The sun was now quite down behind the western horizon, and just at this time a heavy dark curtain of clouds was let down, which seemed to usher in haste the night shade.  I have never before or since seen anything which seemed to me to compare in sublimity with the spreading of the night shades at the close of that day.  My reflections upon the events of that day, and upon the close of it, since I became acquainted with the Bible, have frequently brought to my mind that beautiful passage in the Book of Job, “He holdeth back the face of His throne, and spreadeth a cloud before it.”

Before I proceed to the critical events and final deliverance of the next chapter, I cannot forbear to pause a moment here for reflection.  The reader may well imagine how the events of the past day affected my mind.  You have seen what was done to me; you have heard what was said to me—­you have also seen what I have done, and heard what I have said.  If you ask me whether I had expected before I left home, to gain my liberty by shedding men’s blood, or breaking their limbs?  I answer, no! and as evidence of this, I had provided no weapon whatever; not so much as a penknife—­it never once entered my mind.  I cannot say that I expected to have the ill fortune of meeting with any human being who would attempt to impede my flight.

If you ask me if I expected when I left home to gain my liberty by fabrications and untruths?  I answer, no! my parents, slaves as they were, had always taught me, when they could, that “truth may be blamed but cannot be shamed;” so far as their example was concerned, I had no habits of untruth.  I was arrested, and the demand made upon me, “Who do you belong to?” knowing the fatal use these men would make of my truth, I at once concluded that they had no more right to it than a highwayman has to a traveller’s purse.

If you ask me whether I now really believe that I gained my liberty by those lies?  I answer, no!  I now believe that I should be free, had I told the truth; but, at that moment, I could not see any other way to baffle my enemies, and escape their clutches.

The history of that day has never ceased to inspire me with a deeper hatred of slavery; I never recur to it but with the most intense horror at a system which can put a man not only in peril of liberty, limb, and life itself, but which may even send him in haste to the bar of God with a lie upon his lips.

Whatever my readers may think, therefore, of the history of events of the day, do not admire in it the fabrications; but see in it the impediments that often fall into the pathway of the flying bondman. See how human bloodhounds gratuitously chase, catch, and tempt him to shed blood and lie; how, when he would do good, evil is thrust upon him.

CHAPTER III.

A DREARY NIGHT IN THE WOODS—­CRITICAL SITUATION THE NEXT DAY.

Almost immediately on entering the wood, I not only found myself embosomed in the darkness of the night, but I also found myself entangled in a thick forest of undergrowth, which had been quite thoroughly wetted by the afternoon rain.