Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/544

536 in an upper room of the prison. Through its grated window, the only one on that side of the building, he had that morning for the first time looked upon the island which had held him long a prisoner.

Since daybreak he had stood before the window. The evening before, the stone had been rolled away from the door of his sepulchre,—not by an angel, neither by force of the resistless Life-spirit within, shall it be said? Who knows that it was not by an angel? who shall aver it was not by the resistless Life? At least, he was here,—brought from the cell he had occupied these five years,—brought from the arms of Death. His window below had looked on a dead stone-wall; this break in the massive masonry gave heaven and earth to him.

The first ray of daylight saw him dragging his feeble body to the window. He did not remove from that post till the rain was over,—nor then, except for a moment. As the clouds rose from the sea, he watched them. How strange was the aspect of all things! Thus, while he had lived and not beheld, these trees had waved, these waters rolled, these clouds gathered,—grass had grown, and flowers unfolded; for he saw the scarlet bloom before Elizabeth plucked it. And all this while he had lived like a dead man, unaware! Not so; but now he remembered not the days, when, conscious of all this life, he had deathly despair in his heart, and stones alone for friends.

Imprisonment and solitude had told upon the man. He was still young, and one whom Nature and culture had fitted for no obscure station in the world. He could, by every evidence he gave, perform no mere commonplaces of virtue or of vice. The world's ways would not assign his limitation. He was capable of devising and of executing great things,—and had proved the power; and to this his presence testified, even in dilapidation and listlessness.

His repose was the repose of helplessness,—not that of grace or nature. The opening of this prospect with the daylight had not the effect to increase his tranquillity. His dejection in the past months had been that of a strong man who yields to necessity; his present mood was not inspired with hope. The waves that leaped in the morning's gloomy light were not so aimless as his life seemed to him. He had heard a bird sing in the branches of a tree whose roots were in the prison-yard,—now he could see her nest; he had heard the dismal pattering of the rain,—and now beheld it, and the clouds from which it fell; he saw the glimpses of the blue beyond, where the clouds were breaking; he saw the fort, the cannon mounted on the walls, the flag that fluttered from the tower, the barracks, the parade-ground, and the surrounding sea, whose boundaries he knew not; he saw the trees, he saw the garden-ground. Slowly his eyes scanned all,—and the soul that was lodged in the emaciated figure grew faint and sick with seeing. But no tears, no sighs, no indications of grief or despair or desperate submission. He had little to learn of suffering;—that he knew. How could he greet the day, hail the light, bless Nature for her beauty, thank God for his life? Oh, the weariness with which he leaned his head against those window-bars, faint and almost dying under the weight of thoughts that rushed upon him, fierce enough to slay, if he showed any resistance! But he manifested none. The day of struggle was over with him. He believed that they had brought him to this room to die. If any thought could give him joy, surely it was this. He was right. Yesterday the Governor of the island, hearing the condition of the prisoner, this one remaining man of all whose sentence had been endured within these walls, had ordered a change of scene for him. His sentence was imprisonment for life. Did they fear his release by the hands of one who hears the sighing of the prisoner, and gives to every bondman the Year of Jubilee? Were they jealous and suspicious of the approach of Death?

Though he had been so long a prisoner, he showed in his person self-respect and