Douglass shook his head. He clung to the rough, gnarled hands.
“This is the hardest part of all. I cannot throw my life away with you! Years ago in Maryland I knew I had to live. That’s my task, John—that I live.”
“You shall have a trusted bodyguard!” The old man looked down at him with a twisted smile. Douglass made a gesture of resignation. He raised his eyes once more.
“Will nothing change you from this course?” he asked.
“Nothing,” answered John Brown. He gently pulled himself away and walked to the edge of the cliff, looking out into the morning. Douglass sagged upon the ground.
“You may be right, Frederick Douglass.” His words came slowly now. “Perhaps I’ll not succeed at Harper’s Ferry. Maybe—I’ll never leave there alive. Yet I must go! Until this moment I had never faced that possibility, and I could not give you up. Now that I do, I see that only through your living can my dying be made clear. So, let us have an end of all this talk. Perhaps this is God’s way.”
Douglass pulled himself up. He was very tired.
“I must tell Green,” he said.
John Brown turned. His face was untroubled, his voice alert.
“Yes. I had forgotten. Get him.”