ntor, "I'm here to tell
you how to do it."

"Le's have it," says Willis.

"Make a big smoke!"

Why had I not thought of that expedient? Between, us and Holt, down at
the bend, there was brush growing on the sides of the ravine. Our knives
and the spade were put to use; soon we had a big heap of green boughs
and sprigs. It would take work to touch her off, for there was no dry
wood; but we managed by finding the remains of cartridge papers and
using a free supply of gunpowder. When all was ready, Holt was recalled,
and the match was struck.

"Now, men, to your portholes!" says Willis. "We must give 'em a partin'
salute."

The flame was long in catching. Every eye was alternately peeping to the
front and looking anxiously at the brush heap. At last she caught, and a
thin column of black smoke began to ascend.

"Be sharp, now! Them rebs will want to know what we're up to."

A few curious heads could be seen, but no shot was fired at us, or by us
at them.

The smoke increased, but, alas! the wind was wrong and blew it away from
the woods.

"Hell and Tom Walker!" says Willis.

But heaven--which he had not appealed to--had decreed that Fort Willis
should be evacuated under her own auspices. Our attention had been so
fixed upon two important specks that the rest of the universe had become
a trivial matter. A sudden clap of thunder almost overhead startled the
defenders of the redoubt. Without our knowledge a storm had rolled up
from the Atlantic; the rain was beginning to fall in big icy-cold drops,
already obscuring our vision.

"_Fire!_" shouted Willis.

The tempest burst in fury, and the gang marched bravely back to the
skirmish-line, amidst a hail, not of bullets, but of nature's making.

XII

MORE ACTIVE SERVICE

"Do but start
An echo with the clamour of thy drum,
And even at hand a drum is ready braced
That shall reverberate all as loud as thine."
--SHAKESPEARE.

Early on the morning of the 4th of May loud explosions were heard in the
direction of Yorktown, and the heavens glowed with the light of great
fires. At sunrise our division got orders to be ready to march, but the
morning wore away, and it was almost two o'clock before the long roll
beat. At length we moved with the column, already unnerved by
long-continued expectation, westward upon the Williamsburg road.

Willis was triumphant. "We got 'em now, boys," says he. "I