different parts of the country? Harriet had many brothers and
sisters, all of whom with the exception of the two, who had gone
South with the chain-gang, were living on this plantation, or were
hired out to planters not far away. The word passed through the
cabins that another owner was coming in, and that none of the
slaves were to be sold out of the State. This assurance satisfied
the others, but it did not satisfy Harriet. Already the inward
monitor was whispering to her, "Arise, flee for your life!" and in
the visions of the night she saw the horsemen coming, and heard
the shrieks of women and children, as they were being torn from
each other, and hurried off no one knew whither.

And beckoning hands were ever motioning her to come, and she
seemed to see a line dividing the land of slavery from the land of
freedom, and on the other side of that line she saw lovely white
ladies waiting to welcome her, and to care for her. Already in her
mind her people were the Israelites in the land of Egypt, while
far away to the north _somewhere_, was the land of Canaan; but had
she as yet any prevision that _she_ was to be the Moses who was to
be their leader, through clouds of darkness and fear, and fires of
tribulation to that promised land? This she never said.

One day there were scared faces seen in the negro quarter, and
hurried whispers passed from one to another. No one knew how it
had come out, but some one had heard that Harriet and two of her
brothers were very soon, perhaps to-day, perhaps to-morrow, to be
sent far South with a gang, bought up for plantation work. Harriet
was about twenty or twenty-five years old at this time, and the
constantly recurring idea of escape at _sometime_, took sudden
form that day, and with her usual promptitude of action she was