Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/329

Rh afraid to look in the face. I thought this no time to wait to ascertain what the men would say when they came to their dead dog, but made the best of my way through the woods, and did not stop to look behind me for more than an hour. In my battle with the dogs, I lost all my peaches, except a few that remained in my pockets; and in running through the woods I tore my clothes very badly, a disaster not easily repaired in my situation; but I had proved the solidity of my own judgment in putting up my sword as a part of my traveling equipage.

I now considered it necessary to travel as fast as possible, and get as far as I could before day from the late battle-ground, and certainly I lost no time; but from the occurrences of the next day, I am of opinion that I had not continued in a straight line all night, but that I must have traveled in a circular or zigzag route. When a man is greatly alarmed, and in a strange country, he is not able to note courses, or calculate distances very accurately.

Daylight made its appearance, when I was moving to the South, for the daybreak was on my left hand; but I immediately stopped, went into a thicket of low white oak bushes, and lay down to rest myself, for I was very weary, and soon fell asleep, and did not awake until it was ten or eleven o'clock. Before I fell asleep, I noted the course of the rising sun, from the