But as the summer days glided into September, and the heat grew more and more intense, until at last September, too, was gone, and the Virginia woods were blazing in the light of the October sun, and still there was no token of relief, oh! who, save those who have felt it, can tell of the loneliness, the dreary despair, which crept into the captive’s soul, driving out all hope, and making life as it existed in those walls a burden, which would be gladly shaken off. How Isaac paled and drooped as the weary hours stole on; how he loathed the sickening food; and how at night he shuddered with horror, and shrank away from the vermin-covered floor, his only pillow unless he substituted the coat, now scarcely less filthy than its surroundings! As Tom wrote to the New Hampshire woman, Mrs. Simms would scarcely have recognized her son in the haggard, emaciated boy, who, on one October afternoon, sat crouching in his corner, grasping the little Testament given by the Rockland ladies, and repeating its precious truths to the poor, sick, worn-out youth, whose head lay on his lap, and whose eyes, blistered with homesick tears, were fastened with a kind of hungry wistfulness upon the girlish face above him, the face of Isaac Simms, pointing the dying soldier to the only source of life. It was thus Tom Carleton found him, Tom, just released from the hospital, and transferred to the first floor of that dark prison. With Tom it had fared better, for Yankee-like in his precautions, he had gone into the battle with a quantity of _gold_ fastened securely around his person, and gold has a mighty power to unlock the hardest heart. As a commissioned officer, and a man of wealth and rank, many privileges were accorded to him which were denied the common soldiers, and his first act after entering the tobacco house was to seek out his late companion and ask after his welfare. He did not know him at first, though directed to that locality as the one where the “_Preacher_” would probably be found. He could not think he had ever seen either of these famished, miserable looking creatures, but touched by the impressive scene, he stood a moment listening, while Isaac read, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me.” “Yes, but how shall I go to Him? Where is He?” the sick boy asked, and bending lower, Isaac answered: “He’s here. He’s standing close by you. He hears all I say. He knows you want him, and he will not cast you off, for he has said he wouldn’t. Only believe, and take him at his word, that’s all.” There was an evident lifting up of both souls to God, and Tom felt that even in that horrid place, there were angels dwelling. He knew now that one was Isaac, and the great tears rolled down his cheeks as he saw the fearful change wrought in little more than two short months. “Isaac,” he said, softly, “Isaac, my boy, don’t you know me?”