Every bond given by any person committed in arrest and bail, or in custody after final judgment, shall be assigned by the sheriff to the party at whose instance such person was committed to jail, and shall be returned to the office of the clerk of the court where the judgment was rendered, and shall have the force of a judgment. If any person who obtains the rules of any prison, as aforesaid, escapes out of the same before he has paid the debt or damages and costs according to the condition of his bond, the court where the bond is filed, upon motion of the assignee thereof, shall award execution against such person and his sureties for the debt or damages and costs, with interest from the time of escape till payment, and no person committed to jail on such execution shall be allowed the rules of prison: Provided, the obligors have ten days' previous notice of such motion, in writing; but they shall not be admitted to deny the making of the bond in their answer, unless by affidavit they prove the truth of the plea.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 162-32