effect to increase his tranquillity. His dejection in the past months
had been that of a strong man who yields to necessity; his present mood
was not inspired with hope. The waves that leaped in the morning's
gloomy light were not so aimless as his life seemed to him. He had
heard a bird sing in the branches of a tree whose roots were in the
prison-yard,--now he could see her nest; he had heard the dismal
pattering of the rain,--and now beheld it, and the clouds from which it
fell; he saw the glimpses of the blue beyond, where the clouds were
breaking; he saw the fort, the cannon mounted on the walls, the flag
that fluttered from the tower, the barracks, the parade-ground, and the
surrounding sea, whose boundaries he knew not; he saw the trees, he saw
the garden-ground. Slowly his eyes scanned all,--and the soul that was
lodged in the emaciated figure grew faint and sick with seeing. But no
tears, no sighs, no indications of grief or despair or desperate
submission. He had little to learn of suffering;--that he knew. How
could he greet the day, hail the light, bless Nature for her beauty,
thank God for his life? Oh, the weariness with which he leaned his head
against those window-bars, faint and almost dying under the weight of
thoughts that rushed upon him, fierce enough to slay, if he showed any
resistance! But he manifested none. The day of struggle was over with
him. He believed that they had brought him to this room to die. If any
thought could give him joy, surely it was this. He was right. Yesterday
the Governor of the island, hearing the condition of the prisoner, this
one remaining man of all whose sentence had been endured within these
walls, had ordered a change of scene for him. His sentence was
imprisonment for life. Did they fear his release by the hands of one
who hears the sighing of the prisoner, and gives to every bondman the
Year of Jubilee? Were they jealous and suspicious of the approach of
Death?