While praying he was startled by the snort of a horse, and on looking
around to ascertain the cause of the noise he discovered himself almost
surrounded by armed men on horseback. No time to think now; the time for
action had arrived. Ben knew at once the flight was for life. Better,
however, was death than to be thus hunted and harassed. Bounding through
the field he gained a friendly covert, and seemingly by mere chance he
eluded his pursuers and the hounds. Ben thanked God for his deliverance.
Wilson with his heartless band were again baffled, and with man-hunting
and disappointments in his man-chase he became furious. Ben stayed in
the woods about four weeks, and during all this time my sisters, Ben's
wife, and myself were kept in close confinement, to keep us from
communicating with Ben or rendering him any assistance. Thus all of us
had to suffer. But we were only slaves.

Wilson finally took Ben's wife to a man in Oxford, about twenty-five
miles distant, and came back circulating the word among the blacks that
he had sold her. Wilson had made arrangements at Oxford with some
professional slave-hunters to catch Ben if he ever came to see his wife,
for which purpose she had been taken there.

After a time Ben was informed that he and his wife had been sold by
Wilson to a man in Oxford, and of course believing such to be the fact,
he went there to see her, and make arrangements for the future. His wife
was told by the man with whom Wilson had left her that he had bought
both her and Ben, and wished her to get Ben to "come out of the woods."
Laboring under this delusion, Ben was month. The cabin was surrounded
by armed men, when Ben was overpowered, chained, and put in jail for
safe keeping until Wilson should come after him. Living in the woods so
long and the harsh treatment he was now receiving wore Ben down
considerably; yet, believing that "the darkest hour is just before day,"