he Virginians.

Harry saw a great saber flashing directly in his face. It was wielded
by a man on a powerful horse that seemed wild with the battle fever. The
horse, at the moment, was more terrible than his rider. His mouth was
dripping with foam, and his lips were curled back from his cruel, white
teeth. His eyes, large and shot with blood, were like those of some
huge, carnivorous animal.

The boy recoiled, more in fear of the horse than of the saber, and
snatching a heavy pistol from his belt, fired directly at the great
foam-flecked head. The horse crashed down, but his rider sprang clear
and retreated into the smoke. Almost at the same instant the defenders
had fired the second volley, and the charge was beaten back from their
very faces.

The Southerners at the war's opening had the advantage of an almost
universal familiarity with the rifle, and now they used it well.
Sherburne's two hundred men, always cool and steady, fired like trained
marksmen, and the others did almost as well. Most of them had new
rifles, using cartridges, and no cavalry on earth could stand before
such a fire.

Harry again saw the flashing sabers more than once, and there was a
vast turmoil of fire and smoke in front of him, but in a few minutes the
trumpet sounded again, loud and clear over the crash of battle, and now
it was calling to the men to come back.

The two forces broke apart. The horsemen, save for the wounded and dead,
retreated to the forest, and the defenders, victorious for the present,
fired no more, while the wounded, who could, crawled away to shelter.
They reloaded their rifles and at first there was no exultation. They
barely had time to think of anything. The impact had been so terrible
and there had been such a blaze of firing that they were yet in a daze,
and scarcely realized what had happened.

"Down, men! Down!" cried Captain Sherburne, as he ran along the line.
"They'll open fire from the wood!"

All the defenders threw themselves upon the ground and lay there, much
less exposed and also concealed partly. One edge of the wood ran within
two hundred yards of the warehouse, and presently the Northern soldiers,
hidden behind the trees at that point, opened a heavy rifle fire.
Bullets whistled over the heads of the defenders, and kept up a constant
patter upon the walls of the warehouse, but did little damage.

A few of the men in gray had been killed, and all the wounded were taken
inside the warehouse,