We swam around to the stern and made our way up onto the wharf where we immediately went to the inn to wait for Mauricia and America.
"So you think we should wait to do it in Costa Rica? Not Florida?" Jack said, sitting in a rocking chair outside Mauricia's mother's inn that set about 300 paces from the harbor.
"Florida's a slave state, Jack, you should know that. See it pays to go to school. No, we should do it in Costa Rica," I said, "When their guard is down. We'll place what we can in the boats and take them to shore, and the rest can swim. Then once they're safe somewhere - Costa Rica has a lot of jungles and mountains - we'll find another ship to board for somewhere - home hopefully."
"They should be here by now! I hope they didn't get caught," Jack said.
"But wouldn't they let them go?" I asked suddenly becoming concerned.
"Not necessarily, sonny boy. They could be in big trouble."
"Yeah," I said, "we should have stopped them from following. It was stupid to let two young black girls go on a slaver. Stupid of us! They could..."
"You're right pal. They could get five hundred each at least and maybe a thousand for those girls," Jack added.
"What do we do now?" I said.
"Let's wait a while longer - see if they turn up. If not we return from liberty a half-hour early to see if we can secretly - I repeat secretly - learn what happened. That's all we can do right now. Wait and then investigate if we have to. We need more information. Let's make sure some of the crew see us in this tavern or another one so we have a story we can tell 'bout where we've been.' We need to iron out any creases in our plan," said Jack.
"If we fail," I said, "you know what'll happen to the slaves, they'll be hunted down."
"As it is, who would ever take them back home?" Jack said. "That's the difficult part. They'll probably have to start a new life in Costa Rica."
"I know a little 'bout Costa Rica from geography," I said, adding, "there are central mountains, all jungle and jungles on the Pacific side and Caribbean side where they won't be bothered. It'll be a hard life though," I said.
"Better than what they'd get in Charleston," Jack said, "even if half of them have to die."
"They'll have to do it on their own," I said, "unless you want to go with them in Costa Rica, I mean."
"Go with 'em? Huh! Maybe if we're really gonna go through with this plan, we should disappear afterwards for a year or so down in the jungles where we can do some real exploring. Let's think on that one," said Jack.
"Right," I said. "We might have to do exactly that. But shouldn't we really try to get them back to their African villages?
"Let's deal with that later. We got troubles enough right now," Jack said. "We better head to the ship. They're real late now!"
"No. Let's go inside to see if any of the crew are there and strike up a conversation with 'em just in case we need to prove where we were," I said. "If the mom asks about the girls we'll say we gave them some money for food and we're going to meet them shortly down by the harbor in a café. Let's go inside then and make it quick," I said.
"Act drunk if we see any from our ship," said Jack.
"Yeah, good idea. Let's go," I said.