On that terrible day of execution, we threw away our cards, which before had been played almost day and night, and resolved to engage no more in that game. But the necessity of doing something prompted us to search for new pastimes. We carved a checker-board on the floor, and it was occupied from morning till evening by eager players. We all became very expert in checkers. To provide a more intellectual amusement, we also formed a debating society, and spent hour after hour in discussing quaint questions of every kind. Many were the long-winded speeches that were made, for time was no object; and if no one was convinced of a new position, we still had the consolation of knowing that there was no lost labor, where the labor itself was a pleasure. In order to enjoy to the fullest extent the books we had so fortunately procured, we appointed regular reading hours--two in the forenoon, and the same in the afternoon. During this time, no one was allowed even to whisper. Some of our boys were a little wild and restless at times, and would break the rules; but generally our order was excellent. We gained much useful knowledge during these hours of intellectual employment in our novel school. But all our efforts to pleasantly while away those terribly long summer days were in vain. The tediousness, and oppressiveness, and vain longing for action, would press down on us closer and closer. Brown, who was one of the most restless of mortals, would amuse himself, as long as he could endure it, at the pastimes we had devised, then suddenly cease playing, and commence pacing the floor like a caged bear; when this, too, grew unendurable, he would stop at the door, and say, in the most piteous tones (of course meant only for us to hear) "O! kind sir, please let me out!" The feeling he expressed was shared by all. Never before could I realize the full value of liberty, and the horror of confinement. Even in the prisons where we had hitherto been, the novelty of our situation, the frequency of our removals, and the bustle and excitement of the trial, prevented the blank monotony of imprisonment from settling down on us as it did here, when the first few weeks had rolled by, and no intimations of our fate reached us. It was like the stillness and the death that brood over the Dead Sea. We would sit at the windows, in the sultry noon, and look out through the bars, at the free birds as they flew past, seemingly so merry and full of joyous life, and foolishly wish that we, too, were birds, that we might fly away, and be at peace.