“Well, gentlemen.”
“I have to report, sir,” said Sherburne, speaking first as the senior officer, “that General Fremont is coming from the west with fifteen thousand men, ready to fall upon your right flank.”
“Very good, and what have you seen, Captain Aubrey?”
“Ord with ten thousand men is in our rear and is approaching Front Royal.”
“Very good. You have done faithful work, Captain Aubrey. What have you seen, Lieutenant Kenton and Lieutenant Dalton?”
“General Shields, sir, is in Manassas Gap this morning with ten thousand men, and he and General Ord can certainly meet to-day if they wish. We learned also that General McDowell can come up in a few days with twenty thousand more.”
The face of Stonewall Jackson never flinched. It looked worn and weary but not more so than it did before this news.
“I thank all of you, young gentlemen,” he said in his quiet level tones. “You have done good service. It may be that you’re a little weary. You’d better sleep now. I shall call you when I want you.”
The four saluted and General Jackson went back into the tent. Aubrey made a grimace.
“We may be a little tired!” he said. “Why, I haven’t been out of the saddle for twenty-four hours, and I felt so anxious that every one of those hours was a day long.”
“But it’s a lot to get from the general an admission that you may be even a little tired,” said Dalton. “Remember the man for whom you ride.”
“That’s so,” said Aubrey, “and I oughtn’t to have said what I did. We’ve got to live up to new standards.”
Sherburne, Aubrey and Dalton picked out soft spots on the grass and almost instantly were sound asleep, but Harry lingered a minute or two longer. He saw across the river the glitter of bayonets and the dark muzzles of cannon. He also saw many troops moving on the hills and he knew that he was looking upon the remains of Banks’ army reinforced by fresh men, ready to dispute the passage or fight Jackson if he marched northward in any other way, while the great masses of their comrades gathered behind him.
Harry felt again for a moment that terrible sinking of the heart which is such close kin to despair. Enemies to the north of them, enemies to the south of them, and to the east and to the west, enemies everywhere. The ring was closing in. Worse than that, it had closed in already and Stonewall Jackson was only mortal. Neither he nor any one else could lead them through the overwhelming ranks of such a force.
But the feeling passed quickly. It could not linger, because the band of the Acadians was playing, and the dark men of the Gulf were singing. Even with the foe in sight, and a long train of battles and marches behind them, with others yet worse to come, they began to dance, clasped in one another’s arms.
Many of the Acadians had already gone to a far land and they would never again on this earth see Antoinette or Celeste or Marie, but the sun of the south was in the others and they sang and danced in the brief rest allowed to them.
Harry liked to look at them. He sat on the grass and leaned his back against a tree. The music raised up the heart and it was wonderfully lulling, too. Why worry? Stonewall Jackson would tell them what to do.
The rhythmic forms grew fainter, and he slept. He was awakened the next instant by Dalton. Harry opened his eyes heavily and looked reproachfully at his friend.
“I’ve slept less than a minute,” he said.
Dalton laughed.
“So it seemed to me, too, when I was awakened,” he said, “but you’ve slept a full two hours just as I did. What do you expect when you’re working for Stonewall Jackson. You’ll be lucky later on whenever you get a single hour.”
Harry brushed the traces of sleep from his eyes and stood up straight.
“What’s wanted?” he asked.
“You and I and some others are going to take a little railroad trip, escorted by Stonewall Jackson. That’s all I know and that’s all anybody knows except the general. Come along and look your little best.”