第81章

WE dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along down the river.We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty long ways from home.We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards.It was the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal.So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they begun to work the villages again.

First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on.Then in another village they started a dancing-school;but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped in and pranced them out of town.Another time they tried to go at yellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out.They tackled missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of everything; but they couldn't seem to have no luck.So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.

And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time.

Jim and me got uneasy.We didn't like the look of it.We judged they was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever.We turned it over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break into somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeitmoney business, or something.

So then we was pretty scared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold shake and clear out and leave them behind.Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of a shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet.("House to rob, you MEAN," says I to myself; "and when you get through robbing it you'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft -- and you'll have to take it out in wondering.")And he said if he warn't back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along.

So we stayed where we was.The duke he fretted and sweated around, and was in a mighty sour way.He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing.Something was a-brewing, sure.I was good and glad when midday come and no king;we could have a change, anyway -- and maybe a chance for THE chance on top of it.So me and the duke went up to the village, and hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to them.The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again.I got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:

"Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!"But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam.Jim was gone! I set up a shout -- and then another -- and then another one; and run this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't no use -- old Jim was gone.Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help it.But I couldn't set still long.Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:

"Yes."

"Whereabouts?" says I.

"Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here.He's a runaway nigger, and they've got him.Was you looking for him?""You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out -- and told me to lay down and stay where I was; and I done it.Been there ever since; afeard to come out.""Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him.

He run off f'm down South, som'ers."

"It's a good job they got him."

"Well, I RECKON! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him.It's like picking up money out'n the road.""Yes, it is -- and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him FIRST.Who nailed him?""It was an old fellow -- a stranger -- and he sold out his chance in him for forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait.

Think o' that, now! You bet I'D wait, if it was seven year.""That's me, every time," says I."But maybe his chance ain't worth no more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap.Maybe there's something ain't straight about it.""But it IS, though -- straight as a string.I see the handbill myself.

It tells all about him, to a dot -- paints him like a picture, and tells the plantation he's frum, below NewrLEANS.No-sirree-BOB, they ain't no trouble 'bout THAT speculation, you bet you.Say, gimme a chaw tobacker, won't ye?"I didn't have none, so he left.I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think.But I couldn't come to nothing.I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble.After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.