Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/148

 roads that met at the court-house she ought to take. She could not inquire the way, beg a cup of cold water, or even be seen upon the road, without the risk of being taken up as a runaway, and carried back to the master from whom she was flying.

After hesitating for some time, she took one of the roads that offered themselves to her choice, and walked on with vigor. The excitement of the last day or two seemed to give her an unnatural strength; for after a walk of some twenty miles, she felt fresher than at first. But the light of the morning dawn, which began to show itself, reminded her that it was no longer safe to pursue her journey. Close by the road side was a friendly thicket, the shrubs and weeds all dripping with the dew. She had gone but a little way among them, when she found them so high and close as to furnish a sufficient hiding-place. She knelt down, and destitute as she was of human assistance, she besought the aid and guardian care of Heaven. After eating a scanty meal, — for it was necessary to husband her provisions, — she scraped the leaves together into a rude bed, and composed herself to sleep. The three preceding nights she had scarcely slept at all, — but she made it up now, for she did not wake till late in the afternoon.

As soon as evening closed in, she started again, and walked as vigorously as before. 'The road forked frequently; but she had no means of determining which of the various courses she ought to follow. She took one or the other, as her judgment, or rather as her fancy decided; and she comforted herself with the notion, that whether right or wrong in her selections, at all events, she was getting further from Spring-Meadow.

In the course of the night she met several travellers. Some of them passed without seeming to notice her. She discovered some at a distance, and concealed herself in the bushes till they had gone by. But she did not always escape so easily. More than once, she was stopped and questioned; but luckily she succeeded in giving satisfactory answers. Indeed there was nothing in her complexion, especially in the uncertain light of the evening, that would clearly indicate her to be a slave; and in answering the