Up went that mighty flail, and down it came again on the heads of the human tares of rebeldom who so needed threshing out in the very garner of wrath. More than one of the Union men in the vicinity of the strange spectacle, who happened to have been classic readers in other days, gazing at the white figure and its terrible prowess, thought of Castor and Pollux and the apparitions in white which decided the battle on the shore of Lake Regilius, when the Thirty Cities warred against Rome. But there was nothing of the supernatural in this figure; for after a few moments of wonderful immunity in the midst of that plunging fire, and after a destruction of life which seemed really wonderful to be accomplished by one single man,--fate withdrew the shield which had been interposed before him. The great club was full uplifted in the air, when the combatants saw him suddenly waver and stagger, then saw the deadly weapon drop, a stream of spouting blood from the wounded breast gush over the white garment, and that tall figure and ghastly face sink downward to the earth, one last long yell, wilder and more fearful than any that had preceded it, sounding the signal of his death, and the battle again going on over the trampled body. It was not until hours after that the mystery of the white figure was fully explained. The poor fellow had been a soldier of one of the Western regiments, ill with fever, and sent on to Harrison's Landing with the first of the troops who reached the James. In his delirium he had no doubt heard the booming of the cannon in the morning attack, and gathered the impression that a battle must be going on and that _he_ should not be absent. He had managed, by some means, to elude the guards and the few hospital nurses yet spared to the army; had escaped from the temporary hospital, barefoot and clothed only in his white drawers, shirt, and a sheet thrown around his shoulders; had made his way, unseen, through the woods and over the marshes lying between Harrison's Landing and Malvern; had provided himself probably by means of his still remaining jack-knife, with that singular but fatal weapon of offence; and then, nerved with fictitious strength by his fever and the sights and sounds of battle raging before him, he had rushed into the conflict as before described, dying a death more noble than the lingering decay of fever, after working such destruction among the rebel ranks as he might never have been able to do in the pride of his health and manhood. And here this extended picture of one of the most important battles ever yet fought on this continent, must close, except so far as in side-issues connected with it may happen to be involved some of the persons more intimately concerned in the progress of this relation. CHAPTER XIX. JOHN CRAWFORD THE ZOUAVE, AND BOB WEBSTER, DITTO--BUSH-FIGHTING, WITH VARIOUS RESULTS--THE BURNING HOUSE AND A STRANGE DEATH-SCENE--JOHN CRAWFORD BECOMES A MAN OF FAMILY.