! and for a minute he ran quite rapidly. There was a
yellow, rain-washed gulley before him; the charge swept down one side
and up the other. This crack in the earth was two thirds of the way
across the open; beyond were the wood, the creek, the abattis, the
climbing lines of breastworks, the thirty-five thousand in blue, and the
tremendous guns. The grey charge was yelling high and clear, preparing
to deliver its first fire; the air a roar of sound and a glaring light.
Allan went down one side of the gulley with some ease, but it was
another thing to climb the other. However, up he got, almost to the
top--and then pitched forward, clutching at the growth of sedge along
the crest. It held him steady, and he settled into a rut of yellow earth
and tried to think it over. Endeavouring to draw himself a little
higher, a minie ball went through his shoulder. The grey charge passed
him, roaring on to the shadowy wood.

He helped himself as best he could, staunched some blood, drew his own
conclusions as to his wounds. He was not suffering much; not over much.
By nature he matched increasing danger with increasing coolness. All
that he especially wanted was for that charge to succeed--for the grey
to succeed. His position here, on the rim of the gully, was an admirable
one for witnessing all that the shifting smoke might allow to be
witnessed. It was true that a keening minie or one of the monstrous
shells might in an instant shear his thread of life, probably would do
so; all the probabilities lay that way. But he was cool and courageous,
and had kept himself ready to go. An absorbing interest in the field of
Gaines's Mill, a passionate desire that Victory should wear grey,
dominated all other feeling. Half in the seam of the gully, half in the
sedge at the top, he made himself as easy as he could and rested a
spectator.

The battle smoke, now heavily settling, now drifting like clouds before
a wind, now torn asunder and lifting from the scene, made the great
field to come and go in flashes, or like visions of the night. He saw
that A. P. Hill was sending in his brigades, brigade after brigade. He
looked to the left whence should come Jackson, but over there, just seen
through the smoke, the forest stood sultry and still. Behind him,
however, in the wood at the base of the armed hill, there rose a clamour
and deep thunder as of Armageddon. Like a grey wave broken against an
iron shore, the troops with whom he had charged stre