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He had not, in all the
scuffle, drawn a single drop of blood from me. I had drawn blood
from him; and, even without this satisfaction, I should have been
victorious, because my aim had not been to injure him, but to
prevent his injuring me.
During the whole six months that I lived with Covey, after this
transaction, he never laid on me the weight of his finger in
anger. He would, occasionally, say he did not want to have to
get hold of me again--a declaration which I had no difficulty in
believing; and I had a secret feeling, which answered, "You need
not wish to get hold of me again, for you will be likely to come
off worse in a second fight than you did in the first."
Well, my dear reader, this battle with Mr. Covey--undignified as
it was, and as I fear my narration of it is--was the turning
point in my _"life as a slave_." It rekindled in my breast the
smouldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams,
and revived a sense of my own manhood. I was a changed being
after that fight. I was _nothing_ before; I WAS A MAN NOW.


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