That human being who would run the gauntlet for freedom so desperately
as the poor African appears to have done, whose story is given below,
surely should never again be brought under the lash of a taskmaster.
The captain of a vessel from North Carolina called upon the police for
advisement respecting a slave he had unconsciously brought away in his
vessel, under the following curious circumstances:
Three or four days after he had got to sea he began to be haunted every
hour with tones of distress seemingly proceeding from a human voice in
the very lowest part of the vessel. A particular scrutiny was finally
instituted, and it was concluded that the creature, whatever or whoever
it might be, must be confined down in the run under the cabin floor;
and on boring a hole with an auger, and demanding, '_Who's there?_'
a feeble voice responded, '_Poor negro, massa!_' It was clear enough
then that some runaway negro had hid himself there before they sailed,
trusting to Providence for his ultimate escape.
Having discovered him, however, it was impossible to give him relief,
for the captain had stowed even the cabin so completely full of cotton
as but just to leave room for a small table for himself and the mate to
eat on; and as for unloading at sea, that was pretty much out of the
question. Accordingly, there he had to lie, stretched at full length,
for the tedious interval of _thirteen days_, till the vessel arrived in
port and unloaded, receiving his food and drink through the auger hole.
The fellow's story is, now he is released, that, being determined to
get away from slavery, he supplied himself with eggs, and biscuit, and
some jugs of water, which latter he was just on the point of depositing
in his lurking-place, when he discovered the captain at a distance
coming on board, and had to hurry down as fast as possible and leave
them; that he lived on nothing but his eggs and biscuit till discovered
by the captain, not even getting a drop of water, except what he had
the good fortune to catch in his hand one day, when a vessel of water
in the cabin was overset, during a squall, and some of it ran down
through the cracks of the floor over him.