"Good idea," said the comrade, who walked across the room, knelt down,

raised one of the rearward hearth-stones and took out a bag that

jingled pleasantly. He subtracted from it twenty or thirty dollars for

himself and as much for Injun Joe, and passed the bag to the latter,

who was on his knees in the corner, now, digging with his bowie-knife.

The boys forgot all their fears, all their miseries in an instant.

With gloating eyes they watched every movement. Luck!--the splendor of

it was beyond all imagination! Six hundred dollars was money enough to

make half a dozen boys rich! Here was treasure-hunting under the

happiest auspices--there would not be any bothersome uncertainty as to

where to dig. They nudged each other every moment--eloquent nudges and

easily understood, for they simply meant--"Oh, but ain't you glad NOW

we're here!"

Joe's knife struck upon something.

"Hello!" said he.

"What is it?" said his comrade.

"Half-rotten plank--no, it's a box, I believe. Here--bear a hand and

we'll see what it's here for. Never mind, I've broke a hole."

He reached his hand in and drew it out--

"Man, it's money!"

The two men examined the handful of coins. They were gold. The boys

above were as excited as themselves, and as delighted.

Joe's comrade said:

"We'll make quick work of this. There's an old rusty pick over amongst

the weeds in the corner the other side of the fireplace--I saw it a

minute ago."

He ran and brought the boys' pick and shovel. Injun Joe took the pick,

looked it over critically, shook his head, muttered something to

himself, and then began to use it. The box was soon unearthed. It was

not very large; it was iron bound and had been very strong before the

slow years had injured it. The men contemplated the treasure awhile in

blissful silence.

"Pard, there's thousands of dollars here," said Injun Joe.

"'Twas always said that Murrel's gang used to be around here one

summer," the stranger observed.

"I know it," said Injun Joe; "and this looks like it, I should say."

"Now you won't need to do that job."

The half-breed frowned. Said he:

"You don't know me. Least you don't know all about that thing. 'Tain't

robbery altogether--it's REVENGE!" and a wicked light flamed in his

eyes. "I'll need your help in it. When it's finished--then Texas. Go

home to your Nance and your kids, and stand by till you hear from me."

"Well--if you say so; what'll we do with this--bury it again?"

"Yes. [Ravishing delight overhead.] NO! by the great Sachem, no!

[Profound distress overhead.] I'd nearly forgot. That pick had fresh

earth on it! [The boys were sick with terror in a moment.] What

business has a pick and a shovel here? What business with fresh earth

on them? Who brought them here--and where are they gone? Have you heard

anybody?--seen anybody? What! bury it again and leave them to come and

see the ground disturbed? Not exactly--not exactly. We'll take it to my

den."

"Why, of course! Might have thought of that before. You mean Number

One?"

"No--Number Two--under the cross. The other place is bad--too common."

"All right. It's nearly dark enough to start."

Injun Joe got up and went about from window to window cautiously

peeping out. Presently he said:

"Who could have brought those tools here? Do you reckon they can be

up-stairs?"

The boys' breath forsook them. Injun Joe put his hand on his knife,

halted a moment, undecided, and then turned toward the stairway. The

boys thought of the closet, but their strength was gone. The steps came

creaking up the stairs--the intolerable distress of the situation woke

the stricken resolution of the lads--they were about to spring for the

closet, when there was a crash of rotten timbers and Injun Joe landed

on the ground amid the debris of the ruined stairway. He gathered

himself up cursing, and his comrade said:

"Now what's the use of all that? If it's anybody, and they're up

there, let them STAY there--who cares? If they want to jump down, now,

and get into trouble, who objects? It will be dark in fifteen minutes

--and then let them follow us if they want to. I'm willing. In my

opinion, whoever hove those things in here caught a sight of us and

took us for ghosts or devils or something. I'll bet they're running

yet."

Joe grumbled awhile; then he agreed with his friend that what daylight

was left ought to be economized in getting things ready for leaving.

Shortly afterward they slipped out of the house in the deepening

twilight, and moved toward the river with their precious box.

Tom and Huck rose up, weak but vastly relieved, and stared after them

through the chinks between the logs of the house. Follow? Not they.

They were content to reach ground again without broken necks, and take

the townward track over the hill. They did not talk much. They were too

much absorbed in hating themselves--hating the ill luck that made them

take the spade and the pick there. But for that, Injun Joe never would

have suspected. He would have hidden the silver with the gold to wait

there till his "revenge" was satisfied, and then he would have had the

misfortune to find that money turn up missing. Bitter, bitter luck that

the tools were ever brought there!

They resolved to keep a lookout for that Spaniard when he should come

to town spying out for chances to do his revengeful job, and follow him

to "Number Two," wherever that might be. Then a ghastly thought

occurred to Tom.

"Revenge? What if he means US, Huck!"

"Oh, don't!" said Huck, nearly fainting.

They talked it all over, and as they entered town they agreed to

believe that he might possibly mean somebody else--at least that he

might at least mean nobody but Tom, since only Tom had testified.

Very, very small comfort it was to Tom to be alone in danger! Company

would be a palpable improvement, he thought.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE adventure of the day mightily tormented Tom's dreams that night.

Four times he had his hands on that rich treasure and four times it

wasted to nothingness in his fingers as sleep forsook him and

wakefulness brought back the hard reality of his misfortune. As he lay

in the early morning recalling the incidents of his great adventure, he

noticed that they seemed curiously subdued and far away--somewhat as if

they had happened in another world, or in a time long gone by. Then it

occurred to him that the great adventure itself must be a dream! There

was one very strong argument in favor of this idea--namely, that the

quantity of coin he had seen was too vast to be real. He had never seen

as much as fifty dollars in one mass before, and he was like all boys

of his age and station in life, in that he imagined that all references

to "hundreds" and "thousands" were mere fanciful forms of speech, and

that no such sums really existed in the world. He never had supposed

for a moment that so large a sum as a hundred dollars was to be found

in actual money in any one's possession. If his notions of hidden

treasure had been analyzed, they would have been found to consist of a

handful of real dimes and a bushel of vague, splendid, ungraspable

dollars.

But the incidents of his adventure grew sensibly sharper and clearer

under the attrition of thinking them over, and so he presently found

himself leaning to the impression that the thing might not have been a

dream, after all. This uncertainty must be swept away. He would snatch

a hurried breakfast and go and find Huck. Huck was sitting on the

gunwale of a flatboat, listlessly dangling his feet in the water and

looking very melancholy. Tom concluded to let Huck lead up to the

subject. If he did not do it, then the adventure would be proved to

have been only a dream.

"Hello, Huck!"

"Hello, yourself."

Silence, for a minute.

"Tom, if we'd 'a' left the blame tools at the dead tree, we'd 'a' got

the money. Oh, ain't it awful!"

"'Tain't a dream, then, 'tain't a dream! Somehow I most wish it was.

Dog'd if I don't, Huck."

"What ain't a dream?"

"Oh, that thing yesterday. I been half thinking it was."

"Dream! If them stairs hadn't broke down you'd 'a' seen how much dream

it was! I've had dreams enough all night--with that patch-eyed Spanish

devil going for me all through 'em--rot him!"

"No, not rot him. FIND him! Track the money!"

"Tom, we'll never find him. A feller don't have only one chance for

such a pile--and that one's lost. I'd feel mighty shaky if I was to see

him, anyway."

"Well, so'd I; but I'd like to see him, anyway--and track him out--to

his Number Two."

"Number Two--yes, that's it. I been thinking 'bout that. But I can't

make nothing out of it. What do you reckon it is?"

"I dono. It's too deep. Say, Huck--maybe it's the number of a house!"

"Goody! ... No, Tom, that ain't it. If it is, it ain't in this

one-horse town. They ain't no numbers here."

"Well, that's so. Lemme think a minute. Here--it's the number of a

room--in a tavern, you know!"

"Oh, that's the trick! They ain't only two taverns. We can find out

quick."

"You stay here, Huck, till I come."

Tom was off at once. He did not care to have Huck's company in public

places. He was gone half an hour. He found that in the best tavern, No.

2 had long been occupied by a young lawyer, and was still so occupied.

In the less ostentatious house, No. 2 was a mystery. The

tavern-keeper's young son said it was kept locked all the time, and he

never saw anybody go into it or come out of it except at night; he did

not know any particular reason for this state of things; had had some

little curiosity, but it was rather feeble; had made the most of the

mystery by entertaining himself with the idea that that room was

"ha'nted"; had noticed that there was a light in there the night before.

"That's what I've found out, Huck. I reckon that's the very No. 2

we're after."

"I reckon it is, Tom. Now what you going to do?"

"Lemme think."

Tom thought a long time. Then he said:

"I'll tell you. The back door of that No. 2 is the door that comes out

into that little close alley between the tavern and the old rattle trap

of a brick store. Now you get hold of all the door-keys you can find,

and I'll nip all of auntie's, and the first dark night we'll go there

and try 'em. And mind you, keep a lookout for Injun Joe, because he

said he was going to drop into town and spy around once more for a

chance to get his revenge. If you see him, you just follow him; and if

he don't go to that No. 2, that ain't the place."

"Lordy, I don't want to foller him by myself!"

"Why, it'll be night, sure. He mightn't ever see you--and if he did,

maybe he'd never think anything."

"Well, if it's pretty dark I reckon I'll track him. I dono--I dono.

I'll try."

"You bet I'll follow him, if it's dark, Huck. Why, he might 'a' found

out he couldn't get his revenge, and be going right after that money."

"It's so, Tom, it's so. I'll foller him; I will, by jingoes!"

"Now you're TALKING! Don't you ever weaken, Huck, and I won't."

CHAPTER XXVIII

THAT night Tom and Huck were ready for their adventure. They hung

about the neighborhood of the tavern until after nine, one watching the

alley at a distance and the other the tavern door. Nobody entered the

alley or left it; nobody resembling the Spaniard entered or left the

tavern door. The night promised to be a fair one; so Tom went home with

the understanding that if a considerable degree of darkness came on,

Huck was to come and "maow," whereupon he would slip out and try the

keys. But the night remained clear, and Huck closed his watch and

retired to bed in an empty sugar hogshead about twelve.

