Frederick’s heart leaped. The words could have only one meaning. Yet was this man friend or foe? Dared he trust him?
“I hear tell the north star leads us straight,” he said.
The stranger took Frederick’s arm.
“It has led you well. Come!”
In the little house on Centre Street, Frederick met Tom Stuart’s mother, a bright-eyed little woman who greeted him warmly. But hardly could he blurt out an outline of his story before he had fallen asleep—for the first time in nearly forty-eight hours.
Then Tom Stuart went quickly to the corner of Lispenard and Church Streets and knocked on the door of David Ruggles, secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee.
“You are right,” said the secretary, when he heard what the seaman had to say. “He is not safe here.”
“New York’s full of Southerners. They’re beginning to come back from the watering-places now,” Stuart added.
“Looking for work down on the waterfront, he’ll be caught.”
The scar on Ruggles’ black face twisted into a smile.