The boys’ hearts sank within them. To their inexperienced eyes it looked as if old Stonewall must be caught at last. The terrible field-piece had reached the head of the bridge, unlimbered, and now commanded the narrow way. And other approach there was none. The second cannon, planted below them in the village, already roared its angry defiance and hurled its iron messengers of death upon the wooded heights, where the enemy was supposed to be. Flash! A bright streak of light far up on the heights. A curling wreath of smoke. Then boom! A shell hurtled through the air, shrieked for an instant like a fury in their ears, then bang! crash! it exploded in front of the line, hurling frightful jagged fragments right, left, front, rear—in all directions. An involuntary moan burst from Lucius. The file next him and Ephraim on their right had gone down, and the two men who had composed it lay a blood-stained heap upon the ground, all semblance of humanity gone, and only a few twitchings of the shattered limbs to tell that the wretched atom of life left in them was hastening fast away. ‘Hold up, Luce!’ whispered Ephraim, all his thoughts upon his friend, though he felt sick with the horror of the ghastly sight. Lucius nodded to the heights in front of him. He could not turn round. His tongue had slipped forward between his teeth, and he bit it till the blood flowed into his mouth. A vague wonder possessed him as to where the salt taste came from—came and passed through his brain like lightning. Then his head went up again and he stood still—so still that he excited the admiration of his left-hand man, who muttered, ‘Ye stood that well!’ Whereas, as a matter of fact, Lucius was simply stiffened into immobility. Then something seemed to give way in his brain. The swift thought crossed him, ‘It’s soon over, anyway;’ the tension of his limbs relaxed, and all fear fled. He had received his baptism of fire, and his heart grew strong within him. Another puff of smoke from the battery on the heights. Another screaming shell. And Lucius found himself idly wondering where it would fall, and careless where it fell. ‘How odd,’ he thought within himself, ‘that I should feel so cool now in this unknown, terrible situation, while in the balloon’—— Fatal recollection! The dreadful memory fell upon him like a bolt, and his knees shook under him so violently that he nearly fell to the ground. His neighbour looked curiously at him, unprepared for the sudden change, while from Ephraim came again the warning whisper, ‘Hold up, Luce!’ Recovering himself, Lucius turned and laughed in Ephraim’s face. ‘I was thinking of Blue Bag just then,’ he muttered. Utterly taken aback by this singular statement, Ephraim weakly ejaculated, ‘Oh!’ and finding nothing more to say, relapsed into silence.