Fitz Hugh now approached and said, “Colonel, the Seventh has attacked in force.”

“Good!” answered Waldron, with that sweet smile of his which thanked people who brought him pleasant news.  “I thought I heard his fire.  Gahogan will be on their right rear in ten minutes.  Then we shall get the ridge.  Ride back now to Major Bradley, and tell him to bring his Napoleons through the wood, and set two of them to shelling the enemy’s centre.  Tell him my idea is to amuse them, and keep them from changing front.”

Again Fitz Hugh galloped off as before on a comfortably safe errand, safer at all events than many errands of that day.  “This man is sparing my life,” he said to himself.  “Would to God I knew how to spare his!”

He found Bradley lunching on a gun caisson, and delivered his orders.  “Something to do at last, eh?” laughed the rosy-cheeked youngster.  “The smallest favors thankfully received.  Won’t you take a bite of rebel chicken, Captain?  This rebellion must be put down.  No?  Well, tell the Colonel I am moving on, and John Brown’s soul not far ahead.”

When Fitz Hugh returned to Waldron he found him outside of the wood, at the base of the long incline which rose into the rebel position.  About the slope were scattered prostrate forms, most numerous near the bottom, some crawling slowly rearward, some quiescent.  Under the brow of the ridge, decimated and broken into a mere skirmish line sheltered in knots and singly, behind rocks and knolls and bushes, lay the Fourteenth Regiment, keeping up a steady, slow fire.  From the edge above, smokily dim against a pure, blue heaven, answered another rattle of musketry, incessant, obstinate, and spiteful.  The combatants on both sides were lying down; otherwise neither party could have lasted ten minutes.  From Fitz Hugh’s point of view not a Confederate uniform could be seen.  But the smoke of their rifles made a long gray line, which was disagreeably visible and permanent; and the sharp whit! whit! of their bullets continually passed him, and cheeped away in the leafage behind.

“Our men can’t get on another inch,” he ventured say to his commander.  “Wouldn’t it be well for me to ride up and say a cheering word?”

“Every battle consists largely in waiting,” replied Waldron thoughtfully.  “They have undoubtedly brought up a reserve to face Thomas.  But when Gahogan strikes the flank of the reserve, we shall win.”

“I wish you would take shelter,” begged Fitz Hugh.  “Everything depends on your life.”

“My life has been both a help and a hurt to my fellow-creatures,” sighed the brigade commander.  “Let come what will to it.”

He glanced upward with an expression of profound emotion; he was evidently fighting two battles, an outward and an inward one.

Presently he added, “I think the musketry is increasing on the left.  Does it strike you so?”