might do rather than see the great city
given over to the Americans for law and order instead of to themselves
for loot and rapine. The fact that all coast lights thus far were
extinguished was enough to convince the Sacramento's voyagers that they
were still unwelcome to the natives, but both the shipmaster and the
cavalry officer commanding had counted on finding cruiser, or despatch
boat at least, on lookout for them and ready to conduct them to safe
anchorage. But no such ship appeared, and the alternative of going about
and steaming out to sea for the night or dropping anchor where he lay
was just presenting itself to Butt when from the lips of the second
officer, who had clambered up the shrouds, there came the joyous shout:
"By Jove! There's Corregidor light!"

Surely enough, even before the brief tropic twilight was over and
darkness had settled down, away to the southward, at regular ten-second
intervals, from the crest of the rock-bound, crumbling parapet on
Corregidor Island, a brilliant light split the cloudy vista and flashed
a welcome to the lone wanderer on the face of the waters. It could mean
only one thing: Manila Bay was dominated by Dewey's guns. The Yankee was
master of Corregidor, and had possessed himself of both fort and
light-house. In all probability Manila itself had fallen.

"Half speed ahead!" was the order, and again the throb of the engines
went pulsing through the ship, and the Sacramento slowly forged ahead
over a smooth summer sea. At midnight the pilot and glad tidings were
aboard, and at dawn the decks were thronged with eager voyagers, and a
great, full-throated cheer went up from the forecastle head as the gray,
ghost-like shapes of the war-ships loomed up out of the mist and dotted
the unruffled surface.

But that cheer sank to nothingness beside one which followed fifteen
minutes later, when the red disk of the sun came peeping over the low,
fog-draped range far to the eastward and, saluted by the boom of the
morning gun from the battlements of the old city, there sailed to the
peak of the lofty flag-staff the brilliant colors and graceful folds of
the stars and stripes.

The three-century rule of Castile and Aragon was ended. The yellow and
red of Spain was supplanted by the scarlet, white, and blue of America,
and in a new glory of its own "Old Glory" unfolded to the faintly rising
breeze, and all along the curving shore and over the placid waters rang
out the joyous, life-g