“The Pennsylvanians are in force to-day—­you and I and—­”

“Oh, colonels don’t count,” laughed Penhallow; “but there are Meade, Hancock, Gregg, Humphreys, Hays, Gibbon, Geary, Crawford—­”

Hancock said, “We Pennsylvanians hold the lowest and weakest point of our line—­all Pennsylvanians on their own soil.”

“Yes, but they will not attack here,” said Newton.

“Oh, do you think so?” said Hancock.  “Wait a little.”

The headquarters’ ambulance drove up with further supplies.  The chickens were of mature age, but every one was hungry.  Cigars and pipes were lighted, and Newton chaffed Gibbon as the arrogant young brigadier in command for the time of Hancock’s Corps.  The talk soon fell again upon the probabilities of the day.  Penhallow listened.  Meade grave and silent sat on a cracker-box and ate in an absent way, or scribbled orders, and at last directed that the picked body of men, the provost’s guards, should join their regimental commands.  About a quarter to noon the generals one by one rode away.

Having no especial duty, Penhallow walked to where on the Crest the eighteen guns were drawn up.  The sky was clear as yet, a windless, hot day.  Gibbon joined him.

“What next?” said Gibbon, as Penhallow clambered up and stood a tall figure on the limber of one of Cushing’s guns, his field glass searching the valley and the enemy’s position.  “Isn’t it like a big chess-board?”

“Yes—­their skirmishers look like grey posts, and our own blue.  They seem uneasy.”

“Aren’t they just like pawns in the game!” remarked Captain Haskell of the Staff.

Penhallow, intent, hardly heard them, but said presently, “There are guidons moving fast to their right.”

“Oh, artillery taking position.  We shall hear from them,” returned Gibbon.  “Hancock thinks that being beaten on both flanks, Lee will attack our centre, and this is the lowest point.”

“Well,” said Haskell, “it would be madness—­can Lee remember Malvern Hill?”

“I wonder what Grant is doing?” remarked Gibbon.  At that time, seated under an oak, watched at a distance by John Penhallow and a group of officers, he was dictating to unlucky Pemberton the terms of Vicksburg’s surrender.

Penhallow got down from his perch and wandered among the other guns, talking to the men who were lying on the sod, or interested in the battery horses behind the shelter of trees quietly munching the thin grasses.  He returned to Cushing’s guns, and being in the mental attitude of intense attention to things he would not usually have noticed, he was struck with the young captain’s manly build, and then with his delicacy of feature, something girl-like and gentle in his ways.

Penhallow remarked that the guns so hot already from the sun would be too easily overheated when they were put to use.  “Ah,” returned Cushing, “but will they be asked to talk today?” The innocent looking smile and the quick flash of wide-opened eyes told of his wish to send messages across the vale.