The huge circumference of the War Prison stretched beneath them, protected from the West under North Hisworthy Tor; the limbo, at once famous and infamous, lay here in summer sunshine; and never had Time thrown up a mushroom ring more grim, more grey, upon earth's lovely face. In the midst of wild hills and stone-crowned heights, skirted by the waters of a stream, separated from mankind by miles of scattered granite and black bog, the War Prison appeared. Late July ruled the land and brushed the hills with green; the light of the ling was just dawning, and all life rejoiced; but the solemn features of these stony mountains, fold upon fold and range upon range, take no softness to the stranger's eye at any season, and none who has not trodden it in freedom can love its austere face, or understand its chastened glory. Purple cloud-shadows drifted over the prison, and revealed the details of Alexander's sinister masterpiece. Previously they had been hidden by a great dazzle of sunlight. Some thirty acres were enclosed by two walls, one within the other. The outer circle stood sixteen feet high; and separated from it by a broad military parade, extended the second wall, hung with bells on wires, and having sentry-boxes upon it at regular intervals, to overlook each prison yard. The main area of the gaol was of rounded shape, and contained five enormous rectangular masses of masonry radiating from the centre, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. At one side a segment was cut out of the circle, and this contained the Governor's offices, the turnkey's place, and other official buildings, together with an open space into which the country people were admitted for their daily traffic with the prisoners. Fuel, vegetables, poultry, butter, and other articles were bought and sold in this market, and upon its completion the gangs returned to their own divisions of the gaol. Each of the five main buildings mentioned was constructed to hold fifteen hundred men; all had two floors, and in the roof of every one was an additional great chamber used as a promenade at times of unusually inclement weather. Each block possessed its own wide exercise yard and shelter from snow or rain, its proper supply of sweet water always running, and its _cachot_, or prison within a prison, for punishment of the refractory and disobedient. A hospital and accommodation for petty officers included the edifices within the walls, while a quarter of a mile distant were barracks for four hundred troops, and various other buildings not all connected with the establishment of the prison. Of these the more conspicuous were a ruined cottage on the slope north-eastward of the outer wall, two new taverns, about which the soldiers swarmed like red ants; bakehouses, slaughter-houses, and private habitations that rapidly grew into a little street. The prisoners themselves were scattered by the thousand over their exercise yards, with red-coats stationed upon the inner wall around