The man laughed and pushed on. “No, she ain’t. She’s Lear White and she’s a slave and belongs to William H. Burns. I’m his agent and I was with him when he bought her and helped to take her and the rest of his gang to Louisville, where she give him the slip. I come up through this black abolition country to watch for her, and I knew her the minute I set eyes on her, though you have got her fixed up so fine.”
With one sweep of his handkerchief across her cheek, he exposed a broad stripe of browner skin. He laughed contemptuously, and a number of others who had gathered round them on the landing laughed also. Rhoda heard the epithet, “nigger-thief,” in derisive tones passed from one to another. She knew well that if the crowd’s sympathies were with him there was no telling what it might do. Gripping his arm with both hands and bracing herself against his effort to move on, she faced about, head high and eyes flashing, and cried:
“Is there no one here who will help me to save this poor girl?”
Then she was aware that from the back of the concourse some men were pushing their way toward her. She struggled against the efforts of Mary Ellen’s captors to go on and would not release her hold of the one next her, thinking that here might be deliverance, or, at least, help. As they came nearer she saw that one was in Quaker garb, and her hopes rose. In the matter of a runaway slave there was no doubting on which side would be the active sympathy and assistance of a Friend. In response to his inquiry she told him her own and her father’s name.
“Yes, yes,” he said heartily, “I’ve heard of Dr. Ware.” He glanced at Mary Ellen, dumb and patient between her captors, then back at Rhoda, and understanding flashed between their eyes.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Thee’ll soon find friends here, who’ll do their best to bring things out all right for thee and for her too.”
They moved on, the mob around them rapidly increasing. By the looks of the men and the remarks which reached her ears she knew that it was, for the most part, pro-slavery in feeling. The Quaker was walking beside her, but his companions had disappeared. Presently he whispered:
“The marshal will be here soon. Perhaps thee could slip away and hide. There’ll be help if thee wants to try it.”
Rhoda shook her head and whispered back: “No, no. I mustn’t leave her.”
In a whisper so low it barely reached her ears she heard him say: “Never mind her. She’ll be looked after.”