"He says," exclaimed Ridge, after listening intently to the man, "that Admiral Cervera's ships--coaled, provisioned, and under full head of steam--are about to make a dash from the harbor. He thinks they will start soon after sunrise, or when our ships have drawn off to their accustomed day-time distance."
Although the reliability of this startling news was very doubtful, it was deemed of sufficient importance to be immediately transmitted to Admiral Sampson.
"Who is the best rider in your command?" asked the General, turning to Colonel Roosevelt, who had assisted at the examination of the Spanish deserter.
"Lieutenant Norris," was the unhesitating answer.
"Then let Mr. Norris take my orderly's horse, make his way with all speed to Siboney, press into service the first steam craft he comes across, and carry this fellow's statement, with my compliments, to Admiral Sampson."
Five minutes later our young trooper, once more on horseback, and in a blaze of excitement, was galloping for dear life over the rugged road by which the army had come from the coast.
On the memorable morning of July 3d the sun had risen from the fog-bank that promised a hot day before our young trooper, wearied and mud-bespattered with his journey, and his face still powder-grimed with the smoke of the day's fighting, rode into the village of Siboney. It no longer presented the scenes of excited bustle and eager enthusiasm that had marked it on the eve of Las Guasimas, for the army had departed long since, and only its shattered wrecks of humanity had drifted back. Now Siboney was a place of suffering and death; for here had been established the hospitals to which wounded men limped painfully from the distant front, or were brought in heavily jolting army wagons.
On this peaceful Sunday morning--for it was Sunday, though Ridge did not know it at the time--a great stillness brooded over Siboney, and almost the only persons visible were medical attendants, who moved quietly about the big hospital tents or the fever-infested buildings that had been pressed into the same service.
In the little harbor lay but a single steam-vessel, a transport, though others could be dimly seen far out at sea, where they spent most of their time, which fact largely accounted for the woful lack of supplies at the front. A boat from the single ship that had ventured into the harbor lay on the beach discharging freight. To it Ridge hurried, and, addressing himself to the man who appeared to be in charge, said: