How, in such a situation, the nerves tingle and the heart bounds to each strange sight and sound! Halt!--what was that? Pooh! no more than the deeper shadow of a sharply projecting rock, around which we pick careful way, our horses crowding against each other in the narrow space. And that? Nothing but the faint moan of the night wind amid the dead limbs of a tree. Ah! mark that sudden flash of light! The hand that closes iron-like upon the loosened rein opens again, for it was merely a star silently falling from out the black depths of the sky. Then both of us halt at once, and peer anxiously forward. The figure standing directly in the centre of our path, can it be a sentry at last? A cautious step forward, a low laugh from the Sergeant, and we circle the gaunt, blackened stump, as silent ourselves as the night about us, but with fiercely beating, expectant hearts. But hark! Surely that was no common sound, born of that drear loneliness! No cavalryman can mistake the jingle of accoutrements or the dull thud of horses' hoofs. The road here must have curved sharply, for they were already so close upon us that, almost simultaneously with the sound, we could distinguish the deeper shadow of a small, compact body of horsemen directly in our front. To left of us there rose, sheer and black, the precipitous rock; to right we might not even guess what yawning void. It was either wit or sword-play now. I know not how it may be with others in such emergencies, but with me it always happens that the sense of fear departs with the presence of actual danger. Before the gruesome fancies of imagination I may quake and burn like any maiden alone upon a city street at night, until each separate nerve becomes a very demon of mental agony; but when the real and known once fairly confronts me, and there is work to do, I grow instantly cool to think, resolute to act, and find a rare joy in it. It was so now, and, revolver in hand but hidden beneath my holster flap, I leaned over and touched Craig's arm. “Keep quiet,” I whispered sternly. “Let them challenge first, and no firing except on my order.” Almost with the words there came the sharp hail: “Halt! Who comes there?” I drew the cape of my riding-jacket closer, so as better to muffle the sound of my voice. “Friends, of course; who would you expect to meet on this road?” Fortune seemed with me in the chance answer, for he who had hailed exclaimed: “Oh! is that you, Brennan?” There was no time now for hesitancy; here was my cue, and I must plunge ahead, accepting the chances. I ventured it. “No; Brennan couldn't come. I am here in his place.” “Indeed! Who are you?” “Major Wilkie.” There was a moment's painful pause, in which I could hear my heart throb. “Wilkie,” repeated the voice, doubtfully. “There is no officer of that name in the Forty-third.” “Well, there chances to be such an officer on the staff,” I retorted, permitting a trace of anger to appear in my tone, “and I am the man.”