u're excited. So am I. There are mighty
few who wouldn't be at such a time; but look at the general! He stands
like a statue!"

General Jackson did not move, save to lift his glasses now and then,
as if with their magnifying powers he could pierce the dark. But the
night and the swollen fog still hid everything going on beyond the river
from those on the heights. Down by the shore the Mississippians in
their rifle pits might see a little, and the scouts undoubtedly had seen
much, else the signal guns would not be firing.

Harry's pulses, after a while, began to beat more smoothly and there was
not such a painful and insistent drumming in his head. Emotions yielded
now to will and he waited patiently. General Jackson for the first time
told some of his young officers that they could lie down and rest.

"There can be no action before daylight," he said, "and it's best to be
fresh and ready."

He spoke to them with the grave kindness that he always used, save when
some great fault was committed, and then his words burned like fire.
Harry and Dalton procured their blankets from their tents, wrapped them
about their bodies and lay down on the dryest spots they could find,
but they had no thought of sleep. They permitted their limbs to relax,
and that was a help to the nerves, but neither closed his eyes.

Those dark hours seemed an eternity to Harry. The floating fog seemed
to grow thicker and to enter his very bones. He shivered and drew the
blanket close. Now, with his ears close to the earth, he was sure that
he could hear the axes and the saws and the hammers beating on steel
rivets on the other side of the Rappahannock.

The Confederate cannon still fired the signals of alarm at regular
intervals, but the night and the fog always closed in again quickly over
the flash that the discharge had made. After a while a murmur came from
the long Southern line along the heights and on the ridges. Horses
stirred here and there, cannon, moved to new positions, made sighing
sounds as their wheels sank in the mud; sabres and bayonets clanked,
thousands of men whispered to one another. All these varying sounds
united into one great soft voice which was like the murmur of a wind
through the summer night.

Toward five o'clock in the morning, when the darkness had not diminished
a whit, a messenger from General Lee rode up with a note for General
Jackson. It merely stated that all was ready and to hold the position