From the window I could hear the guards, all night long, talking over their adventures. Generally they praised their own bravery liberally, but occasionally some one who had arrived later would suggest that it was not much to their credit to let unarmed men snatch their guns from them; but such suggestions were not kindly received, and the work of self-glorification went on. One of them expressed astonishment at the speed of the Yankees, who had been so long kept in jail; another accounted for it by the abundant practice in running Yankee soldiers had received in battle! All night long I lay in a hammock which one of the regular soldiers had swung by the window, but now kindly resigned to me, and listened to the boastful conversation below. "Sadly I thought of the morrow." There was little reason to doubt that full vengeance would be dealt to each man who remained in the enemy's power. The news we had received, and which we had agreed in crediting, was the end of all hope. Death, which had stared us in the face so often, could not be far distant now. Another escape would scarcely be left by the aroused vigilance of the enemy within the realms of possibility. And such a death! No vision of glory to dazzle the sight, and hide the grim monster from view, or wreathe him in flowers. No eye of friends to behold the last struggle. No sympathy,--nothing but ignominy and an impenetrable darkness, beyond which no loving eye might ever pierce! But even as the cold horror of the scaffold, and the vision of the heartless, jeering crowd rose freshly before me, I looked out in the clear night, and up to the shining stars, and remembered that I had one Friend,--a Friend who would not fear to stand with me on the scaffold, and who had Himself tasted the bitterness of a public execution. Was it for me he had died,--to show me that no outward shame is too great to be borne by the true heart? With the thought came a still and heavenly peace, while my hope, finding no place on this side, overleaped the darkness of death and dwelt upon the scenes of promised happiness beyond. It is in such hours that the value and supporting power of religion is fully realized.