Sergeant Pierce stepped through the broken file to the front, and stooping down, picked up the rifles from the road and removed the belts with their ammunition pouches from the two dead men. ‘Hyar, yew two “Terrors,”’ he said, ‘ketch hold on these. Yew can’t say yew haven’t got anything to fight with now. I thought it wouldn’t be long before yew war provided.’ Lucius received the rifle and belt with a little giggle which he could not entirely suppress. He was feeling strangely light and cheerful. Tragedy was turning to comedy. He was wearing the clothes of one dead man; why should he not receive the arms of another? He longed to speak, to say something—anything. He had the greatest difficulty in repressing a hilarious shout of ‘Hi! Grizzly, isn’t it a joke—two young Rebs asked to shoot their own men?’ His feelings found vent at last in the admonitory remark to Pierce, ‘Mind you keep your eye on us, sergeant.’ The air was full of flying missiles, but Lucius no longer ducked his head. He seemed not to hear them. The sergeant looked down at him from his superior height and grinned. ‘I guess we misjudged yew,’ he said. ‘Yew’re’—— He stopped suddenly. The pupils of his eyes, still fixed upon Lucius, dilated; the upper lip, drawn up by the action of the genial smile, drooped down upon the lower in a pout. For an instant his sturdy frame kept its position, martial and erect to the last, and then without a word or a groan he fell dead, shot through the heart. Lucius looked at him and did not blench, but his neighbour growled discontentedly, ‘This air gitting too hot, I guess. Ain’t we never tew git the word to fire?’ Then that man, too, fell suddenly dead. It was, as he had said, getting remarkably hot. All at once on the crest of the heights three more batteries appeared, the black-muzzled cannon grinning down upon the village. But the guns were silent, though the cannoneers stood beside them, ready to teach them their one deadly monosyllable. They were waiting for something. What was it? Ah! here it comes. Down the hill, marching by the flank in a strong, steady gray line, came a regiment, and as they caught sight of the bridge, the supreme point of advantage, the men, carried away by enthusiasm, roared out the Rebel yell, and rushed towards it at double quick. Alongside them, directing every movement, rode their general, erect upon his horse, calm and serene as though his troops were passing him in review order. To be led by him! To go in under the eye of Stonewall Jackson! Ah! there was not a man there but would have died where he was rather than face about and flee. There was not a regiment upon the hill that did not envy the 37th Virginia, marching to take the bridge. Ephraim bent forward and grasped Lucius by the arm. ‘By time! Luce,’ he hissed into his comrade’s ear, ‘it’s old Stonewall himself! Lie low, fer goodness’ sake.’ For he feared lest a shout of joy from Luce should betray them to the Federals for what they were.