I never heard anything quite so pitiful as this speech. I had never
known before what it must mean to be really hunted. The woman shrank
back toward the door through which she had come, her face grew a sort of
grayish color; and then ran to me and throwing herself on her knees, she
took hold of my hands, and begged me for God's sake not to tell on her,
not to have her carried back, not to fix it so she'd be sold down the
river to work in the cotton-fields.

"I won't," I said, "I tell you I won't. I want you to get to Canada!"

"God bress yeh," she said. "I know'd yeh was a good young gemman as soon
as I set eyes on yeh! I know'd yeh was quality!"

"Who do you expect to meet in Canada?" asked Thatcher.

"God willin'," said she, "I'm gwine to find Abe Felton, the pa of dese
yere chillun."

"The Underground Railway," said Dunlap, "knows where Abe is, and will
send Sarah along with change of cars. You may go, Sarah. Now," he went
on, as the negroes disappeared, "you have it in your power to exercise
the right of an American citizen and perform the God-accursed legal duty
to report these fugitives at the next town, join a posse to hunt them
down under a law of the United States, get a reward for doing it, and
know that you have vindicated the law--or you can stand with God and
tell the law to go to hell--where it came from--and help the Underground
Railway to carry these people to heaven. Which will you do?"

"I'll tell the law to go to hell," said I.