyvesant reclined within arm's length of the dark-eyed girl who had so
entranced him, studying her beauty, drinking in her words, and gaining
such health and strength in the life-giving air and such bliss from the
association that Sturgis contemplated with new complacency the happy
result of his treatment, for when the gale subsided, and on the fourth
day they ran once more into smooth and lazy waters, it was Stuyvesant's
consuming desire to take up his bed and walk, except when Miss Ray was
there to talk or read to him.

And this was the state of affairs when the Sacramento hove in sight of
the bold headlands, green and beautiful, that front the sea at the
northeast corner of mountainous Luzon. Once within soundings and close
to a treacherous shore, with only Spanish authority to rely on as to
rocks, reefs, and shoals, no wonder old Butt could have no women on the
bridge, this, too, at the very time they most wished to be there, since
everything worth seeing lay on the port or southern side, and that given
up to those horrid officers and their pajamas.

Not until his anchor dropped in Manila Bay did the master of the
Sacramento think to redeem his promise to bid the ladies of the Red
Cross to the sacred bridge, and incidentally to tell them how Miss Ray
had urged it in their behalf while they were out on blue waters, but now
it was too late.

CHAPTER XI.

It was late in the afternoon when the Sacramento, slowly feeling her way
southward, had come within view of El Fraile and Corregidor, looming up
like sentinels at the entrance to the great, far-spreading bay.

Butt and his assistants, with the field officer in command of the
troops, peered through their binoculars or telescopes for sign of
cruiser or transport along the rocky shores, and marvelled much that
none could be seen. Over against the evening sun just sinking to the
west the dim outlines of the upper masts and spars of some big vessel
became visible for three minutes, then faded from view. The passengers
swarmed on deck, silent, anxious, ever and anon gazing upward at the
bridge as though in hope of a look or word of encouragement.

It was midsummer and more when they left Honolulu, and by this time the
American force, land and naval, in front of Manila ought to be ample to
overcome the Spaniards. But there was ever that vexing problem as to
what Aguinaldo and his followers