While Captain Somers was making his report, Captain Barkwood arrived, and was congratulated upon his safety and success. As an engineer he gave his opinion, and was able to supply information which Somers had not the scientific skill to deduce from what he had seen. The order was given to advance. The eye of the general was everywhere, even while his mind was occupied with the details furnished by the scouts. He sent members of his staff in every direction. He held the vast and complicated mechanism of his corps at his fingers’ ends. He knew where every brigade and every battery of his force was at that moment, and where it was to be an hour hence. He moved them all about, as a skilful weaver tosses the many shuttles, each with a different colored thread, through the fabric before him. He was weaving history on a gigantic scale.
Somers sat upon his restless horse, eating the “hard tack” he had brought, but ready to dash away upon any mission on which he might be sent, when an aid from the general commanding rode up and delivered an order to the commander of the corps. Somers did not particularly notice him at first, but as the staff officer turned, his teeth suddenly suspended their useful and interesting occupation, leaving his mouth half open, where it remained in the condition to express the wonder and astonishment which the presence of the officer excited.
“Major Riggleston!” exclaimed he, almost choking himself with the unmasticated block of “hard tack” in his mouth.
“Captain Somers, good morning,” replied the major, with a pleasant and friendly smile.
“Is it possible?” stammered Somers.
“What possible?” demanded Riggleston.
“That you are here,” replied the bewildered Somers, gazing at the major attentively, and surveying him from head to foot.
It was the same new and bright uniform which the major had worn when they met on previous occasions on the road; it was not the same which he had worn in the rebel lines, or at the Hasbrouk mansion; but the face was the same, the whiskers and mustache were the same in cut and color; and Somers, in spite of the doubt which at first assailed him, was even now ready to make oath that he was the same man he had shot in the head the preceding evening.
“Why shouldn’t I be here, my dear fellow?” laughed the major. “We are going to have hot work about here to-day.”
“How is your head, major?” demanded Somers, who could think of nothing at this moment but the amazing fact that he again stood in the presence of Major Riggleston.