Tuesday the boys had the same ill luck. Also Wednesday. But Thursday

night promised better. Tom slipped out in good season with his aunt's

old tin lantern, and a large towel to blindfold it with. He hid the

lantern in Huck's sugar hogshead and the watch began. An hour before

midnight the tavern closed up and its lights (the only ones

thereabouts) were put out. No Spaniard had been seen. Nobody had

entered or left the alley. Everything was auspicious. The blackness of

darkness reigned, the perfect stillness was interrupted only by

occasional mutterings of distant thunder.

Tom got his lantern, lit it in the hogshead, wrapped it closely in the

towel, and the two adventurers crept in the gloom toward the tavern.

Huck stood sentry and Tom felt his way into the alley. Then there was a

season of waiting anxiety that weighed upon Huck's spirits like a

mountain. He began to wish he could see a flash from the lantern--it

would frighten him, but it would at least tell him that Tom was alive

yet. It seemed hours since Tom had disappeared. Surely he must have

fainted; maybe he was dead; maybe his heart had burst under terror and

excitement. In his uneasiness Huck found himself drawing closer and

closer to the alley; fearing all sorts of dreadful things, and

momentarily expecting some catastrophe to happen that would take away

his breath. There was not much to take away, for he seemed only able to

inhale it by thimblefuls, and his heart would soon wear itself out, the

way it was beating. Suddenly there was a flash of light and Tom came

tearing by him: "Run!" said he; "run, for your life!"

He needn't have repeated it; once was enough; Huck was making thirty

or forty miles an hour before the repetition was uttered. The boys

never stopped till they reached the shed of a deserted slaughter-house

at the lower end of the village. Just as they got within its shelter

the storm burst and the rain poured down. As soon as Tom got his breath

he said:

"Huck, it was awful! I tried two of the keys, just as soft as I could;

but they seemed to make such a power of racket that I couldn't hardly

get my breath I was so scared. They wouldn't turn in the lock, either.

Well, without noticing what I was doing, I took hold of the knob, and

open comes the door! It warn't locked! I hopped in, and shook off the

towel, and, GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST!"

"What!--what'd you see, Tom?"

"Huck, I most stepped onto Injun Joe's hand!"

"No!"

"Yes! He was lying there, sound asleep on the floor, with his old

patch on his eye and his arms spread out."

"Lordy, what did you do? Did he wake up?"

"No, never budged. Drunk, I reckon. I just grabbed that towel and

started!"

"I'd never 'a' thought of the towel, I bet!"

"Well, I would. My aunt would make me mighty sick if I lost it."

"Say, Tom, did you see that box?"

"Huck, I didn't wait to look around. I didn't see the box, I didn't

see the cross. I didn't see anything but a bottle and a tin cup on the

floor by Injun Joe; yes, I saw two barrels and lots more bottles in the

room. Don't you see, now, what's the matter with that ha'nted room?"

"How?"

"Why, it's ha'nted with whiskey! Maybe ALL the Temperance Taverns have

got a ha'nted room, hey, Huck?"

"Well, I reckon maybe that's so. Who'd 'a' thought such a thing? But

say, Tom, now's a mighty good time to get that box, if Injun Joe's

drunk."

"It is, that! You try it!"

Huck shuddered.

"Well, no--I reckon not."

"And I reckon not, Huck. Only one bottle alongside of Injun Joe ain't

enough. If there'd been three, he'd be drunk enough and I'd do it."

There was a long pause for reflection, and then Tom said:

"Lookyhere, Huck, less not try that thing any more till we know Injun

Joe's not in there. It's too scary. Now, if we watch every night, we'll

be dead sure to see him go out, some time or other, and then we'll

snatch that box quicker'n lightning."

"Well, I'm agreed. I'll watch the whole night long, and I'll do it

every night, too, if you'll do the other part of the job."

"All right, I will. All you got to do is to trot up Hooper Street a

block and maow--and if I'm asleep, you throw some gravel at the window

and that'll fetch me."

"Agreed, and good as wheat!"

"Now, Huck, the storm's over, and I'll go home. It'll begin to be

daylight in a couple of hours. You go back and watch that long, will

you?"

"I said I would, Tom, and I will. I'll ha'nt that tavern every night

for a year! I'll sleep all day and I'll stand watch all night."

"That's all right. Now, where you going to sleep?"

"In Ben Rogers' hayloft. He lets me, and so does his pap's nigger man,

Uncle Jake. I tote water for Uncle Jake whenever he wants me to, and

any time I ask him he gives me a little something to eat if he can

spare it. That's a mighty good nigger, Tom. He likes me, becuz I don't

ever act as if I was above him. Sometime I've set right down and eat

WITH him. But you needn't tell that. A body's got to do things when

he's awful hungry he wouldn't want to do as a steady thing."

"Well, if I don't want you in the daytime, I'll let you sleep. I won't

come bothering around. Any time you see something's up, in the night,

just skip right around and maow."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE first thing Tom heard on Friday morning was a glad piece of news

--Judge Thatcher's family had come back to town the night before. Both

Injun Joe and the treasure sunk into secondary importance for a moment,

and Becky took the chief place in the boy's interest. He saw her and

they had an exhausting good time playing "hi-spy" and "gully-keeper"

with a crowd of their school-mates. The day was completed and crowned

in a peculiarly satisfactory way: Becky teased her mother to appoint

the next day for the long-promised and long-delayed picnic, and she

consented. The child's delight was boundless; and Tom's not more

moderate. The invitations were sent out before sunset, and straightway

the young folks of the village were thrown into a fever of preparation

and pleasurable anticipation. Tom's excitement enabled him to keep

awake until a pretty late hour, and he had good hopes of hearing Huck's

"maow," and of having his treasure to astonish Becky and the picnickers

with, next day; but he was disappointed. No signal came that night.

Morning came, eventually, and by ten or eleven o'clock a giddy and

rollicking company were gathered at Judge Thatcher's, and everything

was ready for a start. It was not the custom for elderly people to mar

the picnics with their presence. The children were considered safe

enough under the wings of a few young ladies of eighteen and a few

young gentlemen of twenty-three or thereabouts. The old steam ferryboat

was chartered for the occasion; presently the gay throng filed up the

main street laden with provision-baskets. Sid was sick and had to miss

the fun; Mary remained at home to entertain him. The last thing Mrs.

Thatcher said to Becky, was:

"You'll not get back till late. Perhaps you'd better stay all night

with some of the girls that live near the ferry-landing, child."

"Then I'll stay with Susy Harper, mamma."

"Very well. And mind and behave yourself and don't be any trouble."

Presently, as they tripped along, Tom said to Becky:

"Say--I'll tell you what we'll do. 'Stead of going to Joe Harper's

we'll climb right up the hill and stop at the Widow Douglas'. She'll

have ice-cream! She has it most every day--dead loads of it. And she'll

be awful glad to have us."

"Oh, that will be fun!"

Then Becky reflected a moment and said:

"But what will mamma say?"

"How'll she ever know?"

The girl turned the idea over in her mind, and said reluctantly:

"I reckon it's wrong--but--"

"But shucks! Your mother won't know, and so what's the harm? All she

wants is that you'll be safe; and I bet you she'd 'a' said go there if

she'd 'a' thought of it. I know she would!"

The Widow Douglas' splendid hospitality was a tempting bait. It and

Tom's persuasions presently carried the day. So it was decided to say

nothing anybody about the night's programme. Presently it occurred to

Tom that maybe Huck might come this very night and give the signal. The

thought took a deal of the spirit out of his anticipations. Still he

could not bear to give up the fun at Widow Douglas'. And why should he

give it up, he reasoned--the signal did not come the night before, so

why should it be any more likely to come to-night? The sure fun of the

evening outweighed the uncertain treasure; and, boy-like, he determined

to yield to the stronger inclination and not allow himself to think of

the box of money another time that day.

Three miles below town the ferryboat stopped at the mouth of a woody

hollow and tied up. The crowd swarmed ashore and soon the forest

distances and craggy heights echoed far and near with shoutings and

laughter. All the different ways of getting hot and tired were gone

through with, and by-and-by the rovers straggled back to camp fortified

with responsible appetites, and then the destruction of the good things

began. After the feast there was a refreshing season of rest and chat

in the shade of spreading oaks. By-and-by somebody shouted:

"Who's ready for the cave?"

Everybody was. Bundles of candles were procured, and straightway there

was a general scamper up the hill. The mouth of the cave was up the

hillside--an opening shaped like a letter A. Its massive oaken door

stood unbarred. Within was a small chamber, chilly as an ice-house, and

walled by Nature with solid limestone that was dewy with a cold sweat.

It was romantic and mysterious to stand here in the deep gloom and look

out upon the green valley shining in the sun. But the impressiveness of

the situation quickly wore off, and the romping began again. The moment

a candle was lighted there was a general rush upon the owner of it; a

struggle and a gallant defence followed, but the candle was soon

knocked down or blown out, and then there was a glad clamor of laughter

and a new chase. But all things have an end. By-and-by the procession

went filing down the steep descent of the main avenue, the flickering

rank of lights dimly revealing the lofty walls of rock almost to their

point of junction sixty feet overhead. This main avenue was not more

than eight or ten feet wide. Every few steps other lofty and still

narrower crevices branched from it on either hand--for McDougal's cave

was but a vast labyrinth of crooked aisles that ran into each other and

out again and led nowhere. It was said that one might wander days and

nights together through its intricate tangle of rifts and chasms, and

never find the end of the cave; and that he might go down, and down,

and still down, into the earth, and it was just the same--labyrinth

under labyrinth, and no end to any of them. No man "knew" the cave.

That was an impossible thing. Most of the young men knew a portion of

it, and it was not customary to venture much beyond this known portion.

Tom Sawyer knew as much of the cave as any one.

The procession moved along the main avenue some three-quarters of a

mile, and then groups and couples began to slip aside into branch

avenues, fly along the dismal corridors, and take each other by

surprise at points where the corridors joined again. Parties were able

to elude each other for the space of half an hour without going beyond

the "known" ground.

By-and-by, one group after another came straggling back to the mouth

of the cave, panting, hilarious, smeared from head to foot with tallow

drippings, daubed with clay, and entirely delighted with the success of

the day. Then they were astonished to find that they had been taking no

note of time and that night was about at hand. The clanging bell had

been calling for half an hour. However, this sort of close to the day's

adventures was romantic and therefore satisfactory. When the ferryboat

with her wild freight pushed into the stream, nobody cared sixpence for

the wasted time but the captain of the craft.

