Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/160

158 to his mother and her family, That people had been scouring the woods all night, and all the morning, without being able to find the young lady.

When intelligence of this horrid crime was brought to the house of my master, Hardy was the first to receive it; he having gone to take the horse of the person — a young gentleman of the neighborhood — who bore it, and who immediately returned to join his friends in their search for the dead body.

As soon as the messenger was gone, Hardy had come to my master, and told him that if he would prevent me from murdering him, he would disclose the perpetrator of the crime. He was then ordered to communicate all he knew on the subject; and declared that, having gone into the woods the day before, to hunt squirrels, he staid until it was late, and on his return home, hearing the shrieks of a woman, he had proceeded cautiously to the place; but before he could arrive at the spot, the cries had ceased; nevertheless, he had found me, after some search, with the body of the young lady, whom I had just killed, and that I was about to kill him too, with a hickory club, but he had saved his life by promising that he would never betray me. He was glad to leave me, and what I had done with the body he did not know.

Hardy was known in the neighborhood, and his character had been good. I was a stranger, and on