Good by." The Sergeant was only too glad of this release, which gave him an opportunity to get back to camp, to enjoy some good cheer that he knew was there, and bidding a hasty good-night, he left at a trot.
Fortner and Rachel rode on slowly up the pike, traversing the ground that was soon to run red with the blood of thousands.
They talked of the fearful probabilities of the next few days, and halted for some minutes on the bridge across Stone River, to study the wonderfully picturesque scene spread out before them.

The dusk was just closing down.

The scowling darkness seemed to catch around woods and trees and houses, and grow into monsters of vast and somber bulk, swelling and spreading like the "gin" which escaped from the copper can, in the "Arabian Nights," until they touched each other, coalesced and covered the whole land.

Far away, at the edge of the valley, the tops of the hills rose, distinctly lighted by the last rays of the dying day, as if some strip of country resisting to the last the invasion of the dark monsters.
A half-mile in front of the bridge was the town of Murfreesboro.

Bright lights streamed from thousands of windows and from bonfires in the streets.