was here and there a gap. Steve, head between shoulders,
made for the breastwork and sank into one of these openings, his
neighbour upon one hand an Irish roustabout, on the other a Creole from
a sugar plantation. He explained his own presence. "I got kind of
separated from my company--Company A, 65th Virginia. I had an awful
fight with three damned Yanks, and a fourth came in and dragged my gun
away! If you don't mind I'll just stay here and help you--"

"Sorra an objection," said the Irishman. "Pick up Tim's musket behind
you there and get to wurruk!"

"Bon jour!" said the other side. "One camarade ees always zee welcome!"

An order rang down the line. "Sthop firing, is it?" remarked the
Irishman. "And that's the first dacint wurrud I've heard this half hour!
Wid all the plazure in life, captin!" He rested his musket against the
stones, drew himself up, and viewed the prospect. "Holy Saint Pathrick!
look at them sthramin' off into space! An' look at the mile of wagons
they're afther lavin! Refrishmint in thim, my frind, for body and sowl!"

Steve pulled himself up beside the other. "Thar ain't any danger now of
stray bullets, I reckon? There's something awful in seeing a road like
that. There's a man that his mother wouldn't know!--horse stepped on his
face, I reckon. Gawd! we have gangs of prisoners!--Who's that coming out
of the cloud?"

"Chew's Horse Artillery--with Ashby, the darlint!"

Ashby stopped before the stone house to the right. "There are men in
here--officers with them. Captain, go bid them surrender."

The captain, obeying, found a barred door and no answer. An approach to
the window revealed behind the closed blinds the gleam of a musket
barrel. "Go again! Tell them their column's cut and their army
dispersed. If they do not surrender at once I will plant a shell in the
middle of that room."

The captain returned once more. "Well?"

"They said, 'Go to hell,' sir. They said General Banks would be here in
a moment, and they'd taken the house for his headquarters. They've got
something in there beside water, I think."

A sergeant put in a word. "There's a score of them. They seized this
empty house, and they've been picking off our men--"

"Double canister, point-blank, Allen.--Well, sergeant?"

"It's not certain it was an empty house, sir. One of the Tigers, there,
thinks there are women in it."

"Women!"

"He don't know--just thinks so. Thinks he heard a cry when the Yanks
broke in--Ah