Ay--ay; the culprit convicted, when he hears in open court, with an impudent assurance, the punishment that awaits him on those penal shores, little knows the terrors of that sentence.

Months and years--yea, haply to gray hairs and death, slavery unmitigated--uncomforted; toil and pain; toil and sorrow; toil, and nothing to cheer; even to the end, vain tasked toil.

Old hopes, old recollections, old feelings, violently torn up by the roots.
No familiar face in sickness, no patient nurse beside the dying bed: no hope for earth, and no prospect of heaven: but, in its varying phases, one gloomy glaring orb of ever-present hell.
It grew intolerable--intolerable; he was beaten, mocked, and almost a maniac.

Escape--escape! Oh, blessed thought! into the wild free woods! there, with the birds and flowers, hill and dale, fresh air and liberty! Oh, glad hope--mad hope! His habitual cunning came to his aid; he schemed, he contrived, he accomplished.

The jutting heads of the rivets having been diligently rubbed away from his galling fetter by a big stone--a toil of weeks--he one day stood unshackled, having watched his time to be alone.