he lady, touched his hat to me, and asked if I would wish to see
the slave-jail, as he had the keys in his possession.

If he fancied that I was in danger of being overcome by blandishments,
and needed to be recalled to realities, it was a master-stroke.

I must say that, when the door of that villanous edifice was thrown open
before me, I felt glad that my main interview with its lady proprietor
had passed before I saw it. It was a small building, like a Northern
corn-barn, and seemed to have as prominent and as legitimate a place
among the outbuildings of the establishment. In the middle of the door
was a large staple with a rusty chain, like an ox-chain, for fastening
a victim down. When the door had been opened after the death of the late
proprietor, my informant said, a man was found padlocked in that chain.
We found also three pairs of stocks of various construction, two of
which had smaller as well as larger holes, evidently for the feet of
women or children. In a building near by we found something far more
complicated, which was perfectly unintelligible till the men explained
all its parts: a machine so contrived that a person once imprisoned in
it could neither sit, stand, nor lie, but must support the body
half raised, in a position scarcely endurable. I have since bitterly
reproached myself for leaving this piece of ingenuity behind; but it
would have cost much labor to remove it, and to bring away the other
trophies seemed then enough. I remember the unutterable loathing with
which I leaned against the door of that prison-house; I had thought
myself seasoned to any conceivable horrors of Slavery, but it seemed as
if the visible presence of that den of sin would choke me. Of course
it would have been burned to the ground by us, but that this would have
involved the sacrifice of every other building and all the piles of
lumber, and for the moment it seemed as if the sacrifice would be
righteous. But I forbore, and only took as trophies the instruments of
torture and the keys of the jail.

We found but few colored people in this vicinity; some we brought away
with us, and an old man and woman preferred to remain. All the white
males whom we found I took as hostages, in order to shield us, if
possible, from attack on our way down river, explaining to them that
they would be put on shore when the dangerous points were passed. I
knew that their wives could easily send notice of this fact to the
Rebel forces alo