Huck was already upon his watch when the ferryboat's lights went

glinting past the wharf. He heard no noise on board, for the young

people were as subdued and still as people usually are who are nearly

tired to death. He wondered what boat it was, and why she did not stop

at the wharf--and then he dropped her out of his mind and put his

attention upon his business. The night was growing cloudy and dark. Ten

o'clock came, and the noise of vehicles ceased, scattered lights began

to wink out, all straggling foot-passengers disappeared, the village

betook itself to its slumbers and left the small watcher alone with the

silence and the ghosts. Eleven o'clock came, and the tavern lights were

put out; darkness everywhere, now. Huck waited what seemed a weary long

time, but nothing happened. His faith was weakening. Was there any use?

Was there really any use? Why not give it up and turn in?

A noise fell upon his ear. He was all attention in an instant. The

alley door closed softly. He sprang to the corner of the brick store.

The next moment two men brushed by him, and one seemed to have

something under his arm. It must be that box! So they were going to

remove the treasure. Why call Tom now? It would be absurd--the men

would get away with the box and never be found again. No, he would

stick to their wake and follow them; he would trust to the darkness for

security from discovery. So communing with himself, Huck stepped out

and glided along behind the men, cat-like, with bare feet, allowing

them to keep just far enough ahead not to be invisible.

They moved up the river street three blocks, then turned to the left

up a cross-street. They went straight ahead, then, until they came to

the path that led up Cardiff Hill; this they took. They passed by the

old Welshman's house, half-way up the hill, without hesitating, and

still climbed upward. Good, thought Huck, they will bury it in the old

quarry. But they never stopped at the quarry. They passed on, up the

summit. They plunged into the narrow path between the tall sumach

bushes, and were at once hidden in the gloom. Huck closed up and

shortened his distance, now, for they would never be able to see him.

He trotted along awhile; then slackened his pace, fearing he was

gaining too fast; moved on a piece, then stopped altogether; listened;

no sound; none, save that he seemed to hear the beating of his own

heart. The hooting of an owl came over the hill--ominous sound! But no

footsteps. Heavens, was everything lost! He was about to spring with

winged feet, when a man cleared his throat not four feet from him!

Huck's heart shot into his throat, but he swallowed it again; and then

he stood there shaking as if a dozen agues had taken charge of him at

once, and so weak that he thought he must surely fall to the ground. He

knew where he was. He knew he was within five steps of the stile

leading into Widow Douglas' grounds. Very well, he thought, let them

bury it there; it won't be hard to find.

Now there was a voice--a very low voice--Injun Joe's:

"Damn her, maybe she's got company--there's lights, late as it is."

"I can't see any."

This was that stranger's voice--the stranger of the haunted house. A

deadly chill went to Huck's heart--this, then, was the "revenge" job!

His thought was, to fly. Then he remembered that the Widow Douglas had

been kind to him more than once, and maybe these men were going to

murder her. He wished he dared venture to warn her; but he knew he

didn't dare--they might come and catch him. He thought all this and

more in the moment that elapsed between the stranger's remark and Injun

Joe's next--which was--

"Because the bush is in your way. Now--this way--now you see, don't

you?"

"Yes. Well, there IS company there, I reckon. Better give it up."

"Give it up, and I just leaving this country forever! Give it up and

maybe never have another chance. I tell you again, as I've told you

before, I don't care for her swag--you may have it. But her husband was

rough on me--many times he was rough on me--and mainly he was the

justice of the peace that jugged me for a vagrant. And that ain't all.

It ain't a millionth part of it! He had me HORSEWHIPPED!--horsewhipped

in front of the jail, like a nigger!--with all the town looking on!

HORSEWHIPPED!--do you understand? He took advantage of me and died. But

I'll take it out of HER."

"Oh, don't kill her! Don't do that!"

"Kill? Who said anything about killing? I would kill HIM if he was

here; but not her. When you want to get revenge on a woman you don't

kill her--bosh! you go for her looks. You slit her nostrils--you notch

her ears like a sow!"

"By God, that's--"

"Keep your opinion to yourself! It will be safest for you. I'll tie

her to the bed. If she bleeds to death, is that my fault? I'll not cry,

if she does. My friend, you'll help me in this thing--for MY sake

--that's why you're here--I mightn't be able alone. If you flinch, I'll

kill you. Do you understand that? And if I have to kill you, I'll kill

her--and then I reckon nobody'll ever know much about who done this

business."

"Well, if it's got to be done, let's get at it. The quicker the

better--I'm all in a shiver."

"Do it NOW? And company there? Look here--I'll get suspicious of you,

first thing you know. No--we'll wait till the lights are out--there's

no hurry."

Huck felt that a silence was going to ensue--a thing still more awful

than any amount of murderous talk; so he held his breath and stepped

gingerly back; planted his foot carefully and firmly, after balancing,

one-legged, in a precarious way and almost toppling over, first on one

side and then on the other. He took another step back, with the same

elaboration and the same risks; then another and another, and--a twig

snapped under his foot! His breath stopped and he listened. There was

no sound--the stillness was perfect. His gratitude was measureless. Now

he turned in his tracks, between the walls of sumach bushes--turned

himself as carefully as if he were a ship--and then stepped quickly but

cautiously along. When he emerged at the quarry he felt secure, and so

he picked up his nimble heels and flew. Down, down he sped, till he

reached the Welshman's. He banged at the door, and presently the heads

of the old man and his two stalwart sons were thrust from windows.

"What's the row there? Who's banging? What do you want?"

"Let me in--quick! I'll tell everything."

"Why, who are you?"

"Huckleberry Finn--quick, let me in!"

"Huckleberry Finn, indeed! It ain't a name to open many doors, I

judge! But let him in, lads, and let's see what's the trouble."

"Please don't ever tell I told you," were Huck's first words when he

got in. "Please don't--I'd be killed, sure--but the widow's been good

friends to me sometimes, and I want to tell--I WILL tell if you'll

promise you won't ever say it was me."

"By George, he HAS got something to tell, or he wouldn't act so!"

exclaimed the old man; "out with it and nobody here'll ever tell, lad."

Three minutes later the old man and his sons, well armed, were up the

hill, and just entering the sumach path on tiptoe, their weapons in

their hands. Huck accompanied them no further. He hid behind a great

bowlder and fell to listening. There was a lagging, anxious silence,

and then all of a sudden there was an explosion of firearms and a cry.

Huck waited for no particulars. He sprang away and sped down the hill

as fast as his legs could carry him.

CHAPTER XXX

AS the earliest suspicion of dawn appeared on Sunday morning, Huck

came groping up the hill and rapped gently at the old Welshman's door.

The inmates were asleep, but it was a sleep that was set on a

hair-trigger, on account of the exciting episode of the night. A call

came from a window:

"Who's there!"

Huck's scared voice answered in a low tone:

"Please let me in! It's only Huck Finn!"

"It's a name that can open this door night or day, lad!--and welcome!"

These were strange words to the vagabond boy's ears, and the

pleasantest he had ever heard. He could not recollect that the closing

word had ever been applied in his case before. The door was quickly

unlocked, and he entered. Huck was given a seat and the old man and his

brace of tall sons speedily dressed themselves.

"Now, my boy, I hope you're good and hungry, because breakfast will be

ready as soon as the sun's up, and we'll have a piping hot one, too

--make yourself easy about that! I and the boys hoped you'd turn up and

stop here last night."

"I was awful scared," said Huck, "and I run. I took out when the

pistols went off, and I didn't stop for three mile. I've come now becuz

I wanted to know about it, you know; and I come before daylight becuz I

didn't want to run across them devils, even if they was dead."

"Well, poor chap, you do look as if you'd had a hard night of it--but

there's a bed here for you when you've had your breakfast. No, they

ain't dead, lad--we are sorry enough for that. You see we knew right

where to put our hands on them, by your description; so we crept along

on tiptoe till we got within fifteen feet of them--dark as a cellar

that sumach path was--and just then I found I was going to sneeze. It

was the meanest kind of luck! I tried to keep it back, but no use

--'twas bound to come, and it did come! I was in the lead with my pistol

raised, and when the sneeze started those scoundrels a-rustling to get

out of the path, I sung out, 'Fire boys!' and blazed away at the place

where the rustling was. So did the boys. But they were off in a jiffy,

those villains, and we after them, down through the woods. I judge we

never touched them. They fired a shot apiece as they started, but their

bullets whizzed by and didn't do us any harm. As soon as we lost the

sound of their feet we quit chasing, and went down and stirred up the

constables. They got a posse together, and went off to guard the river

bank, and as soon as it is light the sheriff and a gang are going to

beat up the woods. My boys will be with them presently. I wish we had

some sort of description of those rascals--'twould help a good deal.

But you couldn't see what they were like, in the dark, lad, I suppose?"

"Oh yes; I saw them down-town and follered them."

"Splendid! Describe them--describe them, my boy!"

"One's the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that's ben around here once or

twice, and t'other's a mean-looking, ragged--"

"That's enough, lad, we know the men! Happened on them in the woods

back of the widow's one day, and they slunk away. Off with you, boys,

and tell the sheriff--get your breakfast to-morrow morning!"

The Welshman's sons departed at once. As they were leaving the room

Huck sprang up and exclaimed:

"Oh, please don't tell ANYbody it was me that blowed on them! Oh,

please!"

"All right if you say it, Huck, but you ought to have the credit of

what you did."

"Oh no, no! Please don't tell!"

When the young men were gone, the old Welshman said:

"They won't tell--and I won't. But why don't you want it known?"

Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew too

much about one of those men and would not have the man know that he

knew anything against him for the whole world--he would be killed for

knowing it, sure.

The old man promised secrecy once more, and said:

"How did you come to follow these fellows, lad? Were they looking

suspicious?"

