Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/420

 Locked up for the night in an attic of the house, the next morning she persuaded a black girl, who brought her a crust of bread, to take charge of the note to Cassy, of which mention has been made. Mr Gilmore had directed that nothing should be given to her but bread and water, in hopes to bring down her spirit. Judging others by himself, the luxurious old villain had imagined that this putting her on short allowance would be the surest way of bringing her to terms. As there seemed but little prospect of human deliverance, fallen as she had into the hands of wolves in sheep's clothing, it only remained for her to invoke the God of the fatherless to guard and protect her. During her second night's solitary imprisonment, her dead father seemed to stand beside her, and, with the same kind smile so familiar to her memory, to say, with his finger pointing to the distance, "Fear not, daughter; a deliverer comes;" and, as her eyes followed in the direction of the finger, she seemed to see Montgomery emerging from the darkness, and rushing towards her with outstretched arms. In her effort to rise to meet him, she awoke, and found it but a dream. And yet, how much it consoled her! In the failure of realities, how much, indeed, of human happiness has to be found in hopes, wishes, and aspirations embodied into dreams and visions!

Hitherto she had seen nothing more of Mr Gilmore, nor of any body but the same black girl who once a day brought her bread and water, and who, though shy of any communication with her, as she seemed to be watched from the passage, yet managed to hand her a note from Cassy, conveyed by Colter's assistance, bidding her escape from the house if she could, telling her where to go, and assuring her that friends were watching for her in the neighborhood.

About the very hour, on the third evening of Eliza's imprisonment, that Montgomery — whom I followed, not willing to be separated from him or to trust him