n
the open. Warming to a climax the orator proclaims, 'If I could get a
sight of him I would shoot him on the spot; I would never give him a
chance to steal any more slaves.' 'My friend,' says a plain-looking
countryman--no other than John Brown himself--on the outskirts of the
throng, 'you talk very brave; and as you will never have a better
opportunity to shoot old Brown than right here and now, you can have a
chance.' But his powder was damped--or his courage!

Now the journey is over. The twelve fugitives have become thirteen,
for a little infant has been born on the march, never to know, thank
God, the horrors the mother has left behind. The child is named after
his deliverer 'John Brown,' who conducts them safely across the ferry
and places them under the shelter of the Union Jack on the Canadian
shore. Then the old man reverently pronounces his 'Nunc dimittis,'
'Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have
seen Thy salvation.' 'I could not brook the thought that any ill
should befall them, least of all that they should be taken back to
slavery. The arm of Jehovah has protected us.' Before many months
those rescued ones were weeping at the news that John Brown was
condemned to die, and were saying 'Would that we could die instead.'

CHAPTER VII

HARPER'S FERRY

John Brown now prepared for his final effort, for the enterprise he had
espoused and the sacrifice he had sworn to make for it were to be
completed by his death. 'There is no way of deliverance but by blood,'
had become his settled conviction upon this slavery question. And
truly it seemed so. The Slave States were waxing fiercer in their
unholy enterprise. The reopening of the market for freshly imported
slaves from Africa was openly advocated--indeed, prices were offered
for the best specimens, as if it were a mere cattle trade. 'For sale,
400 negroes just landed,' was placarded in Southern streets; and to
complete the grim situation a prize was proposed for the best sermon in
defence of the slave trade. Surely the Lord gave not 'the word,' but
'great was the company of the preachers' who were prepared to publish
it.

John Brown felt that the fullness of time was come for a desperate
stroke. Desperate indeed it was. From a military point of view it was
madness. He resolved to hire a farm in Maryland, near to the great
armoury at Harper's Ferry in the Slave State of Virginia, and there
diligently and s