For several minutes they stand together, listening to the music, and watching the familiar faces of old friends as they come upon the balcony in the second story.  Southern life had its pleasant associations-none would attempt to deny them; but the evil brooded in the uncertainty that hung over the fate of millions, now yielding indulgence to make life pleasant, then sinking them for ever in the cruelties of a tyrant’s power.  It is the crushing out of the mind’s force,—­the subduing the mental and physical man to make the chattel complete,—­the shutting out of all the succinct virtues that nurture freedom, that incite us to improve the endowments of nature, that proves the rankling poison.  And this poison spreads its baneful influence in and around good men’s better desires.

After watching in silence for a few moments, Clotilda gives vent to her feelings.  “I should like to see old Daddy Bob once more, I should!  And my poor Annette; she is celled to be sold, I’m afraid; but I must yield to the kindness of Franconia.  I have seen some good times among the old folks on the plantation.  And there’s Aunt Rachel,—­a good creature after all,—­and Harry.  Well; I mustn’t think of these things; freedom is sweetest,” she says.  Maxwell suggests that they move onward.  The music dies away in the stillness, as they turn from the scene to flee beyond the grasp of men who traffic in human things called property,—­not by a great constitution, but under a constitution’s freedom giving power.  Would that a great and glorious nation had not sold its freedom to the damning stain of avarice! would that it had not perverted that holy word, for the blessings of which generations have struggled in vain! would that it had not substituted a freedom that mystifies a jurisprudence,—­that brings forth the strangest fruit of human passions,—­that makes prison walls and dreary cells death-beds of the innocent;-that permits human beings to be born for the market, and judged by the ripest wisdom!  “Has God ordained such freedom lasting?” will force itself upon us.-We must return to our humble adventurers.

The fugitives reached the back gate, leading into a narrow lane, from whence they cross into the main street.  Clotilda has none of the African about her; the most observing guardsman would not stop her for a slave.  They pass along unmolested; the guardsmen, some mounted and some walking at a slow pace, bow politely.  No one demands a pass.  They arrive in safety at a point about two miles from the city, where the captain and his boat await them.  No time is lost in embarking:  the little bark rides at anchor in the stream; the boat quietly glides to her; they are safely on board.  A few minutes more, and the little craft moves seaward under the pressure of a gentle breeze.  There is no tragic pursuit of slave-hunters, no tramp of horses to terrify the bleeding victim, no howlings of ravenous bloodhounds,—­nothing that would seem to make the issue freedom or death.