"FrederickDouglass-MyEscapeFromSlavery" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Frederick)

in manner until he reached me, when, strange enough, and to my surprise
and relief, his whole manner changed. Seeing that I did not readily
produce my free papers, as the other colored persons in the car had done,
he said to me, in friendly contrast with his bearing toward the others:

"I suppose you have your free papers?"

To which I answered:

"No sir; I never carry my free papers to sea with me."

"But you have something to show that you are a freeman, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir," I answered; "I have a paper with the American Eagle on it,
and that will carry me around the world."

With this I drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection,
as before described. The merest glance at the paper satisfied him,
and he took my fare and went on about his business. This moment
of time was one of the most anxious I ever experienced.
Had the conductor looked closely at the paper, he could not
have failed to discover that it called for a very different-looking
person from myself, and in that case it would have been his duty
to arrest me on the instant, and send me back to Baltimore
from the first station. When he left me with the assurance
that I was all right, though much relieved, I realized that
I was still in great danger: I was still in Maryland,
and subject to arrest at any moment. I saw on the train
several persons who would have known me in any other clothes,
and I feared they might recognize me, even in my sailor "rig,"
and report me to the conductor, who would then subject me
to a closer examination, which I knew well would be fatal to me.

Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt perhaps
quite as miserable as such a criminal. The train was moving
at a very high rate of speed for that epoch of railroad travel,
but to my anxious mind it was moving far too slowly. Minutes were hours,
and hours were days during this part of my flight. After Maryland,
I was to pass through Delaware--another slave State, where slave-catchers
generally awaited their prey, for it was not in the interior of the State,
but on its borders, that these human hounds were most vigilant and active.
The border lines between slavery and freedom were the dangerous ones
for the fugitives. The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds
on his trail in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily
than did mine from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia.
The passage of the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace was at that time
made by ferry-boat, on board of which I met a young colored man by the name
of Nichols, who came very near betraying me. He was a "hand" on the boat,
but, instead of minding his business, he insisted upon knowing me,
and asking me dangerous questions as to where I was going,