Earth and heaven were shaking with the clangour of two shields. The sky was whirring and dim, but there might be imagined, suspended there, a huge balance—here the besiegers, here the fortress’s best and bravest. Which would this day, or these days, tip the beam? Much hung upon that—all might be said to hang upon that. The waves on the plain rolled forward, rolled back, rolled forward. When the sun went down the first day the fortress’s battle-flag was in the ascendant. A great red barn was the headquarters of “Dear Dick Ewell.” He rode with Gordon and others at a gallop down a smoky road between stone fences. “Wish Old Jackson was here!” he said. “Wish Marse Robert had Old Jackson! This is the watershed, General Gordon—yes, sir! this is the watershed of the war! If it doesn’t still go right to-day—It seems to me that wall there’s got a suspicious look—” The wall in question promptly justified the suspicion. There came from behind it a volley that emptied grey saddles. Gordon heard the thud of the minie as it struck “Old Dick.” “Are you hurt, sir? Are you hurt?” “No, no, General! I’m not hurt. But if that ball had struck you, sir, we’d have had the trouble of carrying you off the field. I’m a whole lot better fixed than you for a fight! It don’t hurt a mite to be shot in a wooden leg.” Three grey soldiers lay behind a shock of wheat. They were young men, old schoolmates. This wheat-shock marked the farthest point attained in a desperate charge made by their regiment against a larger force. It was one of those charges in which everybody sees that if a miracle happens it will be all right, and that if it doesn’t happen—It was one of those charges in which first an officer stands out, waving his sword, then a man or two follow him, then three or four more, then all waver back, only to start forth again, then others join, then the officer cries aloud, then, with a roar, the line springs forward and rushes over the field, in the cannon’s mouth. Such had been the procedure in this charge. The miracle had not happened. After a period of mere din as of ocean waves the three found themselves behind this heap of tarnished gold. When, gasping, they looked round, all their fellows had gone back; they saw them a distant torn line, still holding the flag. Then a rack of smoke came between, hiding flag and all. The three seemed alone in the world. The wheat-ears made a low inner sound like reeds in quiet marshes. The smoke lifted just enough to let a muddy sunlight touch an acre of the dead. “We’ve got,” said one of the young men, “to get out of here. They’ll be countercharging in a minute.” “O God! let them charge.” “Harry, are you afraid—” “Yes; I’m afraid—sick and afraid. O God, O God!”