CHAPTER XIX.✦

THE RUNAWAY PLOT.

New Year’s thoughts and meditations--Again hired by Freeland-- Kindness no compensation for slavery--Incipient steps toward escape--Considerations leading thereto--Hostility to slavery-- Solemn vow taken--Plan divulged to slaves--Columbian Orator again--Scheme gains favor--Danger of discovery--Skill of slaveholders--Suspicion and coercion--Hymns with double meaning--Consultation--Password--Hope and fear--Ignorance of Geography--Imaginary difficulties--Patrick Henry--Sandy a dreamer--Route to the north mapped out--Objections--Frauds-- Passes--Anxieties--Fear of failure--Strange presentiment-- Coincidence--Betrayal--Arrests--Resistance--Mrs. Freeland-- Prison--Brutal jests--Passes eaten--Denial--Sandy--Dragged behind horses--Slave traders--Alone in prison--Sent to Baltimore 174

CHAPTER XX.✦

APPRENTICESHIP LIFE.

Nothing lost in my attempt to run away--Comrades at home--Reasons for sending me away--Return to Baltimore--Tommy changed-- Caulking in Gardiner’s ship yard--Desperate fight--Its causes-- Conflict between white and black labor--Outrage--Testimony-- Master Hugh--Slavery in Baltimore--My condition improves--New associations--Slaveholder’s right to the slave’s wages--How to make a discontented slave 200

CHAPTER XXI.✦

ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY.

Closing incidents in my “Life as a Slave”--Discontent-- Suspicions--Master’s generosity--Difficulties in the way of escape--Plan to obtain money--Allowed to hire my time--A gleam of hope--Attend camp-meeting--Anger of Master Hugh--The result--Plans of escape--Day for departure fixed--Harassing doubts and fears--Painful thoughts of separation from friends 212

SECOND PART.