The Rebels took delight in deluding the prisoners with false hopes,--telling them that they were soon to be exchanged and sent home; but instead of release, the dead-cart went its daily rounds, bearing its ghastly burden. That was their exchange, and they looked upon the shallow trenches as the only home which they would ever reach. Hope died out and despair set in. Some prisoners lost their reason, and became raving maniacs, while others became only gibbering idiots. Some who still retained their reason, who all their lives had believed that the Almighty is a God of justice and truth, began to doubt if there be a God. Although they had cried and begged for deliverance, there was no answer to their prayers. Paul felt that his own faith was wavering; but he could not let go of the instructions he had received from his mother. In the darkest hour, when he was most sorely tempted to break out into cursing, he was comforted and reassured by Uncle Peter, an old gray-headed negro, who had been a slave all his life. Peter had been whipped, kicked, and cuffed many times by his hard-hearted, wicked master, not because he was unfaithful, but because he loved to pray, and shout, and sing. Through the long night, sitting by his pitch-knot fire in his cabin, Uncle Peter had sung the songs which lifted him in spirit almost up to heaven, whither his wife and children had gone, after cruel whippings and scourgings by their master. It was so sweet to think of her as having passed over the river of Jordan into the blessed land, that he could not refrain from shouting: "O my Mary is sitting on the tree of life, To see the Jordan roll; O, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll! I will march the angel march,-- I will march the angel march. O my soul is rising heavenward, To see where the Jordan rolls." He had given food and shelter to some of the prisoners who escaped from the horrible place, and had piloted them through the woods, and for this was arrested and thrown into the prison. Uncle Peter took a great liking to Paul, and, when Paul was down-hearted, cheered him by saying: "Never you give up. Don't let go of de hand of de good Lord. It is mighty hard to bear such treatment, but we colored people have borne it all our lives. But 'pears like my heart would break when I think of my children sold down Souf." Uncle Peter wiped his eyes with his tattered coat-sleeve, and added: "But de Lord is coming to judge de earth with righteousness, and den I reckon de Rebs will catch it."