--right dress!"--taken up by the troop officers: "Steady--right
dress! By fours--right wheel--march!"

Pell-mell the flanking parties came crashing back out of the dusky
undergrowth, and:

"Steady--trot! Steady--right dress--gallop!" came the orders.

"Gallop!" repeated her captain, blandly; and, under his breath: "We are
going to charge. Quick, tell me who you are!"

"Steady--steady--charge!" came the clear shout from the front.

"Charge! Charge! Charge!" echoed the ringing orders from troop to troop.

In the darkness of the thickets she rode knee to knee with her captain.
The grand stride of her horse thundering along beside his through
obscurity filled her with wild exultation; she loosened curb and snaffle
and spurred forward amid hundreds of plunging horses, now goaded frantic
by the battle clangor of the trumpets.

Everywhere, right and left, the red flash of Confederate rifles ran
along their flanks; here and there a stricken horse reared or stumbled,
rolling over and over; or some bullet-struck rider swayed wide from the
saddle and went down to annihilation.

Fringed with darting flames the cavalry drove on headlong into the
unseen; behind clanked the flying battery, mounted gunners sabering the
dark forms that leaped out of the underbrush; on--on--rushed horses and
guns, riders and cannoneers--a furious, irresistible, chaotic torrent,
thundering through the night.

[Illustration: "'Yes,' she gasped, 'The Special
Messenger--noncombatant!'"]

Far behind them now danced and flickered the rifle flames; fainter,
fainter grew the shots; and at last, galloping steadily and, by degrees,
reforming as they rode, the column swung out toward the bushy hills in
the west, slowed to a canter, to a trot, to a walk.

"We are through!" said the Special Messenger, brokenly, breathing fast
as she pulled in her mount and turned in the starlight toward the man
she rode beside.

At the same moment the column halted; and he drew bridle and looked
steadily at her.

All around them was the confusion and turmoil of stamping, panting
horses, the clank of metal, the heavy breathing of men.

"Look at me!" she whispered, baring her head in the starlight. "Quick!
Look at me! Do you know me now? Look at me--if you--love me!"

A low cry broke from him; she held out both arms to him in the dim
light, forcing her horse up against his stirrup.

"If you love me," she breathed, "say so now!"

Leaning free from his saddle he caug