Huck was silent while he framed a duly cautious reply. Then he said:

"Well, you see, I'm a kind of a hard lot,--least everybody says so,

and I don't see nothing agin it--and sometimes I can't sleep much, on

account of thinking about it and sort of trying to strike out a new way

of doing. That was the way of it last night. I couldn't sleep, and so I

come along up-street 'bout midnight, a-turning it all over, and when I

got to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I backed

up agin the wall to have another think. Well, just then along comes

these two chaps slipping along close by me, with something under their

arm, and I reckoned they'd stole it. One was a-smoking, and t'other one

wanted a light; so they stopped right before me and the cigars lit up

their faces and I see that the big one was the deaf and dumb Spaniard,

by his white whiskers and the patch on his eye, and t'other one was a

rusty, ragged-looking devil."

"Could you see the rags by the light of the cigars?"

This staggered Huck for a moment. Then he said:

"Well, I don't know--but somehow it seems as if I did."

"Then they went on, and you--"

"Follered 'em--yes. That was it. I wanted to see what was up--they

sneaked along so. I dogged 'em to the widder's stile, and stood in the

dark and heard the ragged one beg for the widder, and the Spaniard

swear he'd spile her looks just as I told you and your two--"

"What! The DEAF AND DUMB man said all that!"

Huck had made another terrible mistake! He was trying his best to keep

the old man from getting the faintest hint of who the Spaniard might

be, and yet his tongue seemed determined to get him into trouble in

spite of all he could do. He made several efforts to creep out of his

scrape, but the old man's eye was upon him and he made blunder after

blunder. Presently the Welshman said:

"My boy, don't be afraid of me. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head

for all the world. No--I'd protect you--I'd protect you. This Spaniard

is not deaf and dumb; you've let that slip without intending it; you

can't cover that up now. You know something about that Spaniard that

you want to keep dark. Now trust me--tell me what it is, and trust me

--I won't betray you."

Huck looked into the old man's honest eyes a moment, then bent over

and whispered in his ear:

"'Tain't a Spaniard--it's Injun Joe!"

The Welshman almost jumped out of his chair. In a moment he said:

"It's all plain enough, now. When you talked about notching ears and

slitting noses I judged that that was your own embellishment, because

white men don't take that sort of revenge. But an Injun! That's a

different matter altogether."

During breakfast the talk went on, and in the course of it the old man

said that the last thing which he and his sons had done, before going

to bed, was to get a lantern and examine the stile and its vicinity for

marks of blood. They found none, but captured a bulky bundle of--

"Of WHAT?"

If the words had been lightning they could not have leaped with a more

stunning suddenness from Huck's blanched lips. His eyes were staring

wide, now, and his breath suspended--waiting for the answer. The

Welshman started--stared in return--three seconds--five seconds--ten

--then replied:

"Of burglar's tools. Why, what's the MATTER with you?"

Huck sank back, panting gently, but deeply, unutterably grateful. The

Welshman eyed him gravely, curiously--and presently said:

"Yes, burglar's tools. That appears to relieve you a good deal. But

what did give you that turn? What were YOU expecting we'd found?"

Huck was in a close place--the inquiring eye was upon him--he would

have given anything for material for a plausible answer--nothing

suggested itself--the inquiring eye was boring deeper and deeper--a

senseless reply offered--there was no time to weigh it, so at a venture

he uttered it--feebly:

"Sunday-school books, maybe."

Poor Huck was too distressed to smile, but the old man laughed loud

and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot,

and ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a-man's pocket,

because it cut down the doctor's bill like everything. Then he added:

"Poor old chap, you're white and jaded--you ain't well a bit--no

wonder you're a little flighty and off your balance. But you'll come

out of it. Rest and sleep will fetch you out all right, I hope."

Huck was irritated to think he had been such a goose and betrayed such

a suspicious excitement, for he had dropped the idea that the parcel

brought from the tavern was the treasure, as soon as he had heard the

talk at the widow's stile. He had only thought it was not the treasure,

however--he had not known that it wasn't--and so the suggestion of a

captured bundle was too much for his self-possession. But on the whole

he felt glad the little episode had happened, for now he knew beyond

all question that that bundle was not THE bundle, and so his mind was

at rest and exceedingly comfortable. In fact, everything seemed to be

drifting just in the right direction, now; the treasure must be still

in No. 2, the men would be captured and jailed that day, and he and Tom

could seize the gold that night without any trouble or any fear of

interruption.

Just as breakfast was completed there was a knock at the door. Huck

jumped for a hiding-place, for he had no mind to be connected even

remotely with the late event. The Welshman admitted several ladies and

gentlemen, among them the Widow Douglas, and noticed that groups of

citizens were climbing up the hill--to stare at the stile. So the news

had spread. The Welshman had to tell the story of the night to the

visitors. The widow's gratitude for her preservation was outspoken.

"Don't say a word about it, madam. There's another that you're more

beholden to than you are to me and my boys, maybe, but he don't allow

me to tell his name. We wouldn't have been there but for him."

Of course this excited a curiosity so vast that it almost belittled

the main matter--but the Welshman allowed it to eat into the vitals of

his visitors, and through them be transmitted to the whole town, for he

refused to part with his secret. When all else had been learned, the

widow said:

"I went to sleep reading in bed and slept straight through all that

noise. Why didn't you come and wake me?"

"We judged it warn't worth while. Those fellows warn't likely to come

again--they hadn't any tools left to work with, and what was the use of

waking you up and scaring you to death? My three negro men stood guard

at your house all the rest of the night. They've just come back."

More visitors came, and the story had to be told and retold for a

couple of hours more.

There was no Sabbath-school during day-school vacation, but everybody

was early at church. The stirring event was well canvassed. News came

that not a sign of the two villains had been yet discovered. When the

sermon was finished, Judge Thatcher's wife dropped alongside of Mrs.

Harper as she moved down the aisle with the crowd and said:

"Is my Becky going to sleep all day? I just expected she would be

tired to death."

"Your Becky?"

"Yes," with a startled look--"didn't she stay with you last night?"

"Why, no."

Mrs. Thatcher turned pale, and sank into a pew, just as Aunt Polly,

talking briskly with a friend, passed by. Aunt Polly said:

"Good-morning, Mrs. Thatcher. Good-morning, Mrs. Harper. I've got a

boy that's turned up missing. I reckon my Tom stayed at your house last

night--one of you. And now he's afraid to come to church. I've got to

settle with him."

Mrs. Thatcher shook her head feebly and turned paler than ever.

"He didn't stay with us," said Mrs. Harper, beginning to look uneasy.

A marked anxiety came into Aunt Polly's face.

"Joe Harper, have you seen my Tom this morning?"

"No'm."

"When did you see him last?"

Joe tried to remember, but was not sure he could say. The people had

stopped moving out of church. Whispers passed along, and a boding

uneasiness took possession of every countenance. Children were

anxiously questioned, and young teachers. They all said they had not

noticed whether Tom and Becky were on board the ferryboat on the

homeward trip; it was dark; no one thought of inquiring if any one was

missing. One young man finally blurted out his fear that they were

still in the cave! Mrs. Thatcher swooned away. Aunt Polly fell to

crying and wringing her hands.

The alarm swept from lip to lip, from group to group, from street to

street, and within five minutes the bells were wildly clanging and the

whole town was up! The Cardiff Hill episode sank into instant

insignificance, the burglars were forgotten, horses were saddled,

skiffs were manned, the ferryboat ordered out, and before the horror

was half an hour old, two hundred men were pouring down highroad and

river toward the cave.

All the long afternoon the village seemed empty and dead. Many women

visited Aunt Polly and Mrs. Thatcher and tried to comfort them. They

cried with them, too, and that was still better than words. All the

tedious night the town waited for news; but when the morning dawned at

last, all the word that came was, "Send more candles--and send food."

Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also. Judge Thatcher

sent messages of hope and encouragement from the cave, but they

conveyed no real cheer.

The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with

candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out. He found Huck

still in the bed that had been provided for him, and delirious with

fever. The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came

and took charge of the patient. She said she would do her best by him,

because, whether he was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord's,

and nothing that was the Lord's was a thing to be neglected. The

Welshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said:

"You can depend on it. That's the Lord's mark. He don't leave it off.

He never does. Puts it somewhere on every creature that comes from his

hands."

Early in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the

village, but the strongest of the citizens continued searching. All the

news that could be gained was that remotenesses of the cavern were

being ransacked that had never been visited before; that every corner

and crevice was going to be thoroughly searched; that wherever one

wandered through the maze of passages, lights were to be seen flitting

hither and thither in the distance, and shoutings and pistol-shots sent

their hollow reverberations to the ear down the sombre aisles. In one

place, far from the section usually traversed by tourists, the names

"BECKY & TOM" had been found traced upon the rocky wall with

candle-smoke, and near at hand a grease-soiled bit of ribbon. Mrs.

Thatcher recognized the ribbon and cried over it. She said it was the

last relic she should ever have of her child; and that no other memorial

of her could ever be so precious, because this one parted latest from

the living body before the awful death came. Some said that now and

then, in the cave, a far-away speck of light would glimmer, and then a

glorious shout would burst forth and a score of men go trooping down the

echoing aisle--and then a sickening disappointment always followed; the

children were not there; it was only a searcher's light.

Three dreadful days and nights dragged their tedious hours along, and

the village sank into a hopeless stupor. No one had heart for anything.

The accidental discovery, just made, that the proprietor of the

Temperance Tavern kept liquor on his premises, scarcely fluttered the

public pulse, tremendous as the fact was. In a lucid interval, Huck

feebly led up to the subject of taverns, and finally asked--dimly

dreading the worst--if anything had been discovered at the Temperance

Tavern since he had been ill.

"Yes," said the widow.

Huck started up in bed, wild-eyed:

"What? What was it?"

"Liquor!--and the place has been shut up. Lie down, child--what a turn

you did give me!"

"Only tell me just one thing--only just one--please! Was it Tom Sawyer

that found it?"

The widow burst into tears. "Hush, hush, child, hush! I've told you

before, you must NOT talk. You are very, very sick!"

Then nothing but liquor had been found; there would have been a great

powwow if it had been the gold. So the treasure was gone forever--gone

forever! But what could she be crying about? Curious that she should

cry.

These thoughts worked their dim way through Huck's mind, and under the

weariness they gave him he fell asleep. The widow said to herself:

"There--he's asleep, poor wreck. Tom Sawyer find it! Pity but somebody

could find Tom Sawyer! Ah, there ain't many left, now, that's got hope

enough, or strength enough, either, to go on searching."

