“Captain Bennett,” shouted the Colonel angrily, “Fix bayonets there in front, and drive these hounds off, or we'll never get there.”
A show of savage-looking steel sent the skulkers down a side-path through the woods.
The tumult of the battle heightened with every step the regiment advanced. A turn in the winding road brought them to an opening in the woods which extended clear to the summit. Through this the torrent of noise poured as when a powerful band passes the head of a street. Down this avenue came rolling the crash of thousands of muskets fired with the intense energy of men in mortal combat, the deeper pulsations of the artillery, and even the fierce yells of the fighters, as charges were made or repulsed.
Glen felt the blood settle around his heart anew.
“Get out of the road and let the artillery pass! Open up for the artillery!” shouted voices from the rear. Everybody sprang to the side of the road.
There came a sound of blows rained upon horses bodies—of shouts and oaths from exited drivers and eager officers—of rushing wheels and of ironed hoofs striking fire from the grinding stones. Six long-bodied, strong-limbed horses, their hides reeking with sweat, and their nostrils distended with intense effort, tore past, snatching after them, as if it were a toy, a gleaming brass cannon, surrounded by galloping cannoneers, who goaded the draft horses on with blows with the flats of their drawn sabers. Another gun, with its straining horses and galloping attendants, and another, and another, until six great, grim pieces, with their scores of desperately eager men and horses, had rushed by toward the front.
It was a sight to stir the coldest blood. The excited infantry boys, wrought up to the last pitch by the spectacle, sprang back into the road, cheered vociferously, and rushed on after the battery.
Hardly had the echoes of their voices died away, when they heard the battery join its thunders to the din of the fight.
Then wounded men, powder-stained, came straggling back—men with shattered arms and gashed faces and garments soaked with blood from bleeding wounds.
“Hurrah, boys!” each shouted with weakened voice, as his eyes lighted up at sight of the regiment, “We're whipping them; but hurry forward! You're needed.”