Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/15

Rh Libby Prison! Almost all those who came out alive from that hell of tortures, did so because other men had freely spent their lives for them.

All Karl's fellow prisoners loved him. His fair face, beautiful blue eyes, and golden-brown hair, his broken English, and his pathetic patience, appealed to every heart. Every man saved the soft part of his bread for him; and on this, with occasionally a few drops of wine, he lived—that is, he did not die; but he did not gain; the wound did not heal, and each day his strength grew less and less, long after it had seemed that he could not be weaker and live. But hope never forsook him. The four-leaved clover, folded in a bit of paper, was hid in the lining of his cap. Sometimes he took it out, showed it to the prisoners, and told them the story.

"It has brought to me such bad luck, you see; but I think it shall bring one luck better; it is a true sign; there is time yet."

The men shrugged their shoulders. They thought Karl a little weakened in intellect by his sufferings; but they did not contradict him.

Three months later Karl was again lying on the ground at midnight, alone, helpless. An exchange of prisoners had been arranged, and he, with most of his friends, had been carried to City Point. They arrived there at five in the afternoon. The sun was still high and hot, and Karl being one of the feeblest of the prisoners was laid behind an old hogshead, for shade. Boat load after boat