It was Hamilton’s turn to shrug his shoulders, as his ungracious host headed the procession down the drive and out into the highway. Inside the house old Caleb straightened the worn, brocaded curtains, his stiff fingers shaking. He felt old and useless. Upstairs Susan sought to muffle her sobs in Old Missus’ feather bolster, heedless of the fact that she was staining the fine linen slip. The children down in the slave quarters were very still, hardly breathing. Easter was in the air. The sun shone bright and warm. Folks were thinking about the holiday, and overseers were relaxed. In the fields, slaves leaned on their hoes and watched them go by--five white men, their hats pulled low, their shirts open at the neck, riding on horses; and behind them, jerking, grotesque figures, pulled by the horses, dust blinding and choking them, their bare feet stumbling over rocks and raising a cloud of dust, their bare heads covered with sweat and grime. Frederick, fastened with Henry to the same horse, pulled hard on the rope, endeavoring to slacken the pace. He knew what torture Henry was enduring. The constable, noticing this tugging, lashed out once with his whip. Then he chose to ignore the matter. It was a long, hot drive to the Easton jail, and the constable was in no particular hurry. Henry managed to get his breath. The mistress had made them loose one of his hands. In this free hand he still clinched his biscuits. Now, looking gratefully at Frederick, he gasped, “The pass! What shall I do with my pass?” Frederick answered immediately. “Eat it with your biscuit!” A moment later Henry had managed to slip the piece of paper into his mouth. He chewed well on the biscuit and swallowed with a gulp. Then he grinned, a trickle of blood starting from his cut lip. The word went round from one bound figure to another, “Swallow your pass! Own nothing! Know nothing.” Though their plans had leaked out--somehow, some way--their confidence in each other was unshaken. Somebody had made a mistake, but they were resolved to succeed or fail together. By the time they reached the outskirts of St. Michaels it was clear that the news had gone on ahead. A bunch of runaway niggers! Fair sport on a Saturday afternoon. The “insurrection”--the word stumbled off their tongues--had been started by that “Auld boy,” the “smart nigger.” “A bad un!” “Ought to be hanged!” They laughed and ordered another drink of burning whiskey. _Wish something would happen in this God-forsaken hole!_ The procession stopped first at Captain Auld’s. The Captain was loud in his cries of denunciation. “Done everything for this boy, everything! I promise you he’ll be punished--I’ll take all the hide off him! I’ll break every bone in his body!”