started.  For some distance they rowed not far from the shore.  Being in sight of land, they were spied by the ever-watchful slave-holder or some one not favorable to their escape.  Hence a small boat, containing four white men, soon put out after the fugitives.  On overhauling them, stern orders were given to surrender.  The boat the runaways were in was claimed, if not the party themselves.  With determined words the fugitives declared that the boat was their own property, and that they would not give it up; they said they would die before they would do so.  At this sign of resistance one of the white men, with an oar, struck the head of one of the fugitives, which knocked him down.  At the same moment another white man seized the chain of their boat, and the struggle became fearful in the extreme for a few moments.  However, the same spirit that prompted the effort to be free, moved one of the heroic black bondmen to apply the oar to the head of one of their pursuers, which straightway laid him prostrate.  The whites, like old Apollyon in the Pilgrim’s Progress, at this decided indication that their precious lives might not be spared if they did not avail themselves of an immediate retreat, suddenly parted from their antagonists.  Not being contented, however, thus to give up the struggle, after getting some yards off, they fired a loaded gun in the midst of the fugitives, peppering two of them considerably about the head and face, and one about the arms.  As the shot was light they were not much damaged, however, at any rate not discouraged.  Not forgetting which way to steer across the bay, in the direction of the lighthouse, they rowed for that point with all possible speed, but their bark being light, and the wind and rough water by no means manageable, ere they reached the desired shore they were carried a considerable distance off their course, in the immediate vicinity of a small island.  Leaving their boat they went upon the island, the women sick, and there reposed without food, utterly ignorant of where they were for one whole day and night, without being able to conjecture when or where they should find free land for which they had so long and fervently prayed.  However, after thus resting, feeling compelled to start on again, they set off on foot.  They had not walked a mile ere, providentially, they fell in with an oyster man and a little boy waiting for the tide.  With him they ventured to converse, and soon felt that he might be trusted with, at least, a hint of their condition.  Accordingly they made him acquainted in part with their piteous story, and he agreed to bring them within fifteen miles of ——­ for twenty-five dollars, all the capital they had.  Being as good as his word, he did not leave them fifteen miles off the city, but brought them directly to it.” * * * * “How happy they were at finding themselves in the hands of friends, and surrounded with flattering prospects of soon reaching Canada you may imagine, but I could not describe."[A]