Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/406

404 throughout this day, and the fear of being apprehended by those who came in pursuit of me, confined me to the swamp, until after dark the following evening, when I ventured to leave the thicket, and return to the high road, the bearing of which it was impossible for me to ascertain, on account of the dense clouds that obscured the heavens. All that could be done in my situation, was to take care not to follow that end of the road which had led me to the swamp. Turning my back once more upon Milledgeville, and walking at a quick pace, every effort was made to remove myself as far as possible this night from the scene of suffering, for which that swamp will be always memorable in my mind.

The rain had ceased to full at the going down of the sun; and the darkness of this second night was not so great as that of the first had been. This circumstance was regarded by me as a happy presage of the final success that awaited my undertaking. Events proved that I was no prophet; for the dim light of this night was the cause of the sad misfortune that awaited me.

In a former part of this volume, the reader is made acquainted with the deep interest that is taken by all the planters, far and wide, around the plantation from which a slave has escaped by running away. Twenty years had wrought no change in favor of the fugitive; nor had the feuds and dissentions that agitate and