Penhallow looked back.  “They’ve got the range—­there goes one of the guns—­oh! and another.”

“Let’s go back,” said Gibbon, rising, “we are too safe here.”

They laughed at his reason and followed him, Haskell remarking on the lessening of the fire.  As they moved about the forty-foot spaces between the disabled batteries, the last cannon-ball rolled by them and bounded down the slope harmless.  At once there was movement,—­quick orders, officers busy, as fresh cannon replaced the wrecked pieces.  Many of the unhurt cannoneers lay down utterly exhausted.  The dead were drawn aside, while the wounded crawled away or were cared for by the stretcher-bearers and surgeons.  Meanwhile the dense, hot, smoke-pall rose slowly and drifted away.  The field-glasses were at once in use.

“It is half-past two,” said General Hunt; “what next?  Oh! our skirmishers are falling back.”

“They are going to attack,” said Haskell, “and can they mean our whole line—­or where?”

The cannoneers were called to their pieces, and silently expectant the little group waited on the fateful hour, while the orderly quiet of discipline was to be seen on the Crest.  The field-glasses of the officers were searching with intense interest the more and more visible vale.

“Pretty plain now, Gibbon,” said Hunt.

“Yes, we are in for it.”

“They are forming,” said Penhallow.  A line appeared from the low swell of ground in front of Lee’s position—­then a second and a third.  Muskets and bayonets flashed in the sun.

“Can you make out their flags?” asked Gibbon, “or their numbers?”

“Not the flags.”  He waited intent, watchful.  No one spoke—­minute after minute went by.  At last Penhallow answered.  “A long line—­a good half mile—­quite twelve thousand—­oh, more—­more.  Now they are advancing en echelon.”

To left, to right, along our lines was heard the thud, thud, of the ramrods, and percussion-cap boxes were slid around the waist to be handy.  Penhallow and others drew their pistols.  The cannon were now fully replaced, the regimental flags unrolled, and on the front line, long motionless, the trefoil guidons of the two divisions of the Second Corps fluttered feebly.  The long row of skirmishers firing fell back more and more rapidly, and came at last into our lines.

Penhallow said, turning to Gibbon, “They have—­I think—­they have no supporting batteries—­that is strange.”  Haskell and Gibbon had gone as he spoke and the low crest was free at this point of all but the artillery force.  To left, the projecting clump of trees and the lines of the Second Corps—­all he could see—­were ominously quiet.

Gibbon came back to the crest.  He said, “We may need backing if they concentrate on us; here our line is too thin.”  And still the orderly grey columns came on silently, without their usual charging-yell.

“Ah!” exclaimed Penhallow without lowering his glass, as he gazed to our left.  The clamour of cannon broke out from little Round Top.