three o'clock
Everywhere below them spangled flags in myriads flapped from the tops of the city and among the crowded shipping . Ashley leaned over the rail of the _ Peking _ and watched the yellow tide slide by with its burden of dèbris . Not far away in the stream lay the other two transports , unattended ; it was too early for the fussy craft that curtseyed about them during the day . At three o'clock that afternoon these vessels were to sail for the distant Philippines , bearing arms against the ancient country of the Spanish Fathers -- the pioneers who had shown the Saxon the way to this golden coast and had made vine and rose flourish for him on the barren sandhills , that he might now strip from the land of their forefathers the last possession of a dying empire . By the strange turnings of history , from the very city of their patron saint the New World was sending forth its first hostile expedition against the Old , and the great community that had grown from their nestling mission of Dolores would shriek Godspeed to these enemies of Old Spain . Nothing of this was in Ashley 's mind as he watched the water lapping at the beach-side of the transports . He kept saying over in his mind the words of his bunk-mate , `` It 's Commencement Day !