In this room, seated on the ground, or leaning idly against the walls, were about a dozen poor fellows who the Judge told me were hostages, held for a similar number under sentence of death by our Government. Their dejected, homesick look, and weary, listless manner disclosed some of the horrors of imprisonment.
"Let us go," I said to the Colonel; "I have had enough of this."
"No,—you must see the up-stairs," said Turner. "It a'n't so gloomy up there."
It was not so gloomy, for some little sunlight did come in through the dingy windows; but the few prisoners in the upper rooms wore the same sad, disconsolate look as those in the lower story.
"It is not hard fare, or close quarters, that kills men," said Judge Ould to me; "it is homesickness; and the strongest and the bravest succumb to it first."
In the sill of an attic-window I found a Minié-ball. Prying it out with my knife, and holding it up to Turner, I said,—
"So ye keeps this room fur a shootin'-gallery, does ye?"
"Yes," he replied, laughing. "The boys practise once in a while on the Yankees. You see, the rules forbid their coming within three feet of the windows. Sometimes they do, and then the boys take a pop at them."
"And sometimes hit 'em? Hit many on 'em?"
"Yes, a heap."