The loading of the boats took two hours. The sun was almost set when the last one appeared to have been filled. No shot had been fired by the Mexican batteries. Suddenly a great cheer rang from the ships and the boats; yes, even from the English, and French and Spanish ships. The boats had started; they were coming in at last, and a brave spectacle they made: a half-circle more than three-quarters of a mile front, closing upon the beach, with oars flashing and bayonets gleaming and the trappings of the officers glinting, all in the crystal air of sunset, upon the smooth sea. The breeze had died down, as if it, too, were astonished; but above the boats a myriad seagulls swerved and screamed.
Five, ten, twenty, forty, sixty, sixty-seven! Sixty-seven surf-boats each holding seventy-five or one hundred soldiers! Sixty-seven surf-boats, and one man-of-war gig!
“Sainted Mary! Where did the Americans get them all?” old Manuel gasped.
Jerry thrilled with pride. Hurrah! He was an American boy, and those were American ships and American boats, manned by American soldiers and American sailors, under the American flag. He shivered a little with fear, also; for when the guns of the castle and the city began to throw their shells, what would happen to those blue-coated men, helpless upon the bare beach of Collado?
The music from the bands in the boats and upon the ships sounded plainly. The bands were playing “Yankee Doodle,” “Hail, Columbia!” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Even the dip of the oars from the sixty and more boats, pulled by sailors, sounded like a tune of defiance, as the blades rose and fell and the oar-shafts thumped in their sockets.
Splash, splash, chug, chug, all together in a measured chant; and still the guns of the city and castle were silent, biding their time.
Now it was a race between the boats, to see which should land its men first. The sailors were straining at the oars; the figures of the soldiers—their bristling muskets, their cross-belts and cartridge boxes, their haversacks—were clear; their officers might be picked out, and also the naval officers, one in the stern of each boat, urging the rowers.
The gig beat. One hundred yards from the beach it grounded. It scarcely had stopped when a fine, tall officer leaped overboard into the water waist deep; with his sword drawn and waved and pointed he surged for the shore. He wore a uniform frock coat, with a double row of buttons down the front and with large gold epaulets on the shoulders. Upon his head was a cocked hat; and as he gained the shallows the gold braid of his trousers seams showed between boots and skirts. He was of high rank, then; perhaps a general—perhaps the general of the whole army! And his face had dark side-whiskers.
Close behind him there hurried a soldier with the flag. All the men, mainly officers, his staff, had leaped overboard; and from the other boats, fast and faster, the men were leaping, and surging in, and in, holding their muskets and cartridge boxes high, and cheering.