At dark we returned to the vessel.  I had been so sick during the day, that Peter declared I should go home that night, if the devil himself was on patrol.  They told me a place of concealment had been provided for me at my grandmother’s.  I could not imagine how it was possible to hide me in her house, every nook and corner of which was known to the Flint family.  They told me to wait and see.  We were rowed ashore, and went boldly through the streets, to my grandmother’s.  I wore my sailor’s clothes, and had blackened my face with charcoal.  I passed several people whom I knew.  The father of my children came so near that I brushed against his arm; but he had no idea who it was.

“You must make the most of this walk,” said my friend Peter, “for you may not have another very soon.”

I thought his voice sounded sad.  It was kind of him to conceal from me what a dismal hole was to be my home for a long, long time.

XXI.  The Loophole Of Retreat.

A small shed had been added to my grandmother’s house years ago.  Some boards were laid across the joists at the top, and between these boards and the roof was a very small garret, never occupied by any thing but rats and mice.  It was a pent roof, covered with nothing but shingles, according to the southern custom for such buildings.  The garret was only nine feet long and seven wide.  The highest part was three feet high, and sloped down abruptly to the loose board floor.  There was no admission for either light or air.  My uncle Phillip, who was a carpenter, had very skilfully made a concealed trap-door, which communicated with the storeroom.  He had been doing this while I was waiting in the swamp.  The storeroom opened upon a piazza.  To this hole I was conveyed as soon as I entered the house.  The air was stifling; the darkness total.  A bed had been spread on the floor.  I could sleep quite comfortably on one side; but the slope was so sudden that I could not turn on my other without hitting the roof.  The rats and mice ran over my bed; but I was weary, and I slept such sleep as the wretched may, when a tempest has passed over them.  Morning came.  I knew it only by the noises I heard; for in my small den day and night were all the same.  I suffered for air even more than for light.  But I was not comfortless.  I heard the voices of my children.  There was joy and there was sadness in the sound.  It made my tears flow.  How I longed to speak to them!  I was eager to look on their faces; but there was no hole, no crack, through which I could peep.  This continued darkness was oppressive.  It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light.  Yet I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave, though white people considered it an easy one; and it was so compared with the fate of others.  I was never cruelly overworked; I was never lacerated with the whip from head to foot;