orthern vessels will appear before Charleston
tomorrow," he said, "and the shots were a signal to all our people to be
ready. The attack on Sumter will begin in the morning. Now you three
boys must go to sleep. We shall need tomorrow soldiers who are fresh
and strong, not those who are worn and weak from loss of sleep."

They tried it and found it easier now because they knew the mystery of
the shots. Harry became conscious that the night was crisp and cold,
and, wrapped in his blanket, he lay with his back against an inner wall
of the earthwork. The blood, the result of his tension and excitement,
pounded in his ears for some time, but, at last, his pulses became quiet,
and his heavy eyes closed.

He was awakened at the first shoot of dawn by Colonel Leonidas Talbot.

"Up, boys!" he said, "snatch a bite of food and a drink of coffee,
and make yourselves as neat as possible. General Beauregard is coming
to this very battery."

His voice was quick and sharp, and the boys obeyed with the lightning
speed of youth. It was a pale dawn. Gray clouds drifted along the
sea's far rim, and a sharp wind came out of the Northwest. Heavy waves
rolled into the mouths of the narrow and difficult passes that led into
the bay.

"The Lord Himself fights for us," Harry heard Colonel Leonidas Talbot
murmur. "No ships on such a sea would dare the passes in the face of
our guns."

The pale light widened. Sumter was black and threatening again,
and the flag waved there before it.

General Beauregard, his staff and a body of civilians arrived, and
almost overflowed the battery. Harry noticed among the civilians an
old man, seventy-five at least, with long hair, snow white. Despite
his years, his face was as keen and eager as that of any boy.

"Who is he?" Harry whispered to St. Clair, who knew everybody.

"His name's Ruffin, but he's not a South Carolinian. He's a Virginian,
but he has come to join us, and he's heart and soul with us. He's ready
to fight at the drop of a hat."

Harry--their battery stood on Coming's Point--glanced toward the city
and uttered a low cry of surprise.

"Look!" he said to his friends, "all Charleston is here."

"Yes, and a lot more of South Carolina, too," said St. Clair.

The people, learning the meaning of those signal guns in the night,
were packed in every open space, and the very roofs were black with
them. Forty or fifty thousand, men, women and children, were looking on,
but no