Suddenly all the camps broke into a turbulence of sound. A hundred drums were beating the tattoo. From down the valley and over the river the bugle iterated the strain. Near the town and along the hills it was duplicated anew, and all the echoes of the crags and the rocks of the river bank repeated it, and called out the mandate, and sang it again in a different key; at last it died into a fitful repetition; silence once more; an absolute hush. A rocket went up from the fort hard by; another rose, starlike and stately, from unseen regions beyond a hill. Presently the lights were dying out like magic all along the encampments, as if some great cataclysm were among the stellular reflections, blotting them from the sphere of being. The constellations above glowed more brightly as the earth darkened. The wind was gathering force. Baynell listened as the boughs clashed and surged together. "You doubtless heard the patrol," he said. And again--"The air is dank." Then he turned and went within; the soldier marched back and forth, as he was destined to do for some time yet, and listened with all the keen intentness of which he was capable. And heard nothing. The next morning--it was still before dawn--a sudden sharp clamor rose from a redoubt within which was a powder magazine near the main works, lying on the hither side of the river. The mischief which the earlier sentinel at the Roscoe place anticipated had come; how, whence,--the man now on duty hardly knew. He fired his rifle and called for the guard. Then a few sharp reports, and a tumult of shouting sounded from the redoubt. A general alarm ensued. The drums were beating the long roll in the infantry camps,--a nerve-thrilling, terrifying vibration; and the sharp cry, "Fall in!--Fall in!" was like an incident of the keen, rare, matutinal air, the iterative command sounding like an echo from every quarter in which the lines of tents were beginning to glimmer dimly. From where the cavalry horses were picketed in long rows came the clash of accoutrements and the tramp of hoofs as the trumpets sang "Boots and Saddles!" Once a courier--a shadowy, mounted figure, half distinguishable in the gray obscurity, seeming gigantic, like some horseman of a fable--dashed past in the gloom, going or coming none could know whither. The clamors increased, the shots multiplied, then the clear, chill light came gradually over the turmoils of darkness and sudden surprise. The first rays of the sun struck upon the Confederate flag flying from the redoubt, and its paroled garrison were trooping across to the main line of fortifications, bearing the miraculous story that they had awakened to find the work full of Confederate soldiers who seemed to have mined their way into the place from some subterranean access, and who were now in the name of Julius Roscoe, their ranking officer, demanding the surrender of the fort which the redoubt overlooked.