Finding himself baffled, Covey called for assistance. His cousin Hughes came to aid him, but as he was attempting to put a noose over the unruly slave's foot, Douglass promptly gave him a blow in the stomach which at once put him out of the combat and he fled. After Hughes had been disabled, Covey called on first one and then another of his slaves, but each refused to assist him. Finding himself fairly outdone by his angry antagonist, Covey quit; with the discreet remark: "Now, you young scoundrel, you go to work; I would not have whipped you half so hard if you had not resisted." Douglass had thus won his first victory, and was never again threatened or flogged by his master. The effect of this encounter, as far as he himself was concerned, was to increase his self-respect, and to give him more courage for the future. He said that, "when a slave cannot be flogged, he is more than half free." To the other slaves he became a hero, and Covey was not anxious to advertise his complete failure to break in this "unruly nigger." It speaks well for the natural dignity and good sense of young Douglass that he neither boasted of his triumph nor did anything rash as a consequence of it, as might have been expected from a boy of his age and spirit. . . . [A carefully planned attempt at escape failed dismally, but he remained undaunted.] Ever since the first trouble with Auld, he had been pushing his plans to redeem his pledge to himself that he would run away on Monday, September 3, 1838. These were anxious days, and many small details had to be mastered. He must carefully avoid anything in manner or word which could excite the slightest suspicion. He had to test the fidelity of a number of free colored people whose aid, in secret ways, was very essential to him. Who these persons were has never been revealed, and, in fact, it was not until many years after emancipation that Mr. Douglass disclosed to the public how he succeeded in making his daring escape. "Murder itself," he says, "was not more severely and surely punished in the State of Maryland than aiding and abetting the escape of a slave." Young Douglass's flight had no outward semblance of dramatic incident or thrilling episode, and yet, as he modestly says, "the courage that could risk betrayal and the bravery which was ready to encounter death, if need be, in pursuit of freedom, were features in the undertaking. My success was due to address rather than to courage, to good luck rather than bravery. My means of escape were provided by the very means which were making laws to hold and bind me more securely to slavery."