o 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, when I was coming
back, etc. I got away