None the less, there appeared soon a long, dusty, faded line, trotting, running, walking, falling, stumbling, but coming on.

It swept like a long serpent parallel to the works, writhing, smitten but surviving.

It came on through the wood, writhing, tearing at the cruel abattis laid to entrap it.

It writhed, roared, but it broke through.

It swept over the rail fences that lay between the lines and the abattis, and still came on! This was not war, but Fate! There came a cloud of smoke, hiding the face of the intrenchments.
Then the boys of Louisburg saw bursting through this suffocating curtain a few faces, many faces, long rows of faces, some pale, some red, some laughing, some horrified, some shouting, some swearing--a long row of faces that swept through the smoke, following a line of steel--a line of steel that flickered, waved, and dipped..