“Sure, sir, she is,” returned O’Neil, “over there at Paranaque keeping the ladrones out of the navy-yard with her ten-inch guns. They made a rush for it once, about six months ago, then the gugus had an army and we were kept guessing; but a few brace of hot ten-inch birds, exploding near them from our coffee kettle of a monitor soon made ’em change their minds. They decided they hadn’t lost nothing at the navy-yard after all. But,” he ended, the enthusiasm dying out of his voice, “that, I said, was six months ago; we’ve been bailing out there ever since, awnings furled, guns loaded, expecting to be boarded every night.” He made a gesture of utter disgust as he stopped. “They don’t know anything, these gugus,” he began again, seeing that his friends didn’t understand his disjointed explanation; “they won’t try to board a man-of-war. They’ll attack you on shore; but as for paddling out in their canoes to capture a steel monitor, it’s too absurd. Yet we stood watch on and watch off every night waiting for ’em to board. Do you blame me, sir, for feeling happy when I got these orders?” tapping his telegram against an awning stanchion. “This means life again; like we had in the dago country and up with them pigtailed chinks.” The midshipmen slapped the loquacious sailor joyfully on the back. “You’re not half as glad to be with us as we are to have you,” Phil exclaimed frankly. “We’re just aching for something worth while--we’ve been roasting up on the Yangtse River since you left us, doing nothing except watch the grass burn up and the water in the river fall. I never felt such heat.” While the Americans were talking the little steamer slipped noisily down the busy river and out on the bay made famous by Admiral Dewey on that memorable May morning. Corregidor Island lifted itself slowly out of a molten sea to the westward. The “Negros’” bow was pointed out through the southern channel, passing close to the precipitous island, standing like an unbending sentinel on guard between the wide portals of the Bay of Manila.