“Hello, what’s this?” Phil exclaimed, while the engine bell rang with throaty clanks, and the chugging of the engines ceased. The two lads leaning inquiringly over the rail, saw a small navy launch steam alongside the moving steamer; then a tightly lashed bag and hammock were thrown on deck, and finally from the depths of the white canopied awning there appeared the familiar form of a sailor, who sprang nimbly on board, waving a parting good-bye to his mates, while the launch swung away; and again the “Negros’” engines chugged noisily.
“Jack O’Neil!” the two lads cried, their faces beaming with surprised pleasure as they grasped the newcomer’s hand.
“It’s me, sir,” the sailor declared ungrammatically though heartily, highly delighted at his enthusiastic reception. “Telegraphic orders from the admiral to report to Midshipman Perry, commanding the gunboat ‘Mindinao.’”
“But where’s your old ship, the ‘Monadnock’?” Sydney questioned blankly. “We looked for her this morning as we came in on the cattle boat from Hongkong. Is she in the bay?”
“Sure, sir, she is,” returned O’Neil, “over there at Paranaque keeping the ladrones out of the navy-yard with her ten-inch guns. They made a rush for it once, about six months ago, then the gugus had an army and we were kept guessing; but a few brace of hot ten-inch birds, exploding near them from our coffee kettle of a monitor soon made ’em change their minds. They decided they hadn’t lost nothing at the navy-yard after all. But,” he ended, the enthusiasm dying out of his voice, “that, I said, was six months ago; we’ve been bailing out there ever since, awnings furled, guns loaded, expecting to be boarded every night.” He made a gesture of utter disgust as he stopped.
“They don’t know anything, these gugus,” he began again, seeing that his friends didn’t understand his disjointed explanation; “they won’t try to board a man-of-war. They’ll attack you on shore; but as for paddling out in their canoes to capture a steel monitor, it’s too absurd. Yet we stood watch on and watch off every night waiting for ’em to board. Do you blame me, sir, for feeling happy when I got these orders?” tapping his telegram against an awning stanchion. “This means life again; like we had in the dago country and up with them pigtailed chinks.”
The midshipmen slapped the loquacious sailor joyfully on the back.
“You’re not half as glad to be with us as we are to have you,” Phil exclaimed frankly. “We’re just aching for something worth while—we’ve been roasting up on the Yangtse River since you left us, doing nothing except watch the grass burn up and the water in the river fall. I never felt such heat.”
While the Americans were talking the little steamer slipped noisily down the busy river and out on the bay made famous by Admiral Dewey on that memorable May morning.
Corregidor Island lifted itself slowly out of a molten sea to the westward. The “Negros’” bow was pointed out through the southern channel, passing close to the precipitous island, standing like an unbending sentinel on guard between the wide portals of the Bay of Manila.