CHAPTER XXXI

NOW to return to Tom and Becky's share in the picnic. They tripped

along the murky aisles with the rest of the company, visiting the

familiar wonders of the cave--wonders dubbed with rather

over-descriptive names, such as "The Drawing-Room," "The Cathedral,"

"Aladdin's Palace," and so on. Presently the hide-and-seek frolicking

began, and Tom and Becky engaged in it with zeal until the exertion

began to grow a trifle wearisome; then they wandered down a sinuous

avenue holding their candles aloft and reading the tangled web-work of

names, dates, post-office addresses, and mottoes with which the rocky

walls had been frescoed (in candle-smoke). Still drifting along and

talking, they scarcely noticed that they were now in a part of the cave

whose walls were not frescoed. They smoked their own names under an

overhanging shelf and moved on. Presently they came to a place where a

little stream of water, trickling over a ledge and carrying a limestone

sediment with it, had, in the slow-dragging ages, formed a laced and

ruffled Niagara in gleaming and imperishable stone. Tom squeezed his

small body behind it in order to illuminate it for Becky's

gratification. He found that it curtained a sort of steep natural

stairway which was enclosed between narrow walls, and at once the

ambition to be a discoverer seized him. Becky responded to his call,

and they made a smoke-mark for future guidance, and started upon their

quest. They wound this way and that, far down into the secret depths of

the cave, made another mark, and branched off in search of novelties to

tell the upper world about. In one place they found a spacious cavern,

from whose ceiling depended a multitude of shining stalactites of the

length and circumference of a man's leg; they walked all about it,

wondering and admiring, and presently left it by one of the numerous

passages that opened into it. This shortly brought them to a bewitching

spring, whose basin was incrusted with a frostwork of glittering

crystals; it was in the midst of a cavern whose walls were supported by

many fantastic pillars which had been formed by the joining of great

stalactites and stalagmites together, the result of the ceaseless

water-drip of centuries. Under the roof vast knots of bats had packed

themselves together, thousands in a bunch; the lights disturbed the

creatures and they came flocking down by hundreds, squeaking and

darting furiously at the candles. Tom knew their ways and the danger of

this sort of conduct. He seized Becky's hand and hurried her into the

first corridor that offered; and none too soon, for a bat struck

Becky's light out with its wing while she was passing out of the

cavern. The bats chased the children a good distance; but the fugitives

plunged into every new passage that offered, and at last got rid of the

perilous things. Tom found a subterranean lake, shortly, which

stretched its dim length away until its shape was lost in the shadows.

He wanted to explore its borders, but concluded that it would be best

to sit down and rest awhile, first. Now, for the first time, the deep

stillness of the place laid a clammy hand upon the spirits of the

children. Becky said:

"Why, I didn't notice, but it seems ever so long since I heard any of

the others."

"Come to think, Becky, we are away down below them--and I don't know

how far away north, or south, or east, or whichever it is. We couldn't

hear them here."

Becky grew apprehensive.

"I wonder how long we've been down here, Tom? We better start back."

"Yes, I reckon we better. P'raps we better."

"Can you find the way, Tom? It's all a mixed-up crookedness to me."

"I reckon I could find it--but then the bats. If they put our candles

out it will be an awful fix. Let's try some other way, so as not to go

through there."

"Well. But I hope we won't get lost. It would be so awful!" and the

girl shuddered at the thought of the dreadful possibilities.

They started through a corridor, and traversed it in silence a long

way, glancing at each new opening, to see if there was anything

familiar about the look of it; but they were all strange. Every time

Tom made an examination, Becky would watch his face for an encouraging

sign, and he would say cheerily:

"Oh, it's all right. This ain't the one, but we'll come to it right

away!"

But he felt less and less hopeful with each failure, and presently

began to turn off into diverging avenues at sheer random, in desperate

hope of finding the one that was wanted. He still said it was "all

right," but there was such a leaden dread at his heart that the words

had lost their ring and sounded just as if he had said, "All is lost!"

Becky clung to his side in an anguish of fear, and tried hard to keep

back the tears, but they would come. At last she said:

"Oh, Tom, never mind the bats, let's go back that way! We seem to get

worse and worse off all the time."

"Listen!" said he.

Profound silence; silence so deep that even their breathings were

conspicuous in the hush. Tom shouted. The call went echoing down the

empty aisles and died out in the distance in a faint sound that

resembled a ripple of mocking laughter.

"Oh, don't do it again, Tom, it is too horrid," said Becky.

"It is horrid, but I better, Becky; they might hear us, you know," and

he shouted again.

The "might" was even a chillier horror than the ghostly laughter, it

so confessed a perishing hope. The children stood still and listened;

but there was no result. Tom turned upon the back track at once, and

hurried his steps. It was but a little while before a certain

indecision in his manner revealed another fearful fact to Becky--he

could not find his way back!

"Oh, Tom, you didn't make any marks!"

"Becky, I was such a fool! Such a fool! I never thought we might want

to come back! No--I can't find the way. It's all mixed up."

"Tom, Tom, we're lost! we're lost! We never can get out of this awful

place! Oh, why DID we ever leave the others!"

She sank to the ground and burst into such a frenzy of crying that Tom

was appalled with the idea that she might die, or lose her reason. He

sat down by her and put his arms around her; she buried her face in his

bosom, she clung to him, she poured out her terrors, her unavailing

regrets, and the far echoes turned them all to jeering laughter. Tom

begged her to pluck up hope again, and she said she could not. He fell

to blaming and abusing himself for getting her into this miserable

situation; this had a better effect. She said she would try to hope

again, she would get up and follow wherever he might lead if only he

would not talk like that any more. For he was no more to blame than

she, she said.

So they moved on again--aimlessly--simply at random--all they could do

was to move, keep moving. For a little while, hope made a show of

reviving--not with any reason to back it, but only because it is its

nature to revive when the spring has not been taken out of it by age

and familiarity with failure.

By-and-by Tom took Becky's candle and blew it out. This economy meant

so much! Words were not needed. Becky understood, and her hope died

again. She knew that Tom had a whole candle and three or four pieces in

his pockets--yet he must economize.

By-and-by, fatigue began to assert its claims; the children tried to

pay attention, for it was dreadful to think of sitting down when time

was grown to be so precious, moving, in some direction, in any

direction, was at least progress and might bear fruit; but to sit down

was to invite death and shorten its pursuit.

At last Becky's frail limbs refused to carry her farther. She sat

down. Tom rested with her, and they talked of home, and the friends

there, and the comfortable beds and, above all, the light! Becky cried,

and Tom tried to think of some way of comforting her, but all his

encouragements were grown threadbare with use, and sounded like

sarcasms. Fatigue bore so heavily upon Becky that she drowsed off to

sleep. Tom was grateful. He sat looking into her drawn face and saw it

grow smooth and natural under the influence of pleasant dreams; and

by-and-by a smile dawned and rested there. The peaceful face reflected

somewhat of peace and healing into his own spirit, and his thoughts

wandered away to bygone times and dreamy memories. While he was deep in

his musings, Becky woke up with a breezy little laugh--but it was

stricken dead upon her lips, and a groan followed it.

"Oh, how COULD I sleep! I wish I never, never had waked! No! No, I

don't, Tom! Don't look so! I won't say it again."

"I'm glad you've slept, Becky; you'll feel rested, now, and we'll find

the way out."

"We can try, Tom; but I've seen such a beautiful country in my dream.

I reckon we are going there."

"Maybe not, maybe not. Cheer up, Becky, and let's go on trying."

They rose up and wandered along, hand in hand and hopeless. They tried

to estimate how long they had been in the cave, but all they knew was

that it seemed days and weeks, and yet it was plain that this could not

be, for their candles were not gone yet. A long time after this--they

could not tell how long--Tom said they must go softly and listen for

dripping water--they must find a spring. They found one presently, and

Tom said it was time to rest again. Both were cruelly tired, yet Becky

said she thought she could go a little farther. She was surprised to

hear Tom dissent. She could not understand it. They sat down, and Tom

fastened his candle to the wall in front of them with some clay.

Thought was soon busy; nothing was said for some time. Then Becky broke

the silence:

"Tom, I am so hungry!"

Tom took something out of his pocket.

"Do you remember this?" said he.

Becky almost smiled.

"It's our wedding-cake, Tom."

"Yes--I wish it was as big as a barrel, for it's all we've got."

"I saved it from the picnic for us to dream on, Tom, the way grown-up

people do with wedding-cake--but it'll be our--"

She dropped the sentence where it was. Tom divided the cake and Becky

ate with good appetite, while Tom nibbled at his moiety. There was

abundance of cold water to finish the feast with. By-and-by Becky

suggested that they move on again. Tom was silent a moment. Then he

said:

"Becky, can you bear it if I tell you something?"

Becky's face paled, but she thought she could.

"Well, then, Becky, we must stay here, where there's water to drink.

That little piece is our last candle!"

Becky gave loose to tears and wailings. Tom did what he could to

comfort her, but with little effect. At length Becky said:

"Tom!"

"Well, Becky?"

"They'll miss us and hunt for us!"

"Yes, they will! Certainly they will!"

"Maybe they're hunting for us now, Tom."

"Why, I reckon maybe they are. I hope they are."

"When would they miss us, Tom?"

"When they get back to the boat, I reckon."

"Tom, it might be dark then--would they notice we hadn't come?"

"I don't know. But anyway, your mother would miss you as soon as they

got home."

A frightened look in Becky's face brought Tom to his senses and he saw

that he had made a blunder. Becky was not to have gone home that night!

The children became silent and thoughtful. In a moment a new burst of

grief from Becky showed Tom that the thing in his mind had struck hers

also--that the Sabbath morning might be half spent before Mrs. Thatcher

discovered that Becky was not at Mrs. Harper's.

The children fastened their eyes upon their bit of candle and watched

it melt slowly and pitilessly away; saw the half inch of wick stand

alone at last; saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin

column of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then--the horror of

utter darkness reigned!

How long afterward it was that Becky came to a slow consciousness that

she was crying in Tom's arms, neither could tell. All that they knew

was, that after what seemed a mighty stretch of time, both awoke out of

a dead stupor of sleep and resumed their miseries once more. Tom said

it might be Sunday, now--maybe Monday. He tried to get Becky to talk,

but her sorrows were too oppressive, all her hopes were gone. Tom said

that they must have been missed long ago, and no doubt the search was

going on. He would shout and maybe some one would come. He tried it;

but in the darkness the distant echoes sounded so hideously that he

tried it no more.

