The king and the duke climbed aboard the raft.
The king grabbed my collar and shook me.
"Trying to get away from us, were you?"
"No, Your Majesty, we weren't! Please let me go and I'll tell you the truth," I said.
I quickly made up a story: "The man who was holding me felt sorry for me.
He told me to run away or I would be hanged at once.
I thought you two would be hanged, so Jim and I left.
But we're both very glad to see you alive."
Jim agreed eagerly, and both men seemed to calm down.
They admitted they hadn't thought of trying to save me.
They had run away, too, while everyone was looking at the gold.
"I always thought those slaves that we sold stole the gold," said the king.
"So who do you think put it in the coffin?"
My heart pounded, but the king wasn't looking at me. He was looking angrily at the duke.
"It certainly wasn't me, you old scoundrel!" exclaimed the duke.
"I think it was you, trying to keep the gold for yourself!"
In seconds, they were rolling around on the raft, punching each other.
But when the duke began to choke the king, the old man gasped, "All right, I admit it. I did it. Now let me go!"
The king crawled into the hut on the raft and began to drink whiskey.
The duke soon joined him, and they shared the bottle.
After a little while, they both fell asleep, snoring loudly.
Then I finally told Jim everything that had happened.
We were far south on the Mississippi River now and a long way from home.
The next morning, the king and the duke decided to be friends again.
They wanted to think up a new scam and go back to cheating people.
At different towns along the river, they tried putting on plays and giving talks about the evils of drinking alcohol.
They even tried fortune-telling, but nothing was really successful. Now they were running out of money.
For the next few days, the king and the duke spent a lot of their time in the hut, whispering to each other. Jim and I felt very uneasy.
We were afraid that they were planning something even worse than before, but we didn't know what it was.
When we came to a shabby little place called Pikesville, the king said he would go see if anyone in town had heard of the Royal Nonesuch.
If they hadn't, then he and the duke would stage it again because it always earned them lots of money.
He told us that if he didn't come back before noon, it meant everything was all right.
In that case, the duke and I should join him in Pikesville.
The duke seemed nervous after the king left.
He was cranky with Jim and me and impatient.
When noon came and the king had not returned, the duke and I headed into town.
It took us a long time to find the king.
When we finally discovered him in a dirty little tavern, he was drunk.
The duke was furious. The two men started cursing each other, and I ran out of the tavern and down to the riverbank.
"Jim," I called, "this is our chance to get away from those scoundrels. Untie the rope and let's go!"
But there was no answer. No one came out of the hut on the raft.
I ran up and down the wooded shoreline screaming for Jim.
It was no use; he was gone. I sat down on the bank and cried.
When I realized that crying wouldn't help me, I stopped.
I started down the road away from town, and I met a boy.
I asked him if he had seen a black man, and I described Jim's clothes.
Yes, he said, he'd seen that man. He was a runaway slave.
A man named Silas Phelps had bought him from an old man for forty dollars.
The old man had shown Silas a poster about the slave.
It said the slave had run away from a plantation near New Orleans.
Whoever took him back there would get a two-hundred-dollar reward.
But the old man said he was too tired to go any farther, and that was why he was giving Phelps such a bargain.
I had to sit down and think. I realized that the old man was the king.
I remembered the poster that the duke had printed, describing Jim as a runaway slave.
And now I reckoned that the king had waited for the duke and me to leave the raft, and then came back for Jim and used the poster to sell him.
I felt sick at heart. I was only a boy. What could I do to save Jim?
Maybe I had done all I could. Maybe I should write to Miss Watson and tell her where Jim was.
After all, he was her property. That was the law.
I told myself that if Jim had to be a slave again, he would be happier back home with people he knew. Here, he didn't know anyone.
But then I remembered how Jim had called me his friend.
I thought about how much he wanted to be free and see his family again.
And I decided that I wouldn't write to Miss Watson.
Even if the law said it was wrong, I was going to find a way to help free him.