each round he was becoming more and
more expert in handling the gun. His mouth was black with powder from
tearing the paper ends of the cartridges. The sulphurous taste of the
powder was in his mouth.

From the centre of the field rose the awful Confederate yell again. A
regiment of Georgians, led by Gordon were charging. Waiting again for
the smoke to clear in front Ned could see the grey waves spread out and
caught the sharp word of command as the daring young officers threw
their naked swords toward the sky crying:

"Forward!"

And then they met the storm. From grim, black lips on the hill crest
came the answer to their yell--three hundred and forty mighty guns were
singing an oratorio of Death and Hell in chorus now from those heights.
Half the men seemed to fall at a single crash and still the line closed
up and rushed steadily on, firing and loading, firing and
loading,--running and staggering, then rallying and pressing on again.

On the right ten thousand men under Hill slipped out into line as if on
dress parade--long lines of handsome boyish Southerners. The big guns
above saw and found them with terrible accuracy. A wide lane of death
was suddenly torn through them before they moved. They closed like clock
work and with a cheer swept forward to the support of the men who were
dying on the blood-soaked slope.

Ned's heart was thumping now. He felt it coming, that sharp low order
from the Colonel before the words rang from his lips. His hour had come
for the test--coward or hero it had to be now. It was funny he had
ceased to worry. He had entered a new world and this choking, blinding
smoke, the steady thunder of guns, the long sheets of orange fire that
flashed and flashed and blazed in three rings from the hill, the ripping
canvas of musketry fire in volleys, the dull boom of the great guns on
the boats below, were simply a part of the routine of the new life. He
had lived a generation since dawn. The years that had gone before seemed
a dream. The one real thing was Betty's laughing eyes. They were looking
at him now from behind that flaming hill. He must pass those guns to
reach her. Not a doubt had yet entered his soul that he would do it. Men
were falling around him like leaves in autumn, but this had to be. He
saw the end. No matter how fierce this battle, McClellan was only
fighting to save his army from annihilation. Lee was destroying him.

The order came at last. The Colonel walked along in fr