gure made the men's bosoms thrill with the certainty of great deeds to
come: the light of battle was in his eye. No longer the moody colonel,
but a thunderbolt of war, red-hot, and waiting to be launched.

"Officers, sergeants, soldiers, a word with you!"

La Croix. Attention!

"Do you know what passed here five minutes ago?"

"The attack of the bastion was settled!" cried a captain.

"It was; and who was to lead the assault? do you know that?"

"No."

"A colonel FROM EGYPT."

At that there was a groan from the men.

"With detachments from the other brigades."

"AH!" an angry roar.

Colonel Dujardin walked quickly down between the two lines, looking with
his fiery eye into the men's eyes on his right. Then he came back on the
other side, and, as he went, he lighted those men's eyes with his own.
It was a torch passing along a line of ready gas-lights.

"The work to us!" he cried in a voice like a clarion (it fired the
hearts as his eye had fired the eyes)--"The triumph to strangers! Our
fatigues and our losses have not gained the brigade the honor of going
out at those fellows that have killed so many of our comrades."

A fierce groan broke from the men.

"What! shall the colors of another brigade and not ours fly from that
bastion this afternoon?"

"No! no!" in a roar like thunder.

"Ah! you are of my mind. Attention! the attack is fixed for five
o'clock. Suppose you and I were to carry the bastion ten minutes before
the colonel from Egypt can bring his men upon the ground."

At this there was a fierce burst of joy and laughter; the strange
laughter of veterans and born invincibles. Then a yell of exulting
assent, accompanied by the thunder of impatient drums, and the rattle of
fixing bayonets.

The colonel told off a party to the battery.

"Level the guns at the top tier. Fire at my signal, and keep firing over
our heads, till you see our colors on the place."

He then darted to the head of the column, which instantly formed behind
him in the centre of Death's Alley.

"The colors! No hand but mine shall hold them to-day."

They were instantly brought him: his left hand shook them free in the
afternoon sun.

A deep murmur of joy rolled out from the old hands at the now unwonted
sight. Out flashed the colonel's sword like steel lightning. He pointed
to the battery.

Bang! bang! bang! bang! went his cannon, and the smoke rolled over
the trenches. At the same moment up went the colors waving