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278 TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE.

receiving any answer to the letters.  They might have miscarried, or might have been misdirected.  Perhaps those at Saratoga, to whom they had been addressed, were all dead; perhaps, engaged in their pursuits, they did not consider the fate of an obscure, unhappy black man of sufficient importance to be noticed.  My whole reliance was in Bass.  The faith I had in him was continually re-assuring me, and enabled me to stand up against the tide of disappointment that had overwhelmed me.
   So wholly was I absorbed in reflecting upon my situation and prospects, that the hands with whom I labored in the field often observed it.  Patsey would ask me if I was sick, and Uncle Abram, and Bob, and Wiley frequently expressed a curiosity to know what I could be thinking about so steadily.  But I evaded their inquiries with some light remark, and kept my thoughts locked closley in my breast.