He was
profoundly disquieted, but for another reason than
the uncanny silence of that moonlight march.
'Good Lord! ' he said to himself--and again it
was as if another had spoken his thought--'if those
people are what I take them to be we have lost the
battle and they are moving on Nashville!'
Then came a thought of self--an apprehension
--a strong sense of personal peril, such as in an-
other we call fear. He stepped quickly into the
shadow of a tree. And still the silent battalions
moved slowly forward in the haze.
The chill of a sudden breeze upon the back of
his neck drew his attention to the quarter whence
it came, and turning to the east he saw a faint grey
light along the horizon--the first sign of return-
ing day. This increased his apprehension.
'I must get away from here,' he thought, 'or I
shall be discovered and taken.'
He moved out of the shadow, walking rapidly
toward the greying east. From the safer seclusion of
a clump of cedars he looked back. The entire column
had passed out of sight: the straight white road lay
bare and desolate in the moonlight!
Puzzled before, he was now inexpressibly aston-
ished. So swift a passing of so slow an army!--he
could not comprehend it. Minute after minute
passed unnoted; he had lost his sense of time. He
sought with a terrible earnestness a solution of the
mystery, but sought in vain. When at last he roused
himself from his abstraction the sun's rim was visi-
ble above the hills, but in the new conditions he
found no other light than that of day; his under-
standing was involved as darkly in doubt as before.
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