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It is impossible to give any adequate picture of the days which immediately followed. The horror of them is still upon me as I write. There are dangers which call out the best in man, which arouse all his faculties to face and overcome them; there are others that paralyze the arm and numb the brain and stupefy the soul. The danger before us was of this latter class. For an hour after I entered that room and learned the situation I sat dazed and stolid, and my men were in no better condition. We were hopeless.
It is said you can become accustomed to anything. Possibly that is why my companions at length began to stir and speak. It was their reproaches that aroused me. "Why had we not fought the enemy on the deck of the _Martha_, and ended our lives there, instead of foolishly surrendering her, and dying here in this foul pen? " they were saying. They did not hesitate to throw the blame on me. Stung to the quick, I sprang to my feet. I threw off the lethargy I was in, and I said resolutely: