“Ah! we’re saved,” a lieutenant cries, waving his cap like a madman.  “Look! there are men in the wood yonder, to our right; they are coming this way!”

Jack turned, he was near the captain; and he marked, with deadly panic, a look of despair settle down on the heroic, handsome face.  What could it mean?  Didn’t he believe that there were men there?  Jack handed him his own glass—­the captain had none.

“By Heaven, our flag!  But what troops can they be in that quarter?  They must be surrounded, like ourselves.—­Sergeant, can you undertake a dangerous duty?”

“With all my heart,” Jack cried, heartily.

“What’s your name and company?”

“John Sprague, Caribees, Company K.”

“Slip around the edge of the skirt of bushes.  You’ll be within an arm’s length of the enemy all the way.  Reach the place where we saw those men a moment since.  When you get there, if they are friendly, fire a shot.  Here, take this pistol.  Fire that; I shall recognize it from the musketry.  If they are the enemy, fire all the barrels as fast as you can and retreat.  You run great danger; you can only by a miracle escape capture; but it is our only resource for the next charge.  We must surrender or die,” he added, looking wofully at the meager remnant of his company.  Before the words had fairly ended, Jack is off like a shot, forgetting Barney, forgetting everything but the extrication of this grand young Roman.  As he skurried along, sometimes on hands and knees, he blames himself for not learning the captain’s name.  He feels sure that a day will come when the world will know and admire it.  He has gained the other corner, and in a moment he will be in the thick copse where the Union flag had been seen, but as he makes a dash through a clump of laurel he is confronted by two men, muskets in hand.

“A Yank, by the Lord!  Surrender, you damned mudsill!”

For answer Jack raised the pistol in his hand and fired.  The man fell, with a frightful yell.  The other leveled his musket fairly in Jack’s face; but before he could pull the trigger a report at his ear deafened Jack, and the second man staggered against the tree.

“Ah, ha! me boy, the rear rank did the best work there,” Barney cried, as Jack turned to see whence the timely aid had come, “A day after the fair’s better than the fair itself, if the rain has kept the girls away,” and Barney laughed good-humoredly.

“Well, ’pon my soul, Barney, it’s a shameful thing to say, but all thought of you had gone from my mind.  I should not have let you come if you had proposed it, but now we’re in for it.  Ah—!”