"It is just a question of who will hold out best."
I thought I knew who those would be; and a shiver for a moment ran through my heart. Christian had said, that the success of his suit with my father and mother might depend on how the war went. And certainly, if the struggle should be at all prolonged and issue in the triumph of the rebels, they would have little favour for the enemies they would despise. How if the war went for the North?
I believe I lost several sentences of my companion in the depth of my musing; remembered this would not do; shook off my thoughts and talked gayly, until we came to the place where he said the drilling process was going on. I wondered if it were the right place; then made sure that it was; and sat on my horse looking and waiting, with my heart in a great flutter. The artillery wagons were rushing about; I recognised them; and a cloud of dust accompanied and swallowed up their movements, a little too distant from me just now to give room for close observation.
"Well, how do you like it, Miss Randolph?" my major began, with a tone of some exultation at my supposed discomfiture.
"It is very confused -" I said. "I do not see what they are doing."
"No more than you could if it was a battle," said the major.
"Won't they come nearer to us?"
"No doubt they will, if we give them time enough."
I would not take this hint. I had got my chance; I was not going to fling it away. I had discerned besides in the distant smoke and dust a dark figure on a gray horse, which I thought I knew. Nothing would have drawn me from the spot then. I kept up a scattering fire of talk with my companion, I do not know how, to prevent the exhaustion of his patience; while my heart went out at my eyes to follow the gray horse. I was rewarded at last. The whole battery charged down upon the point where we were standing, at full gallop, "as if we had been the Secession army," Major Fairbairn remarked; adding, that nothing but a good conscience could have kept me so quiet. And in truth guns and horses and all were close upon us before the order to halt was given, and the gunners flung themselves from the wagons and proceeded to unlimber and get the battery in working order, with the mouths of the cannon only a few yards from our standing-place. I hardly heard the major now, for the gray horse and dark rider were near enough to be seen, stationed quietly a few paces in the rear of the line of guns. I saw his eye going watchfully from one point to another of his charge; his head making quick little turns to right and left to see if all were doing properly; the horse a statue, the man alive as quicksilver, though nothing of him moved but his head. I was sure, very sure, that he would not see me. He was intent on his duty; spectators or the whole world looking on were nothing to him. He would not even perhaps be conscious that anybody was in his neighbourhood. I don't know whether I was most glad or sorry; though indeed, I desired nothing less than that he should give any sign that he saw me. How well he looked on horseback, I thought; how stately he sat there, motionless, overseeing his command. There was a pause now; they were all still, waiting for an order. I might have expected what it would be; but I did not, till the words suddenly came out -
"Battery - Fire!"