The Underground Railroad

Chapter 13 Summary

The chapter opens with a bulletin dated August 28, 1839, that a Rigdon Banks of Granville County circulated. It appeals for the return of a “negro girl named Martha” (144), who is 21 years old and will try to pass as free.

We find Cora in the dark tunnel, awakened by rats. She thinks that it is the day after Sam’s house was burnt down, but she isn’t certain. Alone with her thoughts, she has visions of Caesar being lynched, of him being beaten beyond recognition and delivered to Randall. She imagines Sam tarred and feathered or imprisoned. She feels as if she is locked in the “Life on the Slave Ship” exhibit at the museum. She also has visions of Miss Lucy cutting her open and releasing a swarm of spiders from her bowels, and of her rape on Randall, with Terrance as the rapist.

Her aching stomach reminds her of the starvation periods she endured on the plantation—although they were always short because they interfered with labor. She grows nervous because the train should have arrived by now—and she knows that she does not have the strength to walk the miles of rail to an unknown destination.