White men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then--to get the reward--they have kidnapped them, and returned them to their masters.

And while I mainly inclined to the notion that these men were honest and meant me no ill, I feared it might be otherwise.

I nevertheless remembered their words and their advice, and looked forward to an escape to the north, as a possible means of gaining the liberty{133} for which my heart panted.
It was not my enslavement, at the then present time, that most affected me; the being a slave _for life_, was the saddest thought.

I was too young to think of running away immediately; besides, I wished to learn how to write, before going, as I might have occasion to write my own pass.

I now not only had the hope of freedom, but a foreshadowing of the means by which I might, some day, gain that inestimable boon.