midnight
In all probability Manila itself had fallen . `` Half speed ahead ! '' was the order , and again the throb of the engines went pulsing through the ship , and the Sacramento slowly forged ahead over a smooth summer sea . At midnight the pilot and glad tidings were aboard , and at dawn the decks were thronged with eager voyagers , and a great , full-throated cheer went up from the forecastle head as the gray , ghost-like shapes of the war-ships loomed up out of the mist and dotted the unruffled surface . But that cheer sank to nothingness beside one which followed fifteen minutes later , when the red disk of the sun came peeping over the low , fog-draped range far to the eastward and , saluted by the boom of the morning gun from the battlements of the old city , there sailed to the peak of the lofty flag-staff the brilliant colors and graceful folds of the stars and stripes . The three-century rule of Castile and Aragon was ended . The yellow and red of Spain was supplanted by the scarlet , white , and blue of America , and in a new glory of its own `` Old Glory '' unfolded to the faintly rising breeze , and all along the curving shore and over the placid waters rang out the joyous , life-giving , heart-stirring notes of the Yankee reveille .