"
"Oh, sir, you are not like my wicked husband, trying to sell me too?"
"No, Mary, bad as you've been used, faith's your only sure friend. If
you was to tell the preacher you had been kidnapped, he'd, maybe, be
afraid to help you. They're a timid set down yer on any subject
concernin' niggers; these preachers will help save black folks' souls,
but never rescue their pore broken bodies. When you tell him you are the
slave of a rich man like Judge Custis, he'll jump at the chance to do
the Judge a favor, an' tell you that you do right to go back to your
master. That's whair he's a liar, Mary--so he'll scratch _your_ lie
off."
"They'll turn me back at Princess Anne, and wont know me, maybe."
"Not if you do this, Mary. Make them take you to Judge Custis's
daughter--the one that's just been married. Tell her you want to speak
to her privately. Then tell her the nigger-skinned man--I'm him--that
she sent away with her mother, found you whar you was chained in the
woods. Take this link of the chain to show her. Tell her you want to be
her cook till the one that run away is found."
"I'll do it, sir. I've got no home to go to, now."
"Tell her all you remember. Tell her not to tell Ellenory any of my
troubles. Tell her I'm a-startin' for Pangymonum, an', if I die, it's
nothin' but a bachelor keepin' his own solitary company. Yer's a gold
piece an' three silver pieces I found, Mary, to pay your way.
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