hundreds of yards away. Beautiful clear sunsets of rose, gold-green, and
crimson, with one big, pure radiant star ever like a censor over them;
every night the stars more deeply and thickly sown and growing ever
softer and more brilliant as the boats neared the tropics; every day
dawn rich with beauty and richer for the dewy memories of the dawns that
were left behind.

Now and then a little torpedo-boat would cut like a knife-blade through
the water on messenger service; or a gunboat would drop lightly down the
hill of the sea, along the top of which it patrolled so vigilantly; and
ever on the horizon hung a battle-ship that looked like a great gray
floating cathedral. But nobody was looking for a fight--nobody thought
the Spaniard would fight--and so these were only symbols of war; and
even they seemed merely playing the game.

It was as Grafton said. Far ahead went the flag-ship with the huge
Commander-in-Chief and his staff, the gorgeous attachés, and the artists
and correspondents, with valets, orderlies, stenographers, and
secretaries. Somewhere, far to the rear, one ship was filled with
newspaper men from stem to stern. But wily Grafton was with Lawton and
Chaffee, the only correspondent aboard their transport. On the second
day, as he sat on the poop-deck, a negro boy came up to him, grinning
uneasily:

"I seed you back in ole Kentuck, suh."

"You did? Well, I don't remember seeing you. What do you want?"

"Captain say he gwine to throw me overboard."