A little after noon a heavy force of cavalry, led by Ampudia, moved forward toward an advanced knoll held by some of Taylor's pickets. Phil thought it was the herald of the battle, but the pickets retired after a few shots, and the Mexicans took the knoll, making no attempt to pursue the pickets who fell back quietly on the main army.
Then the silence was resumed, although they could see much motion in the Mexican army, the constant movement of horsemen and the shifting of regiments and guns. A multitude of brilliant flags carried here and there fluttered in the wind. But the American army remained motionless, and the soldiers, when they talked, talked mostly in low tones.
"Phil, you didn't eat any breakfast," said Bill Breakstone, "and if I didn't remind you of it, you would skip dinner. A soldier fights best on a full stomach, and as they're serving out coffee and bacon and other good things now's your time."
"To tell you the truth, I hadn't thought of it," said the boy.
"Well, think of it, Sir Philip of the Spectacle and the Panorama. It isn't often that you'll have a chance to sit on a front seat in an open air theater like this, and see deploying before you an army of twenty thousand men, meaning business."
Phil ate and drank mechanically almost, although the food gave him new strength without his being conscious of it, and he still watched. The long afternoon waned, the sun passed the zenith, and the colors still shifted and changed on the bare peaks and ridges, but, save for the seizing of the lone knoll, the army of Santa Anna did not yet advance, although in its place it was still fluid with motion, like the colors of a kaleidoscope. It seemed to Phil that Bill Breakstone's theatrical allusions applied with peculiar force. Apparently they were setting the scenes down below, this color here, this color there, so many flags at this point, and so many at that point, bands and trumpets to the right, and bands and trumpets to the left. It was a spectacle full of life, color, and movement, but the boy grew very impatient. Great armies did not march forward for that purpose, and for that purpose alone.
"Why don't they attack?" he exclaimed.
"Having the rat in the trap, I suppose that Santa Anna means to play with it a little," replied Bill Breakstone. "There's nothing like playing with a delicious mouse a little while before you eat it."
"Did you ever see anything more hateful than the manner of that fellow de Armijo?" asked Phil. "He bore himself as if we were already in their hands."
"Doubtless he thought so," said Breakstone, "and it is equally likely that his thought is also the thought of Santa Anna, Minon, Torrejon, Pacheco, Lombardini, and all the rest. But states of mind are queer things, Phil. You can change your mind, it may change itself, or others may change it for you. Any one of these things can happen to Santa Anna or to your genial young friend, de Armijo."