Isaac shuddered involuntarily, but ere he could look back the crowd behind pushed him forward, and so he failed to see the ruin which, but for his short stature, would have come to him. There were no marks upon him yet,—nothing, save the uncovered head, to tell where he had been. The balls which struck down others passed him by, the wind they made lifting occasionally his fair hair, but doing no other damage. Above, around, before, behind, at right, at left, the grape shot fell like hail, but left him all untouched, and Billy, grown timid since poor Harry’s fate, pressed closer to the boy who would not tell a lie, as if there were safety there. Onward, onward they pressed, Isaac wondering sometimes how Tom Carleton fared, and looking again in quest of their young Lieutenant Graham, still towering above them all, in spite of Rose’s prediction. The ball for which he was the mark had not been fired yet, but it was coming. An Alabamian volunteer had singled out that form, yelling exultingly as he saw it reel and totter like a broken reed. They were well matched in size, the two combatants, both splendid marks, as Rose had said, and Bill Baker’s sure aim froze the laugh upon the Alabamian’s lips and sent him staggering to the ground, just as Isaac received his captain’s orders to lead the fainting, wounded George to a place of comparative safety. “It’s only my arm they’ve shattered,” George whispered, glancing sadly at the disabled limb over which Isaac’s tears were falling. “Will it kill me, think?” was the next remark, prompted by a thought of Annie. Isaac did not believe it would, and with all a woman’s tenderness he bound it up and held his canteen to the lips of the fainting, weary man, whispering, “Water, boy, water.”