igns of fatigue. Word had come that a part of the army was
already fording the river, near Williamsport, but this bridge near
Falling Waters was the most important point. General Lee and his staff
sat there on their horses a long time, while the rain beat unheeded upon
them.

Few scenes are engraved more vividly upon the mind of Harry Kenton than
those dusky hours before the dawn, the flashes of lightning, the almost
incessant rumble of thunder, the turbid and yellow river across which
stretched the bridge, a mere black thread in the darkness, swaying and
dipping and rising and creaking as horse and foot, and batteries and
ammunition wagons passed upon it.

There were torches, but they flared and smoked in the rain and cast a
light so weak and fitful that Harry could not see the farther shore.
The Army of Northern Virginia marched out upon a shaking bridge and
disappeared in the black gulf beyond. Only the lack of an alarm coming
back showed that it was reaching the farther shore.

"Dawn will soon be here," said Dalton.

"So it will," said Harry, "and most of the troops are across. Ah,
there go the Invincibles! Look how they ride!"

Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire at the
head of their scanty band were just passing. They took off their hats,
and swept a low bow to the great chief who sat silently on his white
horse within a few yards of them. Then, side by side, they rode upon the
shaking bridge, followed by Langdon, St. Clair and their brave comrades,
and disappeared, where the bridge disappeared, in the rain and mist.

"Brave men!" murmured Lee.

Harry, always watching his commander-in-chief, saw now for the first time
signs of fatigue and nervousness. The tremendous strain was wearing him
down. But while the rain still poured and ran in streams from his gray
hair and gray beard, the rear guard of the Army of Northern Virginia
passed upon the bridge, and Stuart, all his plumes bedraggled, rode up to
his chief, a smoking cup of coffee in his hand.

"Drink this, General, won't you?" he said.

He seized it, drank all of the coffee eagerly, and then handing back the
cup, said:

"I never before in my life drank anything that refreshed me so much."

Then he, with his staff, Stuart and some other generals rode over the
bridge, disappearing in their turn into the darkness and mist that had
swallowed up the others, but emerging, as the others had done, into the
safety of t