He was silent for a moment and I said as if he didn't already know it, "There isn't any."
He glanced up at me knowingly, "You didn't come for any treasure of the South or for the ancient antiquity of this island did you? You came to free the slaves didn't you?"
I wanted to refrain from it, but the truth came out anyway, "Yes." I said.
I expected him to call out for the guards then, but all he did was nod again.
"What can I do to aid you in your efforts?" He said and I blinked in response.
"Are you suggesting that you're willing to betray your own people?" I asked incredulously.
He shook his head no, "My people have betrayed themselves. What's the worst that can come to them of this other than they'll have to learn how to work for themselves again."
I gazed at him doubtfully, "Okay, say you're on the level about this. Do you really think your people are going to give up their slaves anymore than what the South was willing to do? They fought a civil war in which over six hundred thousand soldiers died about just this very thing."
He didn't look put down by my skepticism, but instead replied with, "No, they will not give up their slaves and live in equality with them. They are too well ingrained in their leisure lifestyles just as the old South was. No, you will have to help the slaves escape." He finished with matter-of-factly.
I wasn't sure what kind of a miracle worker he thought I was, but I think he was overestimating my abilities
"Escape to where?" I asked.
"The surface is not an option left open to you?" He asked inquiringly.
"No, I'm pretty sure it was a one-way trip here."
"Oh well then it will have to be a harder road to freedom. Better a hard won freedom though than a life spent in oppression."
"Care to explain what freedom you're speaking of?" I asked, as some part of me still couldn't believe I was having this conversation with the Governor of the island no less. Strange were the ways of God, but magnificent too.
"Why, to the sea of course, to join the Whale People."
"The Whale People?" I asked leadingly.
"Yes, it is what we call the group of whites that managed to escape to the sea during the great slaughter and flee in the ships that brought us here. I doubt they would have survived at first if it had not been for the whales that help them, hence why we call them the Whale People. It's the desire of every slave to escape to the sea and join them. Hence it is also the cause of the only real work that my people do, which is done in order to keep their slaves so they don't have to do the rest of the work. My people have built a navy, whose sole purpose is to kill whales and any whale people they may find and thus extinguish the hopes of the slaves of ever escaping their lot in life as a slave. Rather reminiscent of how runaway slaves were hunted down and tortured in the old South isn't it?" He finished somewhat sardonically.