is my chapter 4 ok with everyone? i tried to tie it into the ending of Divyas chapters...

Chapter 4: “Christian” Masters

Once I decided to leave, I gathered my things, grabbed a tiny parcel of my monthly ration of food to bribe past the plantation bloodhounds, wrote a letter to my masters explaining what I was doing, and then was off. I snuck past the main plantation house, everything going as planned, but then I heard the sniffing sound of a bloodhound right on my tail. Fearing that Mr. Hopkins had seen me, I bolted for the fence on the opposite side of the field; however, before I got there, the dog pounced on me. I rolled over, covering my face, and realized that it was merely the playful housedog, Toby. Big, old Toby was a twelve year old Beagle who had been one of my dearest friends during my time as a slave. I quickly shushed the dog with a bite out of the pork I had taken from my food supply and was over the fence before you could say persnickety! I was off into the woods in the direction that I thought was towards Charlotte, East.

It was on this tiresome trek back to Charlotte that I encountered the real edicts of Christianity. Along the backwoods roads between Kentucky and North Carolina, the many churches of almost every denomination would preach not of the Negroes’ work as slaves as “God’s will”, but more on the love and peace that God wanted for all humans, no matter the color of their skin. The trek took me at least a good month or so; it would have taken less time had I not been so worrisome about all the slave catchers, causing me to need to hide during the day, so as not to get captured. This was usually near a food store, allowing me to pilfer from the leftover trash for my meals. During the night, I would follow the trickling and sometimes roaring sounds of the Ohio River. I followed this for about two weeks, and then, when I noticed that I was in Virginia, I veered south towards North Carolina, guiding myself by traveling the opposite way from the North Star. Then, before I knew it, I was at the Charlotte Plantation once more.

Upon sighting the plantation, I quickly sprinted to the house walls, where I found an entrance to a cellar, in which I hid until nightfall. At this time, I quickly and quietly moved into the house and into the attic, from whence I could see and hear many of the happenings of the Scott Plantation. It was here that I witnessed Mr. Scott’s most horrific atrocities. It baffles me to this day, years after that day when I was a mere 16 years old how a man who considered himself a good and holy “Christian” could commit such heinous crimes against humanity. He started off the whole chain of events the next morning when his house slave was two and a half minutes late bringing him his breakfast. He leaped up, exclaimed a long series of racial slurs and expletives, and beat the woman over the head with his gold-plated cane, causing blood to drain from the poor lass’s left ear. After leaving and returning from Church, Scott next went out to the fields and, feeling rather sporty this day, asked his Overseer if he needed any help. Scott took the man’s whip and brought living Hell upon all the slaves who did not completely and immediately answer to every demand given him by anyone. The screams of the men, women, and even children could probably be heard for miles around.

The next night, I crept over to the slave huts across the field, somehow not alarming the hounds. I reached the meager homesteads and quickly opened the doors of all of them, looking eagerly for my brother, Peter. I found him sleeping on his stomach by the distinctive lash marks on his back. I quietly woke him and brought him and the rest of the slaves to the outskirts of the field. It was just then that we all heard the ear-splitting explosion of a rifle and the barking of the hounds. We immediately scrambled for the protection of the woods. I gave all the runaways a piece of the meat I had procured from a local eatery’s trash, and everyone except for two of the slaves were allowed to leave by the dogs after they were fed the meat. To all of our horror, two rifle blasts reverberated around the forest, tragically cutting short the lives of those two poor souls.