They
conducted me to a rising ground among the trees, and set me down. "Now,"
said they, "tell us the truth about those abolition lectures you have been
giving at the North." I replied that I had related the circumstances
before the court in the morning; and could only repeat what I had then
said. "But that was not the truth--tell us the truth." I again said that
any different story would be false, and as I supposed I was in a few
minutes to die, I would not, whatever they might think I would say under
other circumstances, pass into the other world with a lie upon my lips.
Said one, "you were always, Lunsford, when you were here, a clever fellow,
and I did not think you would be engaged in such business as giving
abolition lectures." To this and similar remarks, I replied that the
people of Raleigh had always said the abolitionists did not believe in
buying slaves, but contended that their masters ought to free them without
pay. I had been laboring to buy my family; and how then could they suppose
me to be in league with the abolitionists?
After other conversation of this kind, and after they seemed to have
become tired of questioning me, they held a consultation in a low whisper
among themselves.
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