So five hundred of the horseless riders were piled into a train of
empty coal-cars, each man carrying on his person in blanket roll and
haversack whatever baggage he was allowed to take, and they were
rattled noisily away to Port Tampa, where, after much vexatious delay,
they finally boarded the transport _Yucatan_, and felt that they were
fairly off for Cuba.

But not yet. Again came a rumor of strange war-ships hovering off the
coast, and with it a frightened but imperative order from Washington to
wait. So they waited in the broiling heat, crowded almost to
suffocation in narrow spaces--men delicately reared and used to every
luxury, men who had never before breathed any but the pure air of
mountain or boundless plain--and their only growl was at the delay that
kept them from going to where conditions would be even worse. They ate
their coarse food whenever and wherever they could get it, drank tepid
water from tin cups that were equally available for soup or coffee, and
laughed at their discomforts. "But why don't they let us go?" was the
constant cry heard on all sides at all hours.

During this most tedious of all their waitings, only one thing of real
interest happened. They had heard of the daring exploit of Naval
Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson, who, on the night of June 3d, had
sunk the big coal-steamer _Merrimac_ in the narrowest part of Santiago
Harbor, in the hope of thus preventing the escape of Admiral Cervera's
bottled fleet, and they had exulted over this latest example of
dauntless American heroism, but none of the details had yet reached
them.

On one of their waiting days a swift steam-yacht, now an armed
government despatch-boat, dashed into Tampa Bay, and dropped anchor