"
"And many times since," said Elsie, smiling sweetly into the tear-swollen
eyes of her faithful old nurse, and not only submitting to, but returning
the embrace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.
"And faint not, heart of man! though years wane slow!
There have been those that from the deepest caves,
And cells of night and fastnesses below
The stormy dashing of the ocean waves,
Down, farther down than gold lies hid, have nurs'd
A quenchless hope, and watch'd their time and burst
On the bright day like wakeners from the grave."
--MRS. HEMANS
Noon of a sultry July day, 1864; the scorching sun looks down upon a pine
forest; in its midst a cleared space some thirty acres in extent,
surrounded by a log stockade ten feet high, the timbers set three feet
deep into the ground; a star fort, with one gun at each corner of the
square enclosure; on top of the stockade sentinel boxes placed twenty feet
apart, reached by steps from the outside; in each of these a vigilant
guard with loaded musket, constantly on the watch for the slightest
pretext for shooting down some one or more of the prisoners, of whom there
are from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand.
All along the inner side of the wall, six feet from it, stretches a dead
line; and any poor fellow thoughtlessly or accidentally laying a hand upon
it, or allowing any part of his body to reach under or over it, will be
instantly shot.
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