They seemed to come from far, very far away. Then the Colonel said, quietly,
"Let them go, and God be our helper, Amen." There was the noise
in the darkness of trampling and scraping on the cliff-top for a second;
the sound as of men straining hard together, and then with a pant
it ceased all at once, and the men held their breath to hear.
One second of utter silence; then one prolonged, deep, resounding splash
sending up a great mass of white foam as the brass-pieces together plunged
into the dark water below, and then the soughing of the trees
and the murmur of the river came again with painful distinctness.
It was full ten minutes before the Colonel spoke, though there were
other sounds enough in the darkness, and some of the men, as the dark,
outstretched bodies showed, were lying on the ground flat on their faces.
Then the Colonel gave the command to fall in in the same quiet, grave tone
he had used all night. The line fell in, the men getting to their horses
and mounting in silence; the Colonel put himself at their head
and gave the order of march, and the dark line turned in the darkness,
crossed the little plateau between the smouldering camp-fires
and the spectral caissons with the harness hanging beside them,
and slowly entered the dim charcoal-burner's track. Not a word was spoken
as they moved off. They might all have been phantoms. Only,
the sergeant in the rear, as he crossed the little breastwork
which ran along the upper side and marked the boundary of the little camp,
half turned and glanced at the dying fires, the low, newly made mounds
in the corner, the abandoned caissons, and the empty redoubt, and said,
slowly, in a low voice to himself,

"Well, by God!"