“I’m sorry. I knew you might not have helped me if you knew about my slaving. That’s why I couldn’t tell you before. I needed your help. If I had told you, you would have refused to take me.”
Silent and brooding, Morgan began walking around. He was getting a clearer picture. This was not just a small operation. This was a slaving syndicate with international connections. If Hiram had talked, he was a threat to their business. Maybe that was why they were after him too. He suddenly realized he was a target now. Hiram had seen too much, and now he had all the same information.
Hiram looked at Morgan for a moment, his face revealing some regret. He raised an eyebrow and then began examining the thick calluses on his hands, picking at them nervously before continuing.
“Before I go, I should tell you something else. Blackwood made a prediction. He told me I would hang and he said you would die in Neptune’s locker. He laughed at me. I asked him why he was laughing and he told me, ‘’Yer friend Morgan don’t even know. One of ’is fine acquaintances in London is the one who ’as ordered ’im dead.’”
“Acquaintance of mine? What did he mean by that?”
“That’s all he said, Ely, before that varmint devil handed me over to Stryker, and they shoved me down into the coal furnace of that steamship.”
Morgan was silent. Some of the anger and indignation he felt began to surface as he slapped the packet’s stern rail.
“I know you didn’t have any choice in the beginning, Hiram, but why did you continue slaving?”
“I don’t know why, Ely. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was good money, but I wouldn’t go back to it. Doesn’t that speak in my favor? I am truly on the bench of repentance now and intend to overhaul my life.”
“Look Hiram, I’m not going to turn you in. You are a wanted man. My ship is going to be boarded as soon as that steamer arrives. I can ill afford to protect you. My advice to you is to hightail it out of here and get yourself on the first boat you can out of England.”
Hiram’s shoulders seemed to sag and wilt. His face was forlorn and he seemed older.
“Let us hope I can find out who is behind this Ophion Trading Partners before they find me.”
“I am sorry, Ely.”
Squinting his eyes at the sparkling sunlight on the water, Hiram looked toward the harbor and took a deep breath.
“What will you tell Stryker?” he asked.
“I will simply tell the truth, or I should say, something close to the truth. You were being rowed away to shore to be handed over to the authorities when you escaped.”
Hiram smiled. For a brief moment, it felt like they were friends again as they shook hands uneasily. They both knew it was probably for the last time. Morgan reached into his coat pocket and brought out six gold sovereign coins.
“Take it. You may need it. Good luck.”
Morgan watched as Hiram climbed over the side and jumped into one of the quarter boats. His eyes followed him as Icelander and two others pulled their oars through the waves, carrying Hiram Smith to shore. He kept on looking until the sunlight shining on the water blinded him and he lost sight of the boat.
Morgan looked over at the quarterdeck. The celebrations on board were still going on. A noisy squadron of seagulls was hovering and squawking overhead. There were calls for more champagne and a speech from the captain, but Morgan politely declined and went back to his cabin to think about what his next step should be.
As he tried to distill all the information he’d just heard, Hiram’s conversation with Blackwood kept coming back to him. One of his friends had ordered Blackwood to kill him. This was too shocking, too amazing, to even comprehend. He wondered how much he could believe of Hiram’s story. It made no sense. Surely this was a fabrication. It just didn’t seem feasible that a thug like Blackwood would know any of his London acquaintances.
He stopped to think of all his friends in the Sketching Club. They were gentle spirits incapable of harming anyone. Thackeray and Dickens were both so witty and socially adept at traveling the London social world. They were all sympathetic to the abolitionist cause and hated the slave trade, or at least that’s what they professed. Of course, over the years he had met dozens of other acquaintances in London, many of whom were high up in the social order, or influential in politics. Some were unsavory shipping contacts. He remembered that repellent stockjobber named Fleming who had tried to charter the Philadelphia as a slave ship. He wondered if there were other acquaintances of his who shared Fleming’s views about the acceptability of slavery.
Just then he heard a shout from his first mate.