responded Big Abel, carefully measuring out a dose of arsenic, which had
taken the place of quinine in a country where medicine was becoming as
scarce as food. "You des swallow dis yer stuff right down en tu'n over en
go fas' asleep agin."

Taking the glass with trembling hands, Dan drained it eagerly.

"It's the artillery now," he said, quivering with excitement. "The
explosions come so fast I can hardly separate them. I never knew how long
shells could screech before--do you mean to say they are really across the
river? Go into the alley, Big Abel, and tell me if you see the smoke."

Big Abel went out and returned, after a few moments, with the news that the
smoke could be plainly seen, he was told, from the upper stories. There was
such a crowd in the street, he added, that he could barely get
along--nobody knew anything, but the wounded, who were arriving in great
numbers, reported that General Lee could hold his ground "against Lucifer
and all his angels."

"Hold his ground," groaned Dan, with feverish enthusiasm, "why, he could
hold a hencoop, for the matter of that, against the whole of North America!
Oh, but this is worse than fighting. I must get up!"

"You don' wanter git out dar in dat mess er skeered rabbits," returned Big
Abel. "You cyarn see yo' han' befo' you fur de way dey's w'igglin' roun' de
street, en w'at's mo' you cyarn heah yo' own w'uds fur de racket dey's
a-kickin' up. Des lis'en ter 'em now, des lis'en!"

"Oh, I wish I could tell our guns," murmured Dan at each quick explosion.
"Hush! there comes the cheer, now--somebody's charging! It may be our
brigade, Big Abel, and I not in it."

He closed his eyes and fell back from sheer exhaustion, still following, as
he lay there, the battalion that had sprung forward with that charging
yell. Gray, obscured in smoke, curved in the centre, uneven as the
Confederate line of battle always was--he saw it sweep onward over the
September field. At the moment to have had his place in that charge beyond
the river, he would have cheerfully met his death when the day was over.

Through the night he slept fitfully, awaking from time to time to ask
eagerly if it were not almost daybreak; then with the dawn the silence that
had fallen over the Potomac seemed to leave a greater blank to be filled
with the noises along the Virginia shore. The hurrying footsteps in the
street outside kept up ceaselessly until the dark again; mingled with the
cries of the wounded