The hours wasted away, and hunger came to torment the captives again.

A portion of Tom's half of the cake was left; they divided and ate it.

But they seemed hungrier than before. The poor morsel of food only

whetted desire.

By-and-by Tom said:

"SH! Did you hear that?"

Both held their breath and listened. There was a sound like the

faintest, far-off shout. Instantly Tom answered it, and leading Becky

by the hand, started groping down the corridor in its direction.

Presently he listened again; again the sound was heard, and apparently

a little nearer.

"It's them!" said Tom; "they're coming! Come along, Becky--we're all

right now!"

The joy of the prisoners was almost overwhelming. Their speed was

slow, however, because pitfalls were somewhat common, and had to be

guarded against. They shortly came to one and had to stop. It might be

three feet deep, it might be a hundred--there was no passing it at any

rate. Tom got down on his breast and reached as far down as he could.

No bottom. They must stay there and wait until the searchers came. They

listened; evidently the distant shoutings were growing more distant! a

moment or two more and they had gone altogether. The heart-sinking

misery of it! Tom whooped until he was hoarse, but it was of no use. He

talked hopefully to Becky; but an age of anxious waiting passed and no

sounds came again.

The children groped their way back to the spring. The weary time

dragged on; they slept again, and awoke famished and woe-stricken. Tom

believed it must be Tuesday by this time.

Now an idea struck him. There were some side passages near at hand. It

would be better to explore some of these than bear the weight of the

heavy time in idleness. He took a kite-line from his pocket, tied it to

a projection, and he and Becky started, Tom in the lead, unwinding the

line as he groped along. At the end of twenty steps the corridor ended

in a "jumping-off place." Tom got down on his knees and felt below, and

then as far around the corner as he could reach with his hands

conveniently; he made an effort to stretch yet a little farther to the

right, and at that moment, not twenty yards away, a human hand, holding

a candle, appeared from behind a rock! Tom lifted up a glorious shout,

and instantly that hand was followed by the body it belonged to--Injun

Joe's! Tom was paralyzed; he could not move. He was vastly gratified

the next moment, to see the "Spaniard" take to his heels and get

himself out of sight. Tom wondered that Joe had not recognized his

voice and come over and killed him for testifying in court. But the

echoes must have disguised the voice. Without doubt, that was it, he

reasoned. Tom's fright weakened every muscle in his body. He said to

himself that if he had strength enough to get back to the spring he

would stay there, and nothing should tempt him to run the risk of

meeting Injun Joe again. He was careful to keep from Becky what it was

he had seen. He told her he had only shouted "for luck."

But hunger and wretchedness rise superior to fears in the long run.

Another tedious wait at the spring and another long sleep brought

changes. The children awoke tortured with a raging hunger. Tom believed

that it must be Wednesday or Thursday or even Friday or Saturday, now,

and that the search had been given over. He proposed to explore another

passage. He felt willing to risk Injun Joe and all other terrors. But

Becky was very weak. She had sunk into a dreary apathy and would not be

roused. She said she would wait, now, where she was, and die--it would

not be long. She told Tom to go with the kite-line and explore if he

chose; but she implored him to come back every little while and speak

to her; and she made him promise that when the awful time came, he

would stay by her and hold her hand until all was over.

Tom kissed her, with a choking sensation in his throat, and made a

show of being confident of finding the searchers or an escape from the

cave; then he took the kite-line in his hand and went groping down one

of the passages on his hands and knees, distressed with hunger and sick

with bodings of coming doom.

CHAPTER XXXII

TUESDAY afternoon came, and waned to the twilight. The village of St.

Petersburg still mourned. The lost children had not been found. Public

prayers had been offered up for them, and many and many a private

prayer that had the petitioner's whole heart in it; but still no good

news came from the cave. The majority of the searchers had given up the

quest and gone back to their daily avocations, saying that it was plain

the children could never be found. Mrs. Thatcher was very ill, and a

great part of the time delirious. People said it was heartbreaking to

hear her call her child, and raise her head and listen a whole minute

at a time, then lay it wearily down again with a moan. Aunt Polly had

drooped into a settled melancholy, and her gray hair had grown almost

white. The village went to its rest on Tuesday night, sad and forlorn.

Away in the middle of the night a wild peal burst from the village

bells, and in a moment the streets were swarming with frantic half-clad

people, who shouted, "Turn out! turn out! they're found! they're

found!" Tin pans and horns were added to the din, the population massed

itself and moved toward the river, met the children coming in an open

carriage drawn by shouting citizens, thronged around it, joined its

homeward march, and swept magnificently up the main street roaring

huzzah after huzzah!

The village was illuminated; nobody went to bed again; it was the

greatest night the little town had ever seen. During the first half-hour

a procession of villagers filed through Judge Thatcher's house, seized

the saved ones and kissed them, squeezed Mrs. Thatcher's hand, tried to

speak but couldn't--and drifted out raining tears all over the place.

Aunt Polly's happiness was complete, and Mrs. Thatcher's nearly so. It

would be complete, however, as soon as the messenger dispatched with

the great news to the cave should get the word to her husband. Tom lay

upon a sofa with an eager auditory about him and told the history of

the wonderful adventure, putting in many striking additions to adorn it

withal; and closed with a description of how he left Becky and went on

an exploring expedition; how he followed two avenues as far as his

kite-line would reach; how he followed a third to the fullest stretch of

the kite-line, and was about to turn back when he glimpsed a far-off

speck that looked like daylight; dropped the line and groped toward it,

pushed his head and shoulders through a small hole, and saw the broad

Mississippi rolling by! And if it had only happened to be night he would

not have seen that speck of daylight and would not have explored that

passage any more! He told how he went back for Becky and broke the good

news and she told him not to fret her with such stuff, for she was

tired, and knew she was going to die, and wanted to. He described how he

labored with her and convinced her; and how she almost died for joy when

she had groped to where she actually saw the blue speck of daylight; how

he pushed his way out at the hole and then helped her out; how they sat

there and cried for gladness; how some men came along in a skiff and Tom

hailed them and told them their situation and their famished condition;

how the men didn't believe the wild tale at first, "because," said they,

"you are five miles down the river below the valley the cave is in"

--then took them aboard, rowed to a house, gave them supper, made them

rest till two or three hours after dark and then brought them home.

Before day-dawn, Judge Thatcher and the handful of searchers with him

were tracked out, in the cave, by the twine clews they had strung

behind them, and informed of the great news.

Three days and nights of toil and hunger in the cave were not to be

shaken off at once, as Tom and Becky soon discovered. They were

bedridden all of Wednesday and Thursday, and seemed to grow more and

more tired and worn, all the time. Tom got about, a little, on

Thursday, was down-town Friday, and nearly as whole as ever Saturday;

but Becky did not leave her room until Sunday, and then she looked as

if she had passed through a wasting illness.

Tom learned of Huck's sickness and went to see him on Friday, but

could not be admitted to the bedroom; neither could he on Saturday or

Sunday. He was admitted daily after that, but was warned to keep still

about his adventure and introduce no exciting topic. The Widow Douglas

stayed by to see that he obeyed. At home Tom learned of the Cardiff

Hill event; also that the "ragged man's" body had eventually been found

in the river near the ferry-landing; he had been drowned while trying

to escape, perhaps.

About a fortnight after Tom's rescue from the cave, he started off to

visit Huck, who had grown plenty strong enough, now, to hear exciting

talk, and Tom had some that would interest him, he thought. Judge

Thatcher's house was on Tom's way, and he stopped to see Becky. The

Judge and some friends set Tom to talking, and some one asked him

ironically if he wouldn't like to go to the cave again. Tom said he

thought he wouldn't mind it. The Judge said:

"Well, there are others just like you, Tom, I've not the least doubt.

But we have taken care of that. Nobody will get lost in that cave any

more."

"Why?"

"Because I had its big door sheathed with boiler iron two weeks ago,

and triple-locked--and I've got the keys."

Tom turned as white as a sheet.

"What's the matter, boy! Here, run, somebody! Fetch a glass of water!"

The water was brought and thrown into Tom's face.

"Ah, now you're all right. What was the matter with you, Tom?"

"Oh, Judge, Injun Joe's in the cave!"

CHAPTER XXXIII

WITHIN a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of

men were on their way to McDougal's cave, and the ferryboat, well

filled with passengers, soon followed. Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that

bore Judge Thatcher.

When the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in

the dim twilight of the place. Injun Joe lay stretched upon the ground,

dead, with his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing

eyes had been fixed, to the latest moment, upon the light and the cheer

of the free world outside. Tom was touched, for he knew by his own

experience how this wretch had suffered. His pity was moved, but

nevertheless he felt an abounding sense of relief and security, now,

which revealed to him in a degree which he had not fully appreciated

before how vast a weight of dread had been lying upon him since the day

he lifted his voice against this bloody-minded outcast.

Injun Joe's bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two. The

great foundation-beam of the door had been chipped and hacked through,

with tedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock

formed a sill outside it, and upon that stubborn material the knife had

wrought no effect; the only damage done was to the knife itself. But if

there had been no stony obstruction there the labor would have been

useless still, for if the beam had been wholly cut away Injun Joe could

not have squeezed his body under the door, and he knew it. So he had

only hacked that place in order to be doing something--in order to pass

the weary time--in order to employ his tortured faculties. Ordinarily

one could find half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the crevices

of this vestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now. The

prisoner had searched them out and eaten them. He had also contrived to

catch a few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their

claws. The poor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at

hand, a stalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages,

builded by the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had

broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone,

wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop

that fell once in every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a

clock-tick--a dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. That drop

was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the

foundations of Rome were laid when Christ was crucified; when the

Conqueror created the British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the

massacre at Lexington was "news." It is falling now; it will still be

falling when all these things shall have sunk down the afternoon of

history, and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the

thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and a mission? Did

this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for

this flitting human insect's need? and has it another important object

to accomplish ten thousand years to come? No matter. It is many and

many a year since the hapless half-breed scooped out the stone to catch

the priceless drops, but to this day the tourist stares longest at that

pathetic stone and that slow-dropping water when he comes to see the

wonders of McDougal's cave. Injun Joe's cup stands first in the list of

the cavern's marvels; even "Aladdin's Palace" cannot rival it.

