“I wait till it is over,” said Penhallow.

“That post-office gave me a fit of craving for home and peace.”

“Home-sickness!  What, you, Blake!”

“Oh, that worst kind; home-sickness for a home when you have no home.  I wonder if in that other world we shall be home-sick for this.”

“That depends.  Ah! here comes a reminder that we are in this world just now—­and just as we have begun one of our real talks.”

An orderly appeared with a note.  Penhallow read it.  He was on his feet at once.  “Saddle Hoodoo, Josiah.  I must go.  Come soon again, Blake.  We have had a good talk—­or a bit of one.”

At four in the morning of June 14th, when John Penhallow with a group of older engineers looked across the twenty-one hundred feet of the James River they were to bridge, he realized the courage and capacity of the soldier who had so completely deceived his wary antagonist.  Before eleven that night a hundred pontoons stayed by barges bridged the wide stream from shore to shore.  Already the Second Corps under Hancock had been hastily ferried over the river.  The work on the bridge had been hard, and the young Captain had had neither food nor rest.  Late at night, the work being over, he recrossed the bridge, and after a hasty meal lay down on the bluff above the James with others of his Corps and slept the uneasy sleep of an overtired man.  At dawn he was awakened by the multiple noises of an army moving on the low-lying meadows below the bluff.  Refreshed and free from any demand on his time, he breakfasted at ease, and lighting his pipe was at once deeply interested in what he saw.  As he looked about him, he was aware of General Grant standing alone on the higher ground.  He saw the general throw away his cigar and with hands clasped behind him remain watching in rapt silence the scene below him.  “I wonder,” thought Penhallow, “of what he is thinking.”  The face was grave, the man motionless.  The engineer turned to look at the matchless spectacle below him.  The sound of bands rose in gay music from the approaches to the river, where vast masses of infantry lay waiting their turn to cross.  The guns of batteries gleamed in the sun, endless wagon-trains and ambulances moved or were at rest.  Here and there the wind of morning fluttered the flags and guidons with flashes of colour.  The hum of a great army, the multitudinous murmurs of men talking, the crack of whips, the sharp rattle of wagons and of moving artillery, made a strange orchestra.  Over all rose the warning shrieks of the gun-boat signals.  Far or near on the fertile meadows the ripened corn and grain showed in green squares between the masses of men and stirred in the morning breeze or lay trampled in ruin by the rude feet of war.  It was an hour and a scene to excite the dullest mind, and Penhallow intensely interested sat fascinated by a spectacle at once splendid and fateful.  The snake-like procession of infantry wagons and batteries moved across the bridge and was lost to view in the forest.  Penhallow turned again to look at his general, who remained statuesque and motionless.  Then, suddenly the master of this might of men and guns looked up, listened to Warren’s artillery far beyond the river, and with the same expressionless face called for his horse and rode away followed by his staff.