The feeling he expressed
was shared by all. Never before could I realize the full value of
liberty, and the horror of confinement. Even in the prisons where we
had hitherto been, the novelty of our situation, the frequency of our
removals, and the bustle and excitement of the trial, prevented the
blank monotony of imprisonment from settling down on us as it did
here, when the first few weeks had rolled by, and no intimations of
our fate reached us. It was like the stillness and the death that
brood over the Dead Sea.

We would sit at the windows, in the sultry noon, and look out through
the bars, at the free birds as they flew past, seemingly so merry and
full of joyous life, and foolishly wish that we, too, were birds, that
we might fly away, and be at peace.

At long intervals, two of us would be permitted to go down into the
yard, to do our washing. One day it came my turn; it was then three
months since I had stepped out of my room, and the unobscured vision
of open air and sky made it seem like another world. I remember
looking up at the snowy clouds, my eyes almost dazzled by the unusual
light, and wondering, as I gazed on their beautiful and changing
forms, whether beyond them lay a world of rest, in which were neither
wars nor prisons. And with the thought came the fear that if I was
once more permitted to mingle as a free man, away from the immediate
pressure of danger, with the busy throng of life, I would forget my
prison-made vows, and thus lose my claim to a world of never-fading
light. Such a sense of weakness and helplessness came over me, that it
was with a feeling almost of relief that I returned once more to my
dark and narrow room, where the contrast between freedom and bondage
was less palpably forced on my view.

All this time we hardly permitted ourselves to indulge a hope of ever
getting home again. The friends we once knew in happier days, seemed
separated from us by an impassable gulf; and when our minds would call
up before us the scenes and loved ones of home, it was like treading
on forbidden ground. But when the miseries of the day were passed, and
we were wrapped in that sweet slumber that ever visits the weary alike
in prison and palace, there was no longer any restraint, and we were
once more at home--once more in the enjoyment of love and freedom.

Often have I seen in dreams the streets and buildings of my own town
rise before me, and have felt a thrilling pleasure in contemplating