with their unseen and unseeing swarm, but all along the fringe there is
silence absolute. The burly commander is an equestrian statue of
himself. The mounted staff officers, their field-glasses up, are
motionless all. The line of battle in the edge of the wood stands at a
new kind of "attention," each man in the attitude in which he was caught
by the consciousness of what is going on. All these hardened and
impenitent man-killers, to whom death in its awfulest forms is a fact
familiar to their every-day observation; who sleep on hills trembling
with the thunder of great guns, dine in the midst of streaming missiles,
and play at cards among the dead faces of their dearest friends, - all
are watching with suspended breath and beating hearts the outcome of an
act involving the life of one man. Such is the magnetism of courage and
devotion.

If now you should turn your head you would see a simultaneous movement
among the spectators a start, as if they had received an electric shock
- and looking forward again to the now distant horseman you would see
that he has in that instant altered his direction and is riding at an
angle to his former course. The spectators suppose the sudden deflection
to be caused by a shot, perhaps a wound; but take this field-glass and
you will observe that he is riding toward a break in the wall and hedge.
He means, if not killed, to ride through and overlook the country
beyond.

You are not to forget the nature of this man's act; it is not permitted
to you to think of it as an instance of bravado, nor, on the other hand,
a needless sacrifice of self. If the enemy has not retreated, he is in
force on that ridge. The investigator will encounter nothing less than a
line of battle; there is no need of pickets, videttes, skirmishers, to
give warning of our approach; our attacking lines will be visible,