and true to
their meaning the Invincibles fired straight at that long line of red,
and then reloading fired again. The Zouaves were cut to pieces, the
field was strewed with their brilliant uniforms. A few officers tried
to bring on the scattered remnants, but two regiments of regulars,
sweeping in between and bearing down on the Invincibles, saved them from
extermination.

The Invincibles would have suffered the fate they had dealt out to the
Zouaves, but fresh regiments came to their help and the regulars were
driven back. Sherman and Jackson were still fighting face to face,
and Sherman was unable to advance. Howard hurled a fresh force on the
men in gray. Bee and Bartow, who had done such great deeds earlier
in the day, were both killed. A Northern force under Heintzelman,
converging for a flank attack, was set upon and routed by the
Southerners, who put them all to flight, captured three guns and took
the Robinson house.

Fortune, nevertheless, still seemed to favor the North. The Southerners
had barely held their positions around the Henry house. Most of their
cannon were dismounted. Hundreds had dropped from exhaustion. Some had
died from heat and excessive exertion. The mortality among the officers
was frightful. There were few hopeful hearts in the Southern army.

It was now three o'clock in the afternoon and Beauregard, through his
glasses, saw a great column of dust rising above the tops of the trees.
His experience told him that it must be made by marching troops, but
what troops were they, Northern or Southern? In an agony of suspense
he appealed to the generals around him, but they could tell nothing.
He sent off aides at a gallop to see, but meanwhile he and his generals
could only wait, while the column of dust grew broader and broader and
higher and higher. His heart sank like a plummet in a pool. The cloud
was on the Federal flank and everything indicated that it was the army
of Patterson, marching from the Valley of Virginia.

Harry and his comrades had also seen the dust, and they regarded it
anxiously. They knew as well as any general present that their fate lay
within that cloud.

"It's coming fast, and it's growing faster," said Harry. "I've got so
used to the roar of this battle that it seems to me alien sounds are
detached from it, and are heard easily. I can hear the rumble of cannon
wheels in that cloud."

"Then tell us, Harry," said Langdon, "is it a Northern rumble o