way over the endless road of logs; they could see the clipped gray
head of Major Lent under its red forage-cap, steady, immovable, as
he controlled his nervous mount with practised indifference.

It was broiling hot in the swamp; the Zouaves stood bathed in
perspiration as the regiment halted for a few minutes, then they
moved forward again toward a hard ridge of grass which glimmered
green beyond the tangled thicket's edges.

Here the regiment was formed in line of battle, and ordered to lie
down.

Stephen wiped his sweaty hands on his jacket and, lifting his head
from the grass, looked cautiously around. Already there had been
fighting here; a section of a dismantled battery stood in the road
ahead; dead men lay around it; smoke still hung blue in the woods.
The air reeked.

The Zouaves lay in long scarlet rows on the grass; their officers
stood leaning on their naked swords, peering ahead where the
Colonel, Major, and a mounted bugler were intently watching
something--the two officers using field glasses. In a few moments
both officers dismounted, flung their bridles to an orderly, and
came back, walking rather quickly. Major Lent drawing his bright,
heavy sword and tucking up his gold-embroidered sleeves as he came
on.

"Now, boys," said Colonel Craig cheerfully, "we are going in. All
you've got to do can be done quickly and thoroughly with the
bayonet. Don't cock your muskets, don't fire unless you're told
to. Perhaps you won't have to fire at all. All I want of you is
to keep straight on after me--right through those dry woods, there.
Try to keep your intervals and alignment; don't yell until you
sight the enemy, don't lose your heads, trust your officers. Where
they go you are safest."

He dropped his eye-glasses into his slashed pocket, drew out and
put on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. The soldiers saw him
smile and say something to Major Lent, saw him bare his handsome
sword, saw the buglers setting the shining bugles to their lips.

"Now, _charge_, you red-legged rascals!" shouted Major Lent; and up
from the grass rose a wave of scarlet and flashing steel.

Charge! Charge! echoed the bugles; a wailing storm, high among the
tree tops, passed over them as they entered the dry woods on a run;
branches crashed earthward, twig's and limbs crackled down in
whirling confusion. But there was nothing in the woods except
smoke--and the streaming storm shrilling overhead, raining down on
them