deer on the moor-side at home.

He heard the challenge and the tramp of the sentinel on the opposite
bank; he saw the white starlight shine on the barrels of their
breech-loaders as they paced to and fro in the stillness, filled with
the surge and rush of the rapid waters beneath him. Shrouded in the
gloom, he dragged himself onward with slow and painful movement,
stretched out on the ground, urging himself forward by the action of his
limbs so cautiously that, even had the light been on him, he could
scarcely have been seen to move, or been distinguished from the earth on
which he lay. Eight hundred lives hung on the coolness of his own; if he
were discovered, they were lost. And, without haste, without excitation,
he drew himself along under the parapet until he came to the centre of
the bridge, placed the barrel close against the barricades, uncovered
the head of the cask, and took his way back by the same laborious,
tedious way, until he reached the Virginian Troopers gathered together
under the shelving rocks.

A deep hoarse murmur rolling down the ranks, the repressed cheer they
dared not give aloud, welcomed him and the dauntless daring of his act;
man after man pressed forward entreating to take his place, to share his
peril; he gave it up to none, and three times more went back again on
that deadly journey, until sufficient powder for his purpose was lodged
under the Federal fortifications on the bridge. Two hours went by in
that slow and terrible passage; then, for the last time, he wound a
saucisson round his body serpent-wise, and, with that coil of powder
curled around him, took his way once more in the same manner through the
hot, dark, heavy night.

And those left behind in the impenetrable gloom, ignorant of his fate,
knowing that with every instant the crack of the rifles might roll out
on the stillness, and the ball pierce that death-snake twisted round his
limbs, and the rocks echo with the roar of the exploding powder,
blasting him in the rush of its sheet of fire and stones, sat mute and
motionless in their saddles, with a colder chill in their bold blood,
and a tighter fear at their proud hearts, than the Cavaliers of the
South would have known for their own peril, or than he knew for his.

Another half-hour went by--an eternity in its long drawn-out
suspense--then in the darkness under the rocks his form rose up amongst
them.

"Ready?"--"Ready."

The low whisper passed all but inaudible fr