Injun Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave; and people flocked

there in boats and wagons from the towns and from all the farms and

hamlets for seven miles around; they brought their children, and all

sorts of provisions, and confessed that they had had almost as

satisfactory a time at the funeral as they could have had at the

hanging.

This funeral stopped the further growth of one thing--the petition to

the governor for Injun Joe's pardon. The petition had been largely

signed; many tearful and eloquent meetings had been held, and a

committee of sappy women been appointed to go in deep mourning and wail

around the governor, and implore him to be a merciful ass and trample

his duty under foot. Injun Joe was believed to have killed five

citizens of the village, but what of that? If he had been Satan himself

there would have been plenty of weaklings ready to scribble their names

to a pardon-petition, and drip a tear on it from their permanently

impaired and leaky water-works.

The morning after the funeral Tom took Huck to a private place to have

an important talk. Huck had learned all about Tom's adventure from the

Welshman and the Widow Douglas, by this time, but Tom said he reckoned

there was one thing they had not told him; that thing was what he

wanted to talk about now. Huck's face saddened. He said:

"I know what it is. You got into No. 2 and never found anything but

whiskey. Nobody told me it was you; but I just knowed it must 'a' ben

you, soon as I heard 'bout that whiskey business; and I knowed you

hadn't got the money becuz you'd 'a' got at me some way or other and

told me even if you was mum to everybody else. Tom, something's always

told me we'd never get holt of that swag."

"Why, Huck, I never told on that tavern-keeper. YOU know his tavern

was all right the Saturday I went to the picnic. Don't you remember you

was to watch there that night?"

"Oh yes! Why, it seems 'bout a year ago. It was that very night that I

follered Injun Joe to the widder's."

"YOU followed him?"

"Yes--but you keep mum. I reckon Injun Joe's left friends behind him,

and I don't want 'em souring on me and doing me mean tricks. If it

hadn't ben for me he'd be down in Texas now, all right."

Then Huck told his entire adventure in confidence to Tom, who had only

heard of the Welshman's part of it before.

"Well," said Huck, presently, coming back to the main question,

"whoever nipped the whiskey in No. 2, nipped the money, too, I reckon

--anyways it's a goner for us, Tom."

"Huck, that money wasn't ever in No. 2!"

"What!" Huck searched his comrade's face keenly. "Tom, have you got on

the track of that money again?"

"Huck, it's in the cave!"

Huck's eyes blazed.

"Say it again, Tom."

"The money's in the cave!"

"Tom--honest injun, now--is it fun, or earnest?"

"Earnest, Huck--just as earnest as ever I was in my life. Will you go

in there with me and help get it out?"

"I bet I will! I will if it's where we can blaze our way to it and not

get lost."

"Huck, we can do that without the least little bit of trouble in the

world."

"Good as wheat! What makes you think the money's--"

"Huck, you just wait till we get in there. If we don't find it I'll

agree to give you my drum and every thing I've got in the world. I

will, by jings."

"All right--it's a whiz. When do you say?"

"Right now, if you say it. Are you strong enough?"

"Is it far in the cave? I ben on my pins a little, three or four days,

now, but I can't walk more'n a mile, Tom--least I don't think I could."

"It's about five mile into there the way anybody but me would go,

Huck, but there's a mighty short cut that they don't anybody but me

know about. Huck, I'll take you right to it in a skiff. I'll float the

skiff down there, and I'll pull it back again all by myself. You

needn't ever turn your hand over."

"Less start right off, Tom."

"All right. We want some bread and meat, and our pipes, and a little

bag or two, and two or three kite-strings, and some of these

new-fangled things they call lucifer matches. I tell you, many's

the time I wished I had some when I was in there before."

A trifle after noon the boys borrowed a small skiff from a citizen who

was absent, and got under way at once. When they were several miles

below "Cave Hollow," Tom said:

"Now you see this bluff here looks all alike all the way down from the

cave hollow--no houses, no wood-yards, bushes all alike. But do you see

that white place up yonder where there's been a landslide? Well, that's

one of my marks. We'll get ashore, now."

They landed.

"Now, Huck, where we're a-standing you could touch that hole I got out

of with a fishing-pole. See if you can find it."

Huck searched all the place about, and found nothing. Tom proudly

marched into a thick clump of sumach bushes and said:

"Here you are! Look at it, Huck; it's the snuggest hole in this

country. You just keep mum about it. All along I've been wanting to be

a robber, but I knew I'd got to have a thing like this, and where to

run across it was the bother. We've got it now, and we'll keep it

quiet, only we'll let Joe Harper and Ben Rogers in--because of course

there's got to be a Gang, or else there wouldn't be any style about it.

Tom Sawyer's Gang--it sounds splendid, don't it, Huck?"

"Well, it just does, Tom. And who'll we rob?"

"Oh, most anybody. Waylay people--that's mostly the way."

"And kill them?"

"No, not always. Hive them in the cave till they raise a ransom."

"What's a ransom?"

"Money. You make them raise all they can, off'n their friends; and

after you've kept them a year, if it ain't raised then you kill them.

That's the general way. Only you don't kill the women. You shut up the

women, but you don't kill them. They're always beautiful and rich, and

awfully scared. You take their watches and things, but you always take

your hat off and talk polite. They ain't anybody as polite as robbers

--you'll see that in any book. Well, the women get to loving you, and

after they've been in the cave a week or two weeks they stop crying and

after that you couldn't get them to leave. If you drove them out they'd

turn right around and come back. It's so in all the books."

"Why, it's real bully, Tom. I believe it's better'n to be a pirate."

"Yes, it's better in some ways, because it's close to home and

circuses and all that."

By this time everything was ready and the boys entered the hole, Tom

in the lead. They toiled their way to the farther end of the tunnel,

then made their spliced kite-strings fast and moved on. A few steps

brought them to the spring, and Tom felt a shudder quiver all through

him. He showed Huck the fragment of candle-wick perched on a lump of

clay against the wall, and described how he and Becky had watched the

flame struggle and expire.

The boys began to quiet down to whispers, now, for the stillness and

gloom of the place oppressed their spirits. They went on, and presently

entered and followed Tom's other corridor until they reached the

"jumping-off place." The candles revealed the fact that it was not

really a precipice, but only a steep clay hill twenty or thirty feet

high. Tom whispered:

"Now I'll show you something, Huck."

He held his candle aloft and said:

"Look as far around the corner as you can. Do you see that? There--on

the big rock over yonder--done with candle-smoke."

"Tom, it's a CROSS!"

"NOW where's your Number Two? 'UNDER THE CROSS,' hey? Right yonder's

where I saw Injun Joe poke up his candle, Huck!"

Huck stared at the mystic sign awhile, and then said with a shaky voice:

"Tom, less git out of here!"

"What! and leave the treasure?"

"Yes--leave it. Injun Joe's ghost is round about there, certain."

"No it ain't, Huck, no it ain't. It would ha'nt the place where he

died--away out at the mouth of the cave--five mile from here."

"No, Tom, it wouldn't. It would hang round the money. I know the ways

of ghosts, and so do you."

Tom began to fear that Huck was right. Misgivings gathered in his

mind. But presently an idea occurred to him--

"Lookyhere, Huck, what fools we're making of ourselves! Injun Joe's

ghost ain't a going to come around where there's a cross!"

The point was well taken. It had its effect.

"Tom, I didn't think of that. But that's so. It's luck for us, that

cross is. I reckon we'll climb down there and have a hunt for that box."

Tom went first, cutting rude steps in the clay hill as he descended.

Huck followed. Four avenues opened out of the small cavern which the

great rock stood in. The boys examined three of them with no result.

They found a small recess in the one nearest the base of the rock, with

a pallet of blankets spread down in it; also an old suspender, some

bacon rind, and the well-gnawed bones of two or three fowls. But there

was no money-box. The lads searched and researched this place, but in

vain. Tom said:

"He said UNDER the cross. Well, this comes nearest to being under the

cross. It can't be under the rock itself, because that sets solid on

the ground."

They searched everywhere once more, and then sat down discouraged.

Huck could suggest nothing. By-and-by Tom said:

"Lookyhere, Huck, there's footprints and some candle-grease on the

clay about one side of this rock, but not on the other sides. Now,

what's that for? I bet you the money IS under the rock. I'm going to

dig in the clay."

"That ain't no bad notion, Tom!" said Huck with animation.

Tom's "real Barlow" was out at once, and he had not dug four inches

before he struck wood.

"Hey, Huck!--you hear that?"

Huck began to dig and scratch now. Some boards were soon uncovered and

removed. They had concealed a natural chasm which led under the rock.

Tom got into this and held his candle as far under the rock as he

could, but said he could not see to the end of the rift. He proposed to

explore. He stooped and passed under; the narrow way descended

gradually. He followed its winding course, first to the right, then to

the left, Huck at his heels. Tom turned a short curve, by-and-by, and

exclaimed:

"My goodness, Huck, lookyhere!"

It was the treasure-box, sure enough, occupying a snug little cavern,

along with an empty powder-keg, a couple of guns in leather cases, two

or three pairs of old moccasins, a leather belt, and some other rubbish

well soaked with the water-drip.

"Got it at last!" said Huck, ploughing among the tarnished coins with

his hand. "My, but we're rich, Tom!"

"Huck, I always reckoned we'd get it. It's just too good to believe,

but we HAVE got it, sure! Say--let's not fool around here. Let's snake

it out. Lemme see if I can lift the box."

It weighed about fifty pounds. Tom could lift it, after an awkward

fashion, but could not carry it conveniently.

"I thought so," he said; "THEY carried it like it was heavy, that day

at the ha'nted house. I noticed that. I reckon I was right to think of

fetching the little bags along."

The money was soon in the bags and the boys took it up to the cross

rock.

"Now less fetch the guns and things," said Huck.

"No, Huck--leave them there. They're just the tricks to have when we

go to robbing. We'll keep them there all the time, and we'll hold our

orgies there, too. It's an awful snug place for orgies."

"What orgies?"

"I dono. But robbers always have orgies, and of course we've got to

have them, too. Come along, Huck, we've been in here a long time. It's

getting late, I reckon. I'm hungry, too. We'll eat and smoke when we

get to the skiff."

