IT WAS NIGHT; SILENCE AND GLOOM HAD SETTLED DOWN ON THE INMATES. By a refinement of cruelty we had been separated and sent to prison wide apart; for twenty years I had not seen the face of one of my friends. But there was an invisible bond between us that no tyranny could break. How blessed the happy forethought that made us, in that dark hour, amid our despair, make that promise! Ten years had slowly dragged by, 1883 came, and my devoted family felt that I, and my comrades, too, had paid, as was right, our due to justice, and we ought to be liberated. They determined that it would not be their fault if I remained in captivity. So that year my sister came to England and remained permanently there. She worked bravely and well, but year after year passed without result. None of us was prepared for the vindictive fury of the Bank of England--its power was all-potent with the Government. George had been bedridden for years, and was slowly dying. At length, in 1887, the medical officer of the prison certified his speedy death was certain, and the Government released him to die; but he resolved that he would not die until we were free. With liberty and hope health came slowly back, and he devoted every hour to working for our liberation; but for a time devoted in vain. More than once had I seen the prison emptied and filled again. Of all the life prisoners I had met there on my arrival, or who for years after had joined me, I was the sole survivor. One by one sickness or insanity, born of despair, had laid them in the prison graveyard or buried them in the asylum. Out of more than seventy life prisoners none had lived to be liberated, and determined appeared the Bank of England directors that I should not form an exception; but that if ever the prison doors were opened to me it should be only when so near death that I might join the many who had gone before. My fate seemed inevitable, but never for a moment did I cease to believe that Fortune's frowns would one day disappear and that I should yet again feel the warmth and sunshine of her smile. From his sick bed, and in his health, our comrade never ceased his efforts. He succeeded in interesting James Russell Lowell and many others in my behalf. The President asked the English Government officially to grant my release. Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State, sent a very strong letter through Minister Lincoln in London, and I thought when told of it that my day to go was not far away.