“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 and the prayers of the frightened he heard always that eager, tireless passing of many feet. So familiar it became, so constant an accompaniment to his restless thoughts, that when at last the day wore out and the streets grew empty, he found himself listening for the steps of a passer-by as intently as he had listened in the morning for the renewed clamour of the battle on the Maryland fields.