finger at me. "You devil! you yellow
devil! It was you that put it into the heads of Henry and John to run
away. But for _you_, you _long legged yellow devil_, Henry and John
would never have thought of running away." I gave the lady a look, which
called forth a scream of mingled wrath and terror, as she slammed the
kitchen door, and went in, leaving me, with the rest, in hands as harsh
as her own broken voice.

Could the kind reader have been quietly riding along the main road to
or from Easton, that morning, his eye would have met a painful sight.
He would have seen five young men, guilty of no crime, save that of
preferring _liberty_ to a life of _bondage_, drawn along the public
highway--firmly bound together--tramping through dust and heat,
bare-footed and bare-headed--fastened to three strong horses, whose
riders were armed to the teeth, with pistols and daggers--on their way
to prison, like felons, and suffering every possible insult from the
crowds of idle, vulgar people, who clustered around, and heartlessly
made their failure the occasion for all manner of ribaldry and sport.
As I looked upon this crowd of vile persons, and saw myself and friends
thus assailed and persecuted, I could not help seeing the fulfillment of
Sandy's dream. I was in the hands of moral vultures, and firmly held
in their sharp talons, and was hurried away toward Easton, in a
south-easterly direction, amid the jeers of new birds of the same
feather, through every neighborhood we passed. It seemed to me (and this
shows the good understanding between the slaveholders and their allies)
that every body we met knew{228} the cause of our arrest, and were out,
awaiting our passing by, to feast their vindictive eyes on our misery
and to gloat over our ruin. Some said, _I ought to be hanged_, and
others, _I ought to be burnt_, others, I ought to have the _"hide"_
taken from my back; while no one gave us a kind word or sympathizing
look, except the poor slaves, who were lifting their heavy hoes, and who
cautiously glanced at us through the post-and-rail fences, behind which
they were at work. Our sufferings, that morning, can be more easily
imagined than described. Our hopes were all blasted, at a blow.
The cruel injustice, the victorious crime, and the helplessness of
innocence, led me to ask, in my ignorance and weakness "Where now is the
God of justice and mercy? And why have these wicked men the power thus
to trample upon our rights, and to i