After awhile we saw the hounds coming in full speed on our track, and the soul drivers close after them on horse back, yelling like tigers, as they came in sight.  The shrill yelling of the savage blood hounds as they drew nigh made the woods echo.

The first impulse was to run to escape the approaching danger of ferocious dogs, and blood thirsty slave hunters, who were so rapidly approaching me with loaded muskets and bowie knives, with a determination to kill or capture me and my family.  I started to run with my little daughter in my arms, but stumbled and fell down and scratched the arm of little Frances with a brier, so that it bled very much; but the dear child never cried, for she seemed to know the danger to which we were exposed.

But we soon found that it was no use for us to run.  The dogs were soon at our heels, and we were compelled to stop, or be torn to pieces by them.  By this time, the soul drivers came charging up on their horses, commanding us to stand still or they would shoot us down.

Of course I surrendered up for the sake of my family.  The most abusive terms to be found in the English language were poured forth on us with bitter oaths.  They tied my hands behind me, and drove us home before them, to suffer the penalty of a slaveholder’s broken law.

As we drew nigh the plantation my heart grew faint.  I was aware that we should have to suffer almost death for running off.  I was filled with dreadful apprehensions at the thought of meeting a professed follower of Christ, whom I knew to be a hypocrite!  No tongue, no pen can ever describe what my feelings were at that time.

CHAPTER XII.

My sad condition before Whitfield.—­My terrible punishment.—­Incidents of a former attempt to escape—­Jack at a farm house.—­Six pigs and a turkey.—­Our surprise and arrest.

The reader may perhaps imagine what must have been my feelings when I found myself surrounded on the island with my little family, at midnight, by a gang of savage wolves.  This was one of those trying emergencies in my life when there was apparently but one step between us and the grave.  But I had no cords wrapped about my limbs to prevent my struggling against the impending danger to which I was then exposed.  I was not denied the consolation of resisting in self defence, as was now the case.  There was no Deacon standing before me, with a loaded rifle, swearing that I should submit to the torturing lash, or be shot down like a dumb beast.

I felt that my chance was by far better among the howling wolves in the Red river swamp, than before Deacon Whitfield, on the cotton plantation.  I was brought before him as a criminal before a bar, without counsel, to be tried and condemned by a tyrant’s law.  My arms were bound with a cord, my spirit broken, and my little family standing by weeping.  I was not allowed to plead my own cause, and there was no one to utter a word in my behalf.