with Colonel Talbot at their head, they took up their arms, marching to
one of the fords of Bull Run, where they lay down among trees near a
battery. They were forbidden to talk, but they whispered, nevertheless.
The ford before them was Blackburn's, and the heavy attack of the
Northern army would be made there in the morning.

Harry and the Invincibles were at the very edge of the river. They had
been under heavy fire before, but, nevertheless, everything they now saw
or heard played upon their nerves. The murmur of the little river was
multiplied thrice. Every time a bayonet or a saber rattled it smote
with sharpness upon the ear. The neigh of a horse became a fierce,
lingering note, and out of the darkness that covered the rolling country
in front of them came many sounds, but few of which were real.

For a long time there was movement on their own side of the stream.
Troops were continually coming up in the night and taking position.
It required no acute mind to perceive that the Southern commander
expected the main attack to be made here, and was massing his troops in
force to receive it. Except at the ford itself the banks of the river
were high, but those on the Northern side were higher. A skirt of
forest lined the Southern bank, and Harry saw Longstreet and his men
march into it, and lie there on their arms. Nearer to him among the
trees were the powerful batteries of artillery. Beauregard himself had
come and he now had with him seven brigades eager for the attack.

The night was hot and windless, save at distant intervals, when a slight
breeze blew from the North. Then it brought dust with it, and Harry
believed that it came from the dry soil, trod to powder by the marching
feet of a great army, and the wheels of many cannon.

Comparative silence came after a while on his own side of the river.
There was no sharp sound, only a low and almost continuous murmur made
by the whispering, and restless movements which so many thousands of men
could not avoid. But the sound was so steady that they heard above it
the croak of frogs at the edge of the stream, and then another sound
which Harry at first did not understand.

"What is it?" he whispered to St. Clair, who lay a little higher than he.

"It's a lot of our men crossing the ford. Raise up and you can see them
walking in the water. I take it that the general is going to put a
force in the bushes and trees on the other bank to sting the Norther