nd the fleet is inside the harbor. I can't see a sign
of a ship anywhere along the coast."

We all rushed on deck and gazed with sinking hearts at the long black
line of the rampart and the high blue mountains beyond it. If Santiago
had been taken in our absence, it would be the cruelest blow that
fortune had ever dealt us! Although the sun was still below the horizon,
the atmosphere was crystal-clear, and we could see without a glass the
step-like outline of Morro Castle, and even the hazy blue smoke rising
from the camp-fires on-the beach at Siboney; but of the war-ships--the
_New York_, the _Brooklyn_, the _Indiana_, and the _Texas_--there was
not a sign. I do not know what Mr. White thought,--he seemed to be as
cool and imperturbable as ever,--but when I fully realized that the
fleet was not there, and drew from that fact the inevitable conclusion
that the city had been captured, I was ready to anathematize the British
West Indies, Port Antonio, the _Hercules_, and the cruel ill luck which
had taken me a hundred miles away at the decisive moment of the Santiago
campaign.

As the sun rose over the level plain of the Caribbean, and the swift
ocean-going tug bore us nearer and nearer to the dark line of the still
distant coast, the captain, who had been sweeping the base of the
rampart with a long marine telescope, suddenly shouted: "Aha! I think I
can see the _Brooklyn_, boys. It may be all right yet." I looked eagerly
toward the position that Commodore Schley's flagship usually occupied on
the western side of the harbor entrance, but could see nothing that even
suggested the _Brooklyn's_ familiar outline. If there were any vessels
of the blockading fleet between us and the land, they certainly were off
their stations and very close in under the shadow of the land. But the
captain's eyesight was better than mine. In five minutes more he
announced that he could see the _Brooklyn_, the _New York_, and the
_Iowa_. "They're all there," he added after another look, "but some of
them seem to be away out of position. The _New York_ is off Aguadores,
and the _Brooklyn_ is half-way down to Aserraderos."

In fifteen minutes more it became apparent to us all that the height of
the rampart and the mountains back of it, together with the crystalline
clearness of the atmosphere, had led us to underestimate the distance,
and that, when we first took alarm at the apparent absence of the
blockading fleet, the war-ships were at least