The firing in the immediate vicinity had diminished, though the din of battle resounded on both sides. The boys were rather nervous, as men are when standing idle under fire; but it was the nervousness of restrained enthusiasm, not of fear, unless it was in the case of invalid Phineas, and a very few others whose physical health had not been completely established.

“Well, Somers, my dear boy, how do you get on?” asked Captain de Banyan, as he sauntered leisurely up to the lieutenant, whose command stood next to his own.

“First-rate; only I should like to have something a little more active than standing here.”

“It takes considerable experience to enable a man to stand still under fire. When I was at the battle of Alma, I learned that lesson to a charm. We stood up for forty-two hours under a fierce fire of grape and canister, to say nothing of musketry.”

“Forty-two hours!” exclaimed Somers. “I should think you would all have been killed off before that time.”

“In our regiment, only one man was killed; and 55 he got asleep, and walked in his dreams over towards the enemy’s line.”

“Captain, you can tell a bigger story than any other man in the army,” said Somers, laughing.

“That’s because I have seen more of the world. When you have been about as much as I have, you will know more about it.”

“No doubt of it.”

“I should be very happy to be more actively employed just now; but I am very well contented where I am.”

The position they occupied enabled the two officers to see some sharp fighting along the line. Through an opening at the right, they saw a rebel regiment, wearing white jackets, or else stripped to their s