“Shepard!” he exclaimed.  “You here!”

“Yes, Mr. Kenton,” replied the spy, “it’s Shepard, and you will not try to harm me.  Why should you at such a moment?  I am within the Confederate lines for the last time.”

“So, you mean to give up your trade?”

“It’s going to give me up.  Chance has made you and me antagonists, Mr. Kenton, but our own little war, as well as the great war in which we both fight, is about over.  I will not come within the Southern lines again because there is no need for me to do so.  In a few days there will be no Southern lines.  Don’t think that I’m trying to exult over you, but remember what I told you four years ago in Montgomery.  The South has made a great and wonderful fight, but it was never possible for her to win.”

“We are not beaten yet, Mr. Shepard.”

“No, but you will be.  I suppose you’ll fight to the last, but the end is sure as the rising of tomorrow’s sun.  We have generals now who can’t be driven back.”

Harry was silent because he had no answer to make, and Shepard resumed: 

“I’m willing to tell you, Mr. Kenton, that your cousin, Mr. Mason, a captain now, is here with General Sheridan, and that he went through today’s battle uninjured.”

“I’m glad at any rate that Dick is now a captain.”

“He has earned the rank.  He is my good friend, as I hope you will be after the war.”

“I see no reason why we shouldn’t.  You’ve served the North in your own way and I’ve served the South in mine.  I want to say to you, Mr. Shepard, that if in our long personal struggle I held any malice against you it’s all gone now, and I hope that you hold none against me.”

“I never felt any.  Good-by!”

“Good-by!”

Shepard was gone so quickly and with so little noise that he seemed to vanish in the air, and Harry turned back to his work, resolved not to believe the man’s assertion that the war was over.  He slept a little, and so did Dalton, but both were awake, when a red dawn came alive with the crash of cannon and rifles.

Shepard had spoken truly, when he said that the North now had generals who would not be driven back.  Nor would they cease to attack.  As soon as the light was sufficient, Grant and Sheridan began to press Lee with all their might.  Pickett, who had led the great charge at Gettysburg, and Johnson, who held a place called Five Forks, were assailed fiercely by overpowering numbers, and, despite a long and desperate resistance, their command was cut in pieces and the fragments scattered, leaving Lee’s right flank uncovered.

The day, like the one before it, ended in defeat and confusion, and, at the next dawn, Grant, silent, tenacious, came anew to the attack, his dense columns now assailing the front before Petersburg, and carrying the trenches that had held them so long.  The thin Confederate lines there fought in vain to hold them, but the Union brigades, exultant and cheering, burst through everything, flung aside those of their foes whom they did not overthrow, and advanced toward the city.  Here fell the famous Lieutenant General A. P. Hill, a man of frail body and valiant soul, beloved of Lee and the whole army.