After sleeping almost all day, we started out at night, a little ways behind an awful long raft that was as long going by as a parade. She had four long oars at each end to steer it, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big tents on her, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle. There was a lot of show about her. Being a worker on a raft as big as that would be something special.
We went down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides.
You couldn’t see a break in it hardly, or a light. We talked about Cairo, and were not sure if we would know it when we got to it. I said likely we wouldn’t, because I heard say there weren’t but about ten or twelve houses there, and if they didn’t happen to have a light on, how was we going to know we was passing it? Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we'd think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river again. That worried Jim -- and me too. So the question was, what to do? I said, land the raft the first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming with a flat boat, and was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good plan, so we took a smoke on it and waited.
There weren’t nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and not pass it without seeing it. He said he’d be mighty sure to look, because he’d be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it he’d be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says: "Dere she is!"
But it weren’t. It was candles in pumpkins, or fire flies; so he set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him all over shaking and hot to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over shaking and hot, too, to hear him, because I started to get it through my head that he was almost free -- and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay in one place. It hadn’t ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and burned me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I weren’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his owner; but it weren’t no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a landed and told someone." That was so -- I couldn’t get around that no way. That was where it hurt. Conscience says to me,
"What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her slave go off right under your eyes and never say one word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could be so mean to her? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you the best ways to act, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. That’s what she done."
I got to feeling so mean and so bad I almost wished I was dead. I walked up and down the raft, arguing with myself, and Jim was walking up and down past me. Both of us couldn’t stay in one place. Every time he danced around and said, "Dere’s Cairo!" it went through me like a bullet, and I thought if it was Cairo I would die of guilt.
Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got free, he would go to saving up money and never spend a cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Abolitionist to go and rob them.
It was enough to freeze me hearing such talk. He wouldn’t ever have had confidence to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was as the old saying goes, "Give a slave an inch and he’ll take a yard." Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this slave, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would take his children -- children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever hurt me.
I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was so low of him. My conscience got to making me hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, "Let up on me -- it ain’t too late yet -- I’ll land at the first light and tell." I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light, and kind of singing to myself. By and by one showed.
Jim sings out: "We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and hit your heels toether! Dat’s de good old Cairo at last, I just knows it!"
I says: "I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know."
He jumped up and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to sit on, and give me the oar; and as I pushed off, he says:
"Pretty soon I’ll be a-shouting for happiness, and I’ll say, it’s all because of Huck; I’s a free man, and I couldn’t ever been free if it hadn’t been for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won’t ever forget you, Huck; you’s de best friend Jim’s ever had; and you’s de only friend old Jim’s got now."
I was heading off, all in a hurry to tell on him; but when he said this, it seemed to kind of take the enthusiasm all out of me. I went along slow then, and I weren’t right down sure if I was glad I started or if I weren’t. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:
"Dere you goes, de old true Huck; de only white man dat ever kept his promise to old Jim."
Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it -- I can’t get out of it. Right then along comes a boat with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says: "What’s that up there?"
"A piece of a raft," I says.
"Do you belong on it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Any men on it?"
"Only one, sir."
"Well, there’s five slaves run off tonight up a piece, above the head of the bend. Is your man white or black?"
I didn’t answer up quickly. I tried to, but the words wouldn’t come. I tried for a second or two to force it out, but I weren’t man enough -- hadn’t the strength of a rabbit. I see I was getting weak; so I just give up trying, and up and says: "He’s white."
"I think we’ll go and see for ourselves."
"I wish you would," says I, "because it’s pap that’s there, and maybe you’d help me pull the raft to the beach where the light is. He’s sick -- and so is mom and Mary Ann."
"Oh, the devil! we’re in a hurry, boy. But we probably should do something. Come, move along and let’s go see."
I picked up my oar and they picked up theirs. When we had made a push or two, I says: "Pap’ll be mighty much thankful to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to help me bring the raft in, and I can’t do it by myself."
"Well, that’s awful mean of them. Strange, too. Say, boy, what’s the problem with your father?"
"It’s the -- a -- the -- well, it ain’t anything much."
They stopped pulling. It weren’t but a little ways to the raft now. One says:
"Boy, that’s a lie. What IS the problem with your pap? Answer up square now, and it’ll be the better for you."
"I will, sir, I will, honest -- but don’t leave us, please. It’s the -- the -- Sirs, if you’ll only pull ahead, and let me throw you the rope, you won’t have to come near the raft -- please do."
"Turn her back, John, turn her back!" says one. They backed water. "Keep away, boy -- keep to the left. Worst luck, the wind has probably blowed it to us. Your pap’s got the smallpox, and you know it very well. Why didn’t you come out and say so? Do you want to give it to all of us?"
"Well," says I, a-crying, "I’ve told everybody before, and they just went away and left us."
"Poor devil, there’s something in that. We are right down sorry for you, but we -- well, hang it, we don’t want the smallpox, you see. Look here, I’ll tell you what to do. Don’t you try to land by yourself, or you’ll break everything to pieces. You go along down about twenty miles, and you’ll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It will be long after the sun has come up by then, and when you ask for help you tell them your parents are down with shakes and being hot. Don’t be so stupid again, and let people see the truth. Now we’re trying to be kind to you; so you just put twenty miles between us, that’s a good boy. It wouldn’t do any good to land down there where the light is -- it’s only a timber yard. Say, I think your father’s poor, and I’m sure he’s had some pretty hard luck. So here, I’ll put a twenty dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when it goes by you on the water. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but my lord! it won’t do to play with smallpox, don’t you see?"
"Hold on, Parker," says the other man, "Here’s a twenty to put on the board for me too. Goodbye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you’ll be all right."
