Here were agonizing groans and heart-rending prayers; heavy complainings and bitter upbraidings; deeply breathed maledictions and fiercely muttered vows of vengeance. The rays of a gas lamp at the corner of the street, streaming through the grating, lighted up the ghastly faces of these prisoners with a wild and lurid glare. They looked like the inhabitants of Tartarus. The place seemed at once a purgatory and a pandemonium. Britomarte—for the first time in all her military career—shuddered with horror. “Keep near the grating, my dearest, with your face to the bars, so that you may get as much fresh air as possible,” whispered a faint voice close to her ear. She turned quickly and saw the face of her lover, pallid in the lamp-light. “Justin! You here! You in this hall of horrors! Oh, I am so sorry!” she exclaimed, in a low and anxious tone. “And I am so glad! And I thought you would be glad to have me near you,” he cheerfully replied. “Not here—not in this torture chamber. Oh, Justin! weak and wounded, how will you bear it?” “Much better than I could bear separation from you, Britomarte,” he earnestly answered. “Your wound, Justin, how is it? painful?” “Not more so than I can well endure,” he answered, smiling. But to her wistful gaze, his white lips and wrung brow almost belied his words. “They might have sent you to a hospital, at least. It was inhuman to place you here,” she said. “But, my dearest, they placed me just where I wished to be,” he cheerfully said. And this was true, so true, that he had feigned a greater strength and a quicker convalescence than he really enjoyed, in order to be sent to the Libby. “But how was it that I didn’t see you outside?” she inquired. “Because it was late when I was brought up. I was one of the last to be packed in,” he laughed. “‘Packed in.’ Yes, that is what it is. We are lucky to be near the grating; but how will the poor creatures in the middle of the crowd stand it?” “They will not be required to do so long. This is only a temporary arrangement. I am given to understand that to-morrow morning we, the newly arrived, will be sent to Belle Isle. This will relieve the others.” While Justin and Britomarte talked together in this low tone, Babel, or rather Bedlam, was all around them. The groans rose to howls, complaints to threats, and prayers to shrieks. One voice from the midst of the crowd arose above all the rest: “Water, boys—for the Lord’s sake, water! Here’s a man fainting. The spout is in the left hand corner near the front grating. Draw the water and pass it on here, will you?” There was a muffled shuffling among the men nearest the water spout, and then another voice replied: “The cup is chained to the spout. We can’t pass it.” Groans and curses answered this. “Here, Justin—here is the flask of brandy, with the cup fitted to it, that I brought for you on the field. Offer it to them, Justin,” said Britomarte, passing the flask that the Rebels had not taken from her.