“Courage, wife:  no fate can be worse than the one designed for us; and we have no time to lose.  Tomorrow night, then, we must make the first effort to gain our liberty, and leave all that is dear to us except each other!” And they retired to rest, but not to sleep.

The following night was very dark; and as soon as all was quiet on the plantation, they stole out of their cabin and stealthily crept over the ground until they reached the highway; and then, guided only by the north star, they made their way to the nearest woods.  So fearful had they been of being suspected, that they took no provision of any kind with them.  All night they plunged forward through the tangled thicket and under-brush, surrounded by thick darkness, glancing now and then upward to their only light,

  “Star of the North! though night winds drift the fleecy
     drapery of the sky,

   Between thy lamp and thee, I lift, yea, lift with hope
     my sleepless eye.”

When day dawned they threw their weary bodies on the ground, famished and thirsty, and waited for the darkness to again conceal them while they pursued their journey.  The second day of their flight, the pain of hunger became almost beyond endurance.  They found a few roots which relieved them a little; but frequently they lost their way, and becoming bewildered, knew not which way to go; they pushed on, however, determined to keep as far from their pursuers as possible.  Their shoes were soon worn out; but bare-footed, bare-headed, and famishing with hunger, they pressed forward, until the fourth day, when they found themselves too weak to proceed farther.  Hope, the anchor of the soul, had failed them!  They were starving in a dense forest!  No track or path could they find, and even had they seen a human being, they would have been more terrified than at the sight of a wild beast!

Poor Rosa, could go no farther—­her strength was all gone—­and as her emaciated husband laid her on the cold earth, he exclaimed, “Oh, dear God! must we, after all our efforts, starve in this dark wilderness!  Beside his fainting wife, he finally stretched himself, sheltered only by a few bushes, and tried to compose himself to die! but resting a few moments revived him, and he aroused himself, to make one more effort for life!  Stay you here, wife, and I will try once more to find the highway; it cannot be far from here; and if I am taken, I will submit to my fate without a struggle; we can but die.”  So saying, he left her, and began to reconnoitre the country around them.  Much sooner than he expected he emerged from the wood, and not far distant he saw a house in the direction from whence he came; being, however, as most of the slaves are, superstitious, he thought it would be a bad omen to turn backward, and so continued to look about him.  It seemed, he said, that some unseen power held him, for though starving as he was, he could not take a step in that direction; and at last