Harry and Dalton returned
to the side of their fallen general. While all stood there trying to
decide what to do, an aide who had gone down the road reported that a
battery of Northern artillery was unlimbering just before them.

"Then we must take the General away at once," said Hill.

Hill lifted in his arms the great leader who was now almost too weak to
speak, although he opened his eyes once, and, as ever, thoughtful of his
troops and the cause for which he fought, said.

"Tell them it's only a wounded Confederate soldier whom you are
carrying."

Then he closed his eyes again and lay heavy and inert in Hill's arms.
Hill held him on his feet, and the young staff officers, now crowding
around, supported him. Thus aided he walked among the trees until they
came to the road. It was as dark as ever, save for the flash of the
firing which went on continuously to right, to left, and in front,
mingled now with the sinister rumble of cannon.

Harry, helping to support Jackson and overwhelmed with grief, felt as if
the end of the world had come. The darkness, the flash of the rifles,
the mutter of cannon, the blaze of gunpowder, the fierce shouts that
rose now and then in the thickets, the foul odors, made him think that
they had truly reached the infernal regions.

The lieutenant, who saw the battery unlimbering, had not been deceived
by his imagination. Just as they entered the road it fired a terrible
volley of grape and shrapnel. Luckily in the darkness it fired high,
and the little Southern group heard the deadly sleet crashing in the
bushes and boughs over their heads.

The devoted young staff officers instantly laid Jackson down in the road,
and, sheltering him with their own bodies as they lay beside him,
remained perfectly still while the awful rain of steel swept over their
heads again. Whether Jackson was conscious of it Harry never knew.

It was one of the most terrible moments of Harry's life. He felt the
most overwhelming grief, but every nerve, nevertheless, was sensitive to
the last degree. His first conviction that Jackson's wounds were mortal
was in abeyance for the moment. He might yet recover and lead his
dauntless legions as of old to victory, and he, like the other young
officers who lay around him, was resolved to save him with his own life
if he could.

The deadly rain from the cannon did not cease. It swept over their
heads again and again, all the more fearful because of the da