She was standing by the window as Haley and two of Mr. Shelby's servants
came riding by. Sam, the foremost, catching sight of her, contrived to
have his hat blown off, and uttered a loud and characteristic
ejaculation. She drew back and the whole train swept by to the front
door. A thousand lives were concentrated in that moment to Eliza. Her
room opened by a side door to the river. She caught her child and sprang
down the steps. The trader caught a glimpse of her as she disappeared
down the bank, and calling loudly to Sam and Andy, was after her like a
hound after a deer. Her feet scarce seemed to touch the ground, a moment
brought her to the water's edge. Right on behind they came, and nerved
with strength such as God gives only to the desperate, with one wild and
flying leap, she vaulted sheer over the current by the shore, on to the
raft of ice beyond. It was a desperate leap--impossible to anything but
madmen and despair. The huge green fragment of ice pitched and creaked
as her weight came on it, but she stayed there not a moment. With wild
cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;
stumbling, leaping, slipping, springing upwards again. Her shoes were
gone--her stockings cut from her feet--while blood marked every step;
but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly she saw the Ohio side, and
a man helping her up the bank.

"Yer a brave girl, now, whoever ye are!" said he. Eliza recognised a
farmer from near her old home. "Oh, Mr. Symmes! save me! do save me! do
hide me!" said Eliza.

"Why, what's this?" said the man, "why, if 'taint Shelby's gal!"

"My child!--this boy--he'd sold him! There is his mas'r," said she,
pointing to the Kentucky shore. "Oh, Mr. Symmes, you've got a little
boy."