rolled high and closed the ports.
Officers had taken to snoozing up on deck in steamer chairs. By an
unwritten law the port side of the promenade deck was given up to them
after eleven at night; but the women folk had the run of the starboard
side at any hour when the crew were not washing down decks. Armstrong had
been far forward about two o'clock one breathless night to see for
himself the condition of things in the hospital under the forecastle. The
main deck was crowded with sleeping forms of soldiers who found it
impossible to stand the heat below; so on his return, instead of
continuing along the gangway, he decided to climb the iron ladder from
the main to the promenade deck. It would land him at the forward end on
the starboard side. There he could smoke a cigar in peace and quiet. It
was high time everybody was asleep.

But as his head and eyes reached the level of the deck he became suddenly
aware of a couple huddled close together in the shelter of a canvas
screen, and under the steps leading aloft to the bridge. He knew Gray's
voice at once, and Gray was pleading. He knew _her_ tones of old, and she
was imperative, and listening with obvious impatience, for, almost at the
instant of his arrival, she spoke, low, yet distinctly. "Do as I say; do
as I _beg_ you when we reach Manila, and then come--and see how I can
reward."

CHAPTER XV.

Manila at last! Queen city of the Archipelago, and Manila again besieged!
The loveliest of the winter months was come. The Luneta and the Paseo de
Santa Lucia, close to the sparkling waters, were gay every evening with
the music of the regimental bands and thronged with the carriages of
old-time residents and their new and not too welcome visitors. Spanish
dames and damsels, invisible at other hours, drove or strolled along the
roadway to enjoy the cool breezes that swept in from the beautiful bay
and wistful peeps at the dainty toilets of the American belles now
arriving by every boat from Hongkong. All the Castilian disdain they
might look and possibly feel toward the soldiery of Uncle Sam gave place
to liveliest interest and curiosity when the wives and daughters of his
soldiers appeared upon the scene; and there was one carriage about which,
whenever it stopped, a little swarm of officers gathered and toward which
at any time all eyes were directed--that of the White Sisters. Within the
old walled city and in the crowded districts of Binondo, Quiapo and San
Mig