They heard the tremendous thunder and felt the concussion of big guns; the steady raining rattle of musketry, the bark of howitzers, the sharp, clean crack of rifled field guns dismayed them.  Sometimes, far away, they could distinguish the full deep cheering of a Union regiment; and once they caught the distant treble battle cry of the South.  There were moments when a sudden lull in the noise startled the entire regiment.  Even their officers looked up sharply at such times.  But ahead they could still see Colonel Craig riding calmly forward, his big horse picking its leisurely way over the endless road of logs; they could see the clipped gray head of Major Lent under its red forage-cap, steady, immovable, as he controlled his nervous mount with practised indifference.

It was broiling hot in the swamp; the Zouaves stood bathed in perspiration as the regiment halted for a few minutes, then they moved forward again toward a hard ridge of grass which glimmered green beyond the tangled thicket’s edges.

Here the regiment was formed in line of battle, and ordered to lie down.

Stephen wiped his sweaty hands on his jacket and, lifting his head from the grass, looked cautiously around.  Already there had been fighting here; a section of a dismantled battery stood in the road ahead; dead men lay around it; smoke still hung blue in the woods.  The air reeked.

The Zouaves lay in long scarlet rows on the grass; their officers stood leaning on their naked swords, peering ahead where the Colonel, Major, and a mounted bugler were intently watching something—­the two officers using field glasses.  In a few moments both officers dismounted, flung their bridles to an orderly, and came back, walking rather quickly.  Major Lent drawing his bright, heavy sword and tucking up his gold-embroidered sleeves as he came on.

“Now, boys,” said Colonel Craig cheerfully, “we are going in.  All you’ve got to do can be done quickly and thoroughly with the bayonet.  Don’t cock your muskets, don’t fire unless you’re told to.  Perhaps you won’t have to fire at all.  All I want of you is to keep straight on after me—­right through those dry woods, there.  Try to keep your intervals and alignment; don’t yell until you sight the enemy, don’t lose your heads, trust your officers.  Where they go you are safest.”

He dropped his eye-glasses into his slashed pocket, drew out and put on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles.  The soldiers saw him smile and say something to Major Lent, saw him bare his handsome sword, saw the buglers setting the shining bugles to their lips.

“Now, charge, you red-legged rascals!” shouted Major Lent; and up from the grass rose a wave of scarlet and flashing steel.

Charge!  Charge! echoed the bugles; a wailing storm, high among the tree tops, passed over them as they entered the dry woods on a run; branches crashed earthward, twig’s and limbs crackled down in whirling confusion.  But there was nothing in the woods except smoke—­and the streaming storm shrilling overhead, raining down on them leaves and boughs and splintered sticks.