ainst me; but that it would not be safe for
me to leave the prison immediately. It was agreed that I should remain in
prison until after night-fall, and then steal secretly away, being let
out by the keeper, and pass unnoticed to the house of my old and tried
friend Mr. Boylan. Accordingly I was discharged between nine and ten
o'clock. I went by the back way leading to Mr. Boylan's; but soon and
suddenly a large company of men sprang upon me, and instantly I found
myself in their possession. They conducted me sometimes high above ground
and sometimes dragging me along, but as silently as possible, in the
direction of the gallows, which is always kept standing upon the Common,
or as it is called "the pines," or "piny old field." I now expected to
pass speedily into the world of spirits; I thought of that unseen region
to which I seemed to be hastening; and then my mind would return to my
wife and children, and the labors I had made to redeem them from bondage.
Although I had the money to pay for them according to a bargain already
made, it seemed to me some white man would get it, and they would die in
slavery, without benefit from my exertions and the contributions of my
friends. Then the thought of my own death, to occur in a few brief
moments, would rush over me, and I seemed to bid adieu in spirit to all
earthly things, and to hold communion already with eternity. But at length
I observed those who were carrying me away, changed their course a little
from the direct line to the gallows, and hope, a faint beaming, sprung up
within me; but then as they were taking me to the woods, I thought they
intended to murder me there, in a place where they would be less likely to
be interrupted than in so public a spot as where the gallows stood. They
conducted me to a rising ground among the trees, and set me down. "Now,"
said they, "tell us the truth about those abolition lectures you have been
giving at the North." I replied that I had related the circumstances
before the court in the morning; and could only repeat what I had then
said. "But that was not the truth--tell us the truth." I again said that
any different story would be false, and as I supposed I was in a few
minutes to die, I would not, whatever they might think I would say under
other circumstances, pass into the other world with a lie upon my lips.
Said one, "you were always, Lunsford, when you were here, a clever fellow,
and I did not think you would be engaged in