d now;
hospitals had given up their invalids; convalescents and sick men
gathered bridle with shaking fingers; hollow-eyed youngsters
tightened the cheek-straps of their forage caps and waited, lance
in rest.

In the furious smoke below them they could see the Zouaves running
about like red devils in the pit; McDunn's guns continued to pour
solid columns of flame across the creek; far away to the west the
unseen Union line of battle had buried itself in smoke. Through it
the Southern battle flags still advanced, halted, tossed wildly,
moved forward in jerks, swung to the fierce cheering, moved on
haltingly, went down, up again, wavered, disappeared in the cannon
fog.

Colonel Arran, his naked sabre point lowered, sat his saddle, gray
and erect. The Major never stirred in his saddle; only the troop
captains from time to time turned their heads as some stricken
horse lashed out, or the unmistakable sound of a bullet hitting
living flesh broke the intense silence of the ranks.

Hallam, at the head of his troop, stroked his handsome moustache
continually, and at moments spoke angrily to his restive horse. He
was beginning to have a good deal of trouble with his horse, which
apparently wished to bolt, and he had just managed to drag the
fretting animal back into position, when, without warning, the
volunteer infantry posted on the right delivered a ragged volley,
sagged back, broke, and began running. Almost on their very heels
a dust-covered Confederate flying battery dropped its blackened
guns and sent charge after charge ripping through them, while out
of the fringing woods trotted the gray infantry, driving in
skirmishers, leaping fences, brush piles, and ditches, like lean
hounds on the trail.

Instantly a squadron of the Lancers trampled forward, facing to the
west; but down on their unprotected flank thundered the Confederate
cavalry, and from the beginning it had been too late for a
counter-charge.

A whirlwind of lancers and gray riders drove madly down the slope,
inextricably mixed, shooting, sabering, stabbing with tip and
ferrule.

A sabre stroke severed Berkley's cheek-strap, sheering through
visor and button; and he swung his lance and drove it backward into
a man's face.

In the terrible confusion and tangle of men and horses he could
scarcely use his lance at all, or avoid the twirling lances of his
comrades, or understand what his officers were shouting. It was
all a nightmare--a horror of