addition to the physical pain I
endured, I was a prey to the most acute mental agony. I could feel that
my originally strong constitution was being gradually undermined, and
that the poison of disease which would never be eradicated from my
system was, through ignorance or negligence, slowly and surely
increasing within me. And then the possibility of losing my limb
altogether was a thought which now and again forced itself upon me and
made the warm blood curdle in my veins. All this time I knew, and the
knowledge gave additional poignancy to my sufferings, that with care
and proper surgical treatment I could easily have been cured; but I
dared not open my mouth in the way of suggestion or complaint, I had
already been taught, by bitter experience, the folly of that. Through
all the hours of my imprisonment I had learnt to look forward through
the darkness of my nearer future to the day of my liberation as to a
bright unsetting star. Its clear white ray pierced the clouds which
hung dark and heavy over me, and shed light and hope within me, for it
told me that behind these clouds there was a light, and a day which
would yet dawn upon me, wherein I could work and redeem the past! But
now the strong bright spirit of hope appeared to have forsaken me. As I
lay upon my bed and gazed out of the window, watching the birds dart
hither and thither in a clear blue sky, thoughts of the time when I
should be free as they arose in my mind, but failed to cheer my
desponding heart. Through the silent hours of night I have watched,
from my bed of pain, the myriad stars shining in the midnight sky,
glancing glory from far-off worlds, but I sought in vain among that
radiant silent throng for mine. And I would think of the day when
diseased and a cripple I should be cast out into the world alone, with
the brand of the convict, like the mark of Cain, upon my brow, without
friends, without sympathy, without hope, useless, purposeless, to eat
the bread of charity, and die a beggar in the streets, with only these
cold bright eyes above to witness at the last. Can it be wondered at,
if under the influence of these feelings I began to repine against that
Providence which had so roughly shaped my life, and to think with
bitterness of the imperfection of all merely human justice? I had met
with men whose whole life had been spent in constant warfare against
society, and who had no other intention on regaining their liberty than
to continue the st