Within ten minutes Chambers would be out there, hurling his fresh troops against the exhausted Federal advance, while those fellows, now fighting so desperately yonder, would fall back in reserve.

Could Chambers hold them?
Could he check that victorious onrush of blue--those men who had fought their way five bloody miles since daybreak?
I could not tell; it would be a death grapple worthy of the gods, and the Hardy house would be in the very vortex.

Whether it was destined also to become a charnel house, a shambles, depended on the early coming of those other, unseen men toiling up that black ravine.
Then suddenly there recurred to my memory that Major Hardy and his daughter still remained within.

They had not departed with the others, yet in the stress and excitement their presence had slipped my mind.

Nor had I seen them since the new recruits came.