“Gallop!” repeated her captain, blandly; and, under his breath: “We are going to charge. Quick, tell me who you are!”
“Steady—steady—charge!” came the clear shout from the front.
“Charge! Charge! Charge!” echoed the ringing orders from troop to troop.
In the darkness of the thickets she rode knee to knee with her captain. The grand stride of her horse thundering along beside his through obscurity filled her with wild exultation; she loosened curb and snaffle and spurred forward amid hundreds of plunging horses, now goaded frantic by the battle clangor of the trumpets.
Everywhere, right and left, the red flash of Confederate rifles ran along their flanks; here and there a stricken horse reared or stumbled, rolling over and over; or some bullet-struck rider swayed wide from the saddle and went down to annihilation.
Fringed with darting flames the cavalry drove on headlong into the unseen; behind clanked the flying battery, mounted gunners sabering the dark forms that leaped out of the underbrush; on—on—rushed horses and guns, riders and cannoneers—a furious, irresistible, chaotic torrent, thundering through the night.
“‘Yes,’ she gasped, ‘The Special Messenger—noncombatant!’”
Far behind them now danced and flickered the rifle flames; fainter, fainter grew the shots; and at last, galloping steadily and, by degrees, reforming as they rode, the column swung out toward the bushy hills in the west, slowed to a canter, to a trot, to a walk.