“Come, get out of this, you lazy Yankees! You’ve got to go to Richmond—where you’ve been trying to get for the last three or four years, you know.” The half suffocated prisoners were only glad to get out into the open air. And though ready to sink with heat, fasting and weariness, they issued forth. Many of them dropped down upon the ground to rest and stretch their stiff and wearied limbs, and wait for the breakfast which they hoped was coming. But there was no such good luck in store for them. They were ordered to rise and fall in line; and when, by reason of their stiffness and soreness, they were slow to move, they were poked and goaded up at the point of the bayonet. Some of the younger men—mere boys, who in their comfortable Northern or Western homes, had been used to warm and plentiful meals, and even during their campaigns with the army had been provided with regular and excellent rations—could not get used to living without food and drink. So they complained of hunger and asked for breakfast. “‘Breakfast!’” was the laughing and probably the truthful rejoinder—“‘breakfast,’ is it? Why we haven’t any for ourselves, how can we give it to you? But cheer up, Yanks! we shall get something to eat on the road, I dare say, if it’s nothing better than raw potatoes or unripe corn.” The prisoners were immediately formed in line, guarded on either side by a strong detachment of rebel infantry, and put _en route_ for Richmond by one of the plank roads still covered by Lee’s army. Britomarte, consumed by anxiety for the fate of Justin, ventured to ask an officer of the guard who was marching near her, whether he was still in the field hospital, and what was his state. She spoke in a gentle and winning tone of voice, and the officer addressed happened to be a gentleman. “‘Colonel Rosenthal?’” he replied. “He is in the ambulance ahead of us, with several other Yankee officers who are slightly wounded, but unable to walk.” “Is his wound a slight one?” “I presume it is not a dangerous one, or he would have been left upon the field. We can have no object in capturing an officer who is likely to die before he can be exchanged.” And here the officer, feeling perhaps that his courtesy had gone far enough in talking to a prisoner, fell back a little out of earshot. Britomarte felt comforted in the knowledge that Justin’s wound was not dangerous, and that he was on the same road with herself, and would probably be assigned to the same ward of the same prison with herself.