sence.

One hot, stifling day in July there was considerable commotion in the
prison, and Allen knew that something more than the ordinary had caused
the excitement.

How anxiously he waited to hear the news!

How tedious the hours passed before the change of guards gave the
desired few minutes for conversation.

At last the hour came!

"The Declaration of Independence has been signed!"

"You do not mean it? The rebels would never dare!"

"But they have dared. They say that a new nation has been born. Ha,
ha, ha! He, he, he! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Will all the prisoners have to be shot now?"

"No, they will be hanged, same as before. England has not recognized
the new nation; but England has hired a lot of Hessians----"

"What are they?"

"Don't you know? They come from some place in Europe; their king sells
or leases them out to fight."

"And they must fight whether they like it or not?"

"Oh, they like fighting; they are trained to fight. It is the only
thing they can do, and they do it well. You see, they do it all the
better because they can't talk English, so they kill all who do----"

"Then they may kill us."

"No, I do not mean that, but they kill all they are told to kill."

A warden entered the long corridor and called out the name of Ethan
Allen.

Allen stepped from his cell and submitted to his arms and legs being
heavily ironed.

He was then marched through the city to the Battery, where he was
placed on board a war ship, with other prisoners, and taken to Halifax.

For nearly two years he suffered the most horrible tortures in prisons
and prison ships. He seemed to have been forgotten.

For weeks at a time he was absolutely silent, no one being allowed to
speak to him, and silence was strictly enforced among the prisoners.

Once Allen got a little paper and a pencil, and a friendly jailer
promised to have the letter sent to its destination.

Allen addressed it to his brother at Bennington, in the Green
Mountains, and it duly reached its destination, but the brother was
away with the patriot army, the letter was kept, however, and read over
and over again by the old friends of the hero of Ticonderoga.

In that letter he says:

"I have seen American patriot prisoners begging for food and being
laughed at for their request. They have bitten pieces of wood to get
little chips to eat and so satisfy their hunger. I was imprisoned for
a time in a church, watched over by Hessians