thought I had lost you."

"General Jackson detained me, general."

"Yes, yes, you aren't the only one! But let me tell you, major, he's
coming out of his spell!"

"You think it was a spell, then, sir?"

"Sure of it! Old Jackson simply hasn't been here at all. D. H. Hill
thinks he's been broken down and ill--and somebody else is poetical and
says his star never shines when another's is above it, which is
nonsense--and somebody else thinks he thought we did enough in the
Valley, which is damned nonsense--eh?"

"Of course, sir. Damned nonsense."

Ewell jerked his head. "Yes, sir. No man's his real self all the
time--whether he's a Presbyterian or not. Old Jackson simply hasn't been
in this cursed low country at all! But ----! I've been trying to give
advice down there, and, by God, sir, he's approaching! If it was a
spell, it's lifting! That bridge'll be built pretty soon, I reckon, and
when we cross at last we'll cross with Stonewall Jackson going on
before!"

CHAPTER XXXVI

MALVERN HILL

Star by star the heavens paled. The dawn came faintly and mournfully up
from the east. Beneath it the battlefield of Frayser's Farm lay hushed
and motionless, like the sad canvas of a painter, the tragic dream of a
poet. It was far flung over broken ground and strewn with wrecks of war.
Dead men and dying--very many of them, for the fighting had been
heavy--lay stretched in the ghostly light, and beside them dead and
dying horses. Eighteen Federal guns had been taken. They rested on
ridged earth, black against the cold, grey sky. Stark and silent, far
and wide, rolled the field beneath the cold, mysterious, changing light.
Beside the dead men there were sleeping troops, regiments lying on their
arms, fallen last night where they were halted, slumbering heavily
through the dew-drenched summer night. As the sky grew purple and the
last star went out, the bugles began to blow. The living men rose. If
the others heard a reveille, it was in far countries.

Edward Cary, lying down in the darkness near one of the guns, had put
out a hand and touched a bedfellow. The soldier seemed asleep, and
Edward slept too, weary enough to have slept in Hades. Now, as the
bugles called, he sat up and looked at his companion--who did not rise.
"I thought you lay very still," said Edward. He sat a moment, on the
dank earth, beside the still, grey figure. The gun stood a little above
him; through a wheel as through a rose window he saw the