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Five successive charges storm upon them, fruitless: "Steady, MEINE KINDER; fix bayonets, handle ramrods! There is the Horse-deluge thundering in upon you; reserve your fire, till you see the whites of their eyes, and get the word; then give it them, and again give it them: see whether any man or any horse can stand it!"

"The soldiers!" gasped Kit, his knees fainting beneath him. "O, thank God!" Close at hand another bugle rang out merrily. "Nipper Knapp!" cried Piper. "Butter my wig, if it ain't!" A shoal of silver minnows flashed and twinkled above the crest. "Bayonets, by God!" roared the Parson. "Here they come, the little darlings!" as a black trickle of figures poured over the crest.

"He who hesitates is lost." At the hour named, a number eight, it is said at their head De Villiers, a Free State commander, rose suddenly to their feet. Some turned and ran down hill, but the Engineer detachment stood fast with fixed bayonets. An infantry major beside them fell, shot dead, but their own lieutenant, Digby Jones, a youth in his twenties, led them forward to the encounter.

This was no time for manners. Hurried conferences behind closed doors! Summoning of the military to discuss declaring a military zone around the White House! Women could not advance on drawn bayonets. And if they did . . . What a picture! Common decency told the more humane leaders that this would never do. I daresay political wisdom crept into the reasoning of others.

At the sidelines the lieutenants chanted: "Hup! Hup! Hup-hup-hup!" Legs began to move in an impressive clock-work unison. Gradually the thousands of bayonets took motion, seemed to flow along like some strange stream of scintillating lights.

In this they would, perhaps, have finally succeeded, had not the bayonets of the Hamburg soldiers interfered, and forced this precious piece of revolutionary furniture upon the manager and upon the stage.

Sam was taken in twenty poses in the act of leading his troops in a breach, giving the order to fire, charging bayonets himself with a musket supposed to have been taken from a dead foe, standing with his arms folded and his cap pulled over his eyes in the trenches, and waving his cap on a bastion in the moment of triumph.

Permission thus given, swords, bayonets, and hatchets were set to work, and in a few moments, the upper surface of sand and earth being removed, the explorers came upon a large bow, strong, tough, and beautifully carved and pointed. "It is a sachem, and a mighty man of valor if he wielded this bow and shot these arrows," said Hopkins handling them respectfully.

Those who had gone away probably belonged to a tribe in the neighbourhood, and were endeavouring to reach their own people. We were not long left in doubt as to the cause of their excitement. Some distance off we caught sight of another large party of negroes advancing with threatening gestures, many of them being armed with muskets and bayonets.

Part of the rebels had promptly run away, as they heard Si order the charge, but part boldly stood their ground, and were nervously reloading, or fixing bayonets, as the squad came crashing through the brush.