Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/60

 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.