"That’s so, my boy -- goodbye, goodbye. If you see any slaves hiding out there you get help and take them, and you can make some money by it."
"Goodbye, sir," says I; "I won’t let no slaves get by me if I can help it."
They went off and I got on the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it weren’t no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get started right when he’s little ain’t got no show -- when a test comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he loses. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; what if you’d a done right and give Jim up, would you of felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad -- I’d feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the good of you learning to do right when it’s difficult to do right and it ain’t no trouble at all to do wrong, and the pay is just the same? I couldn’t answer that. So I said to myself I wouldn’t worry no more about it, but after this always do whatever come easiest at the time.
I went into the tent; Jim weren’t there. I looked all around; he weren’t anywhere. I says: "Jim!"
"Here I is, Huck. Is dey gone yet? Don’t talk loud."
He was in the river under the back oar, with just his nose out. I told him they were gone, so he come up. He says: "I was a-listenin’ to all de talk, and I gets down into de river and was gwyne to swim for land if dey come on de raft. Den I was gwyne to swim to de raft again when dey was gone. But my good lord, how you did it to dem, Huck! Dat was de smartest trick! I tell you, child, I believe it saved old Jim -- old Jim ain’t going to forget you for dat, honey."
Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good lift -- twenty dollars each. Jim said we could take a river boat up the Ohio now if we was happy to sleep out on the ship’s floor at night, and the money would go as far as we wanted to go. He said twenty mile more weren’t far for the raft to go, but he wished we was already there.
Toward morning we tied up, and Jim was mighty careful about hiding the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things into bags, and getting all ready to quit rafting.
That night about ten we saw the lights of a town away down in a left-hand bend.
I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man out in the river with a boat, setting a long line of hooks. I pulled up and says:
"Mr., is that town Cairo?"
"Cairo? no. You must be full on stupid."
"What town is it, Mr.?"
"If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here talking to me for about a half a minute longer you’ll get something you won’t want."
I went back to the raft. Jim was awful discouraged, but I said not to worry. I reasoned that Cairo would be the next place.
We passed another town before morning, and I was going out again; but it was high ground, so I didn’t go. No high ground around Cairo, Jim said. I knew that but had not remembered it. We rested up for the day on a little island pretty close to the left-hand side. I started to think something was wrong. So did Jim. I says: "Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night."
He says: "Don’t let’s talk about it, Huck. Poor niggers can’t have no luck. I always believed dat snake skin weren’t done wid its work."
"I wish I’d never seen that snake skin, Jim -- I do wish I’d never set eyes on it."
"You ain’t to blame, Huck; you didn’t know. Don’t you hit yourself around about it."
When the sun was up, here was the clear Ohio water on one side, sure enough, and out in the middle was the muddy water of the Mississippi! So it was all up with Cairo.
We talked it all over. It wouldn’t do to walk back on land and we clearly couldn’t take a raft up the river. There weren’t no way but to wait for dark, and start back in the canoe and trust our luck. So we rested up all day in some thick trees, so as to be wide awake for the work, and when we went back to the raft about dark the canoe was gone!
We didn’t say a word for a good while. There weren’t anything to say. We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the snake skin; so what was the use to talk about it? It would only look like we was finding wrong in what was happening, and that would be sure to bring more bad luck -- and keep on bringing it, too, until we knowed enough to not fight it.
We talked about what to do, and found there weren’t no way but just to go along down with the raft until we could buy a canoe to go back in. We wouldn't borrow it when people weren’t around, the way pap would, for that might bring people after us.
So we started out after dark on the raft.
Anyone that don’t believe yet that it’s foolishness to handle a snake skin, after all that that snake skin done for us, will believe it now if they read on and see what more it done for us.
The place to buy canoes is off rafts laying on the beach. But we didn’t see none laying up; so we went on for three hours or more. Well, the night got grey and thick, which is almost as bad as fog. You can’t tell the shape of the river, and you can’t see no distance. It got to be late and quiet, when along comes a big river boat up the river. We put a light in the lantern, and judged she would see it. Boats going up river didn’t most times come close to us; they go out and hunt for easy water; but nights like this they push right up the channel against the whole river.
We could hear her moving, but we didn’t see her good until she was close. She was coming right for us. Often they do that to see how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites off an oar, and then the driver puts his head out and laughs, and thinks he’s smart. Well, here she comes, and we said she was going to try and cut it close; but she didn’t turn off at all. She was a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black cloud with lines of fire flies around it; but all at once she was right on us big and deadly, with a long line of wide open fire doors looking like red-hot teeth, and all of her body hanging right over us. There was a shout at us, and a ringing of bells to stop the motors, more shouting, and whistling of the hot air in the motors -- and as Jim went over on one side and I on the other, she come cutting straight through the raft.
I went down as far as I could, looking to find the bottom, for a thirty foot wheel had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have enough room. I could always stay under water a minute; this time I’d say I stayed under a minute and a half. Then I went for the top in a hurry, for I was almost exploding. I broke the water and blowed water out of my nose, and breathed heavy for a while. The river was moving strongly; and that boat must a started her motors again ten seconds after she stopped them, as they never cared much for people on rafts; so now she was too far away to see in the thick weather, even if I could still hear her.
I shouted for Jim ten or twelve times, but I didn’t get no answer; so I took hold of a board I found on the water while I was waiting there and headed for the beach, pushing it ahead of me. But the movement was toward the left side, meaning that I was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way. It was one of those long two-mile crossings; so I was a good while getting over made a safe landing,and climbed up the side.
I couldn’t see but a little ways, but I went slowly along over rough ground for a few hundred yards, and then I come across a big old log house. I was going to hurry by and get away but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to barking, andI knowed better than to move another inch.