CHAPTER LXVIII.

FIRST DAYS AT FLORENCE--INTRODUCTION TO LIEUTENANT BARRETT, THE
RED-HEADED KEEPER--A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF OUR NEW QUARTERS--WINDERS MALIGN
INFLUENCE MANIFEST.

It did not require a very acute comprehension to understand that the
Stockade at which we were gazing was likely to be our abiding place for
some indefinite period in the future.

As usual, this discovery was the death-warrant of many whose lives had
only been prolonged by the hoping against hope that the movement would
terminate inside our lines. When the portentous palisades showed to a
fatal certainty that the word of promise had been broken to their hearts,
they gave up the struggle wearily, lay back on the frozen ground, and
died.

Andrews and I were not in the humor for dying just then. The long
imprisonment, the privations of hunger, the scourging by the elements,
the death of four out of every five of our number had indeed dulled and
stupefied us--bred an indifference to our own suffering and a seeming
callosity to that of others, but there still burned in our hearts, and in
the hearts of every one about us, a dull, sullen, smoldering fire of hate
and defiance toward everything Rebel, and a lust for revenge upon those
who had showered woes upon our heads. There was little fear of death;
even the King of Terrors loses most of his awful character upon tolerably
close acquaintance, and we had been on very intimate terms with him for a
year now. He was a constant visitor, who dropped in upon us at all hours
of the day and night, and would not be denied to any one.