Page:Narrative of the life and adventures of Henry Bibb, an American slave.djvu/72

62 the house to look for me that I was in the cellar. This strange conduct soon excited suspicion so strong in me. that I could not stay in the cellar and started to come out, but the man who stood by the door, rapped again on the house side, for the other to come to his aid, and told me to stop. I attempted to pass out by him, and he caught hold of me, and drew a pistol, swearing if I did not stop he would shoot me down. By this time I knew that I was betrayed. I asked him what crime I had committed that I should be murdered. "I will let you know, very soon," said he. By this time there were others coming to his aid, and I could see no way by which I could possibly escape the jaws of that hell upon earth. All my flattering prospects of enjoying my own fire-side, with my little family, were then blasted and gone; and I must bid farewell to friends and freedom forever. In vain did I look to the infamous laws of the Commonwealth of Ohio, for that protection against violence and outrage, that even the vilest criminal with a white skin might enjoy. But oh! the dreadful thought, that after all my sacrifice and struggling to rescue my family from the hands of the oppressor; that I should be dragged back into cruel bondage to suffer the penalty of a tyrant's law, to endure stripes and imprisonment, and to be shut out from all moral as well as intellectual improvement, and linger out almost a living death.