“What time is it?” asked Pennington.

“Half past three in the morning,” replied Dick, who was able to see the face of his watch.

“Not such a long wait then.  Day comes early this time of the year.”

“You lads can sit down and make yourselves comfortable,” said Colonel Winchester.  “It’s desirable for you to be as fresh as possible when you’re wanted.  I’m glad to see the men sleeping.  They’ll receive a signal in ample time.”

The young officers followed his suggestion, but they kept very wide awake, talking for a little while in whispers and then sinking away into silence.  The noise from the massed troops near them decreased also and Dick’s curiosity began to grow again.  He stood up, but he saw no movement, nothing to indicate the nature of any coming event.  He looked at his watch again.  Dawn was almost at hand.  A narrow band of gray would soon rim the eastern hills.  An aide arrived, gave a dispatch to Colonel Winchester, and quickly passed on.

The men were awakened and stood up, shaking the sleep from their eyes and then, through habit, looking to their arms and ammunition.  The thread of gray showed in the east.

“Whatever it is, it will come soon,” whispered Warner to Dick.

The gray thread broadened and became a ribbon of silver.  The silver, as it widened, was shot through with pink and red and yellow, the colors of the morning.  Dick caught a glimpse of massed bayonets near him, and of the Southern trenches rising slowly out of the dusk not far away.  Then the earth rocked.

He felt a sudden violent and convulsive movement that nearly threw him from his feet, and the whole world in front of him blazed with fire, as if a volcano, after a long silence, had burst suddenly into furious activity.  Black objects, the bodies of men, were borne upon the mass of shooting flames, and the roar was so tremendous that it was heard thirty miles away.

Dick had been expecting something, but no such red dawn as this, and when the fires suddenly sank, and the world-shaking crash turned to echoes he stood for a few moments appalled.  He believed at first that a magazine had exploded, but, as the dawn was rapidly advancing, he beheld in front of them, where Southern breastworks had stood, a vast pit two or three hundred feet long and more than thirty feet deep.  At the bottom of it, although they could not be seen through the smoke, lay the fragments of Confederate cannon and Confederate soldiers who had been blown to pieces.

“A mine breaking the rebel line!” cried Warner, “and our men are to charge through it!”

Trumpets were already sounding their thrilling call, and blue masses, before the smoke had lifted, were rushing into the pit, intending to climb the far side and sever the Southern line.  But Colonel Winchester did not yet give the word to his own regiment, and Dick knew that they were to be held in reserve.