It was the ever memorable second of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-five. Up to this day, the great Confederate capital had continued confident in its own fancied security, and even now it was as utterly unconscious of its fast approaching capture, as was the solitary prisoner in Castle Thunder of her quickly coming deliverance.
It was Sunday, and the sweet Sabbath peace reigned over the city.
Britomarte sat at the grated window of her cell, as she had sat—how many heavy days and sleepless nights! She was almost as fleshless as a skeleton, as bloodless as a corpse, and as hopeless as a lost spirit. She had been listening to the solemn Sabbath bells calling the citizens to their afternoon worship; she had been watching these citizens, both male and female, young and old, troop past, in their quaint, faded, and old-fashioned apparel, that the severity of the blockade compelled them still to wear, and she had been wondering wearily at the strange self-delusion and inconsistency which permitted these people to collect and pray like Christians in their churches, and to muster and make war like heathen upon their brethren.
But now the bells had ceased to ring, the churches were filled, and the streets were empty. Her head dropped upon her hand, and she sat in dull despair, while the hours crept slowly by, and the sun sank slowly to his setting.
Then the cry of her heart went up:
“‘How long, O Lord, how long?’”
Not long now, oh pale prisoner! “The day of the Lord is at hand, at hand.” The sun has set for the last time upon the Rebel capital. To-morrow it will rise upon a redeemed city.
Even now Lee’s army is in full retreat. And those Sabbath bells you late heard ringing summoned, among others, one worshipper to church, who ere he left his pew again, received a telegram announcing, in effect, that his reign was over and his city about to be taken.
Even now the trains of cars at the station of the Richmond and Danville Railroad are seized for the use of the Confederate President and his retinue, who are about to fly from the falling capital. Breckenridge and his army have received orders to evacuate Richmond by midnight; but he has resolved to leave behind him a tremendous token of vengeance by destroying the city that they could not hold. There is an ever-increasing noise and confusion throughout the city, though as yet the people are kept in ignorance and do not know what all the excitement is about.
Britomarte, sitting at the grated window of her prison cell, and seeing the crowds hurry through the streets, thought at first that they were the congregations dismissed from the several churches.