They presently emerged into the clump of sumach bushes, looked warily

out, found the coast clear, and were soon lunching and smoking in the

skiff. As the sun dipped toward the horizon they pushed out and got

under way. Tom skimmed up the shore through the long twilight, chatting

cheerily with Huck, and landed shortly after dark.

"Now, Huck," said Tom, "we'll hide the money in the loft of the

widow's woodshed, and I'll come up in the morning and we'll count it

and divide, and then we'll hunt up a place out in the woods for it

where it will be safe. Just you lay quiet here and watch the stuff till

I run and hook Benny Taylor's little wagon; I won't be gone a minute."

He disappeared, and presently returned with the wagon, put the two

small sacks into it, threw some old rags on top of them, and started

off, dragging his cargo behind him. When the boys reached the

Welshman's house, they stopped to rest. Just as they were about to move

on, the Welshman stepped out and said:

"Hallo, who's that?"

"Huck and Tom Sawyer."

"Good! Come along with me, boys, you are keeping everybody waiting.

Here--hurry up, trot ahead--I'll haul the wagon for you. Why, it's not

as light as it might be. Got bricks in it?--or old metal?"

"Old metal," said Tom.

"I judged so; the boys in this town will take more trouble and fool

away more time hunting up six bits' worth of old iron to sell to the

foundry than they would to make twice the money at regular work. But

that's human nature--hurry along, hurry along!"

The boys wanted to know what the hurry was about.

"Never mind; you'll see, when we get to the Widow Douglas'."

Huck said with some apprehension--for he was long used to being

falsely accused:

"Mr. Jones, we haven't been doing nothing."

The Welshman laughed.

"Well, I don't know, Huck, my boy. I don't know about that. Ain't you

and the widow good friends?"

"Yes. Well, she's ben good friends to me, anyway."

"All right, then. What do you want to be afraid for?"

This question was not entirely answered in Huck's slow mind before he

found himself pushed, along with Tom, into Mrs. Douglas' drawing-room.

Mr. Jones left the wagon near the door and followed.

The place was grandly lighted, and everybody that was of any

consequence in the village was there. The Thatchers were there, the

Harpers, the Rogerses, Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, the minister, the editor,

and a great many more, and all dressed in their best. The widow

received the boys as heartily as any one could well receive two such

looking beings. They were covered with clay and candle-grease. Aunt

Polly blushed crimson with humiliation, and frowned and shook her head

at Tom. Nobody suffered half as much as the two boys did, however. Mr.

Jones said:

"Tom wasn't at home, yet, so I gave him up; but I stumbled on him and

Huck right at my door, and so I just brought them along in a hurry."

"And you did just right," said the widow. "Come with me, boys."

She took them to a bedchamber and said:

"Now wash and dress yourselves. Here are two new suits of clothes

--shirts, socks, everything complete. They're Huck's--no, no thanks,

Huck--Mr. Jones bought one and I the other. But they'll fit both of you.

Get into them. We'll wait--come down when you are slicked up enough."

Then she left.

CHAPTER XXXIV

HUCK said: "Tom, we can slope, if we can find a rope. The window ain't

high from the ground."

"Shucks! what do you want to slope for?"

"Well, I ain't used to that kind of a crowd. I can't stand it. I ain't

going down there, Tom."

"Oh, bother! It ain't anything. I don't mind it a bit. I'll take care

of you."

Sid appeared.

"Tom," said he, "auntie has been waiting for you all the afternoon.

Mary got your Sunday clothes ready, and everybody's been fretting about

you. Say--ain't this grease and clay, on your clothes?"

"Now, Mr. Siddy, you jist 'tend to your own business. What's all this

blow-out about, anyway?"

"It's one of the widow's parties that she's always having. This time

it's for the Welshman and his sons, on account of that scrape they

helped her out of the other night. And say--I can tell you something,

if you want to know."

"Well, what?"

"Why, old Mr. Jones is going to try to spring something on the people

here to-night, but I overheard him tell auntie to-day about it, as a

secret, but I reckon it's not much of a secret now. Everybody knows

--the widow, too, for all she tries to let on she don't. Mr. Jones was

bound Huck should be here--couldn't get along with his grand secret

without Huck, you know!"

"Secret about what, Sid?"

"About Huck tracking the robbers to the widow's. I reckon Mr. Jones

was going to make a grand time over his surprise, but I bet you it will

drop pretty flat."

Sid chuckled in a very contented and satisfied way.

"Sid, was it you that told?"

"Oh, never mind who it was. SOMEBODY told--that's enough."

"Sid, there's only one person in this town mean enough to do that, and

that's you. If you had been in Huck's place you'd 'a' sneaked down the

hill and never told anybody on the robbers. You can't do any but mean

things, and you can't bear to see anybody praised for doing good ones.

There--no thanks, as the widow says"--and Tom cuffed Sid's ears and

helped him to the door with several kicks. "Now go and tell auntie if

you dare--and to-morrow you'll catch it!"

Some minutes later the widow's guests were at the supper-table, and a

dozen children were propped up at little side-tables in the same room,

after the fashion of that country and that day. At the proper time Mr.

Jones made his little speech, in which he thanked the widow for the

honor she was doing himself and his sons, but said that there was

another person whose modesty--

And so forth and so on. He sprung his secret about Huck's share in the

adventure in the finest dramatic manner he was master of, but the

surprise it occasioned was largely counterfeit and not as clamorous and

effusive as it might have been under happier circumstances. However,

the widow made a pretty fair show of astonishment, and heaped so many

compliments and so much gratitude upon Huck that he almost forgot the

nearly intolerable discomfort of his new clothes in the entirely

intolerable discomfort of being set up as a target for everybody's gaze

and everybody's laudations.

The widow said she meant to give Huck a home under her roof and have

him educated; and that when she could spare the money she would start

him in business in a modest way. Tom's chance was come. He said:

"Huck don't need it. Huck's rich."

Nothing but a heavy strain upon the good manners of the company kept

back the due and proper complimentary laugh at this pleasant joke. But

the silence was a little awkward. Tom broke it:

"Huck's got money. Maybe you don't believe it, but he's got lots of

it. Oh, you needn't smile--I reckon I can show you. You just wait a

minute."

Tom ran out of doors. The company looked at each other with a

perplexed interest--and inquiringly at Huck, who was tongue-tied.

"Sid, what ails Tom?" said Aunt Polly. "He--well, there ain't ever any

making of that boy out. I never--"

Tom entered, struggling with the weight of his sacks, and Aunt Polly

did not finish her sentence. Tom poured the mass of yellow coin upon

the table and said:

"There--what did I tell you? Half of it's Huck's and half of it's mine!"

The spectacle took the general breath away. All gazed, nobody spoke

for a moment. Then there was a unanimous call for an explanation. Tom

said he could furnish it, and he did. The tale was long, but brimful of

interest. There was scarcely an interruption from any one to break the

charm of its flow. When he had finished, Mr. Jones said:

"I thought I had fixed up a little surprise for this occasion, but it

don't amount to anything now. This one makes it sing mighty small, I'm

willing to allow."

The money was counted. The sum amounted to a little over twelve

thousand dollars. It was more than any one present had ever seen at one

time before, though several persons were there who were worth

considerably more than that in property.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE reader may rest satisfied that Tom's and Huck's windfall made a

mighty stir in the poor little village of St. Petersburg. So vast a

sum, all in actual cash, seemed next to incredible. It was talked

about, gloated over, glorified, until the reason of many of the

citizens tottered under the strain of the unhealthy excitement. Every

"haunted" house in St. Petersburg and the neighboring villages was

dissected, plank by plank, and its foundations dug up and ransacked for

hidden treasure--and not by boys, but men--pretty grave, unromantic

men, too, some of them. Wherever Tom and Huck appeared they were

courted, admired, stared at. The boys were not able to remember that

their remarks had possessed weight before; but now their sayings were

treasured and repeated; everything they did seemed somehow to be

regarded as remarkable; they had evidently lost the power of doing and

saying commonplace things; moreover, their past history was raked up

and discovered to bear marks of conspicuous originality. The village

paper published biographical sketches of the boys.

The Widow Douglas put Huck's money out at six per cent., and Judge

Thatcher did the same with Tom's at Aunt Polly's request. Each lad had

an income, now, that was simply prodigious--a dollar for every week-day

in the year and half of the Sundays. It was just what the minister got

--no, it was what he was promised--he generally couldn't collect it. A

dollar and a quarter a week would board, lodge, and school a boy in

those old simple days--and clothe him and wash him, too, for that

matter.

Judge Thatcher had conceived a great opinion of Tom. He said that no

commonplace boy would ever have got his daughter out of the cave. When

Becky told her father, in strict confidence, how Tom had taken her

whipping at school, the Judge was visibly moved; and when she pleaded

grace for the mighty lie which Tom had told in order to shift that

whipping from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a fine

outburst that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie--a lie that

was worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast to

breast with George Washington's lauded Truth about the hatchet! Becky

thought her father had never looked so tall and so superb as when he

walked the floor and stamped his foot and said that. She went straight

off and told Tom about it.

Judge Thatcher hoped to see Tom a great lawyer or a great soldier some

day. He said he meant to look to it that Tom should be admitted to the

National Military Academy and afterward trained in the best law school

in the country, in order that he might be ready for either career or

both.

Huck Finn's wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow

Douglas' protection introduced him into society--no, dragged him into

it, hurled him into it--and his sufferings were almost more than he

could bear. The widow's servants kept him clean and neat, combed and

brushed, and they bedded him nightly in unsympathetic sheets that had

not one little spot or stain which he could press to his heart and know

for a friend. He had to eat with a knife and fork; he had to use

napkin, cup, and plate; he had to learn his book, he had to go to

church; he had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in

his mouth; whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of

civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot.

He bravely bore his miseries three weeks, and then one day turned up

missing. For forty-eight hours the widow hunted for him everywhere in

great distress. The public were profoundly concerned; they searched

high and low, they dragged the river for his body. Early the third

morning Tom Sawyer wisely went poking among some old empty hogsheads

down behind the abandoned slaughter-house, and in one of them he found

the refugee. Huck had slept there; he had just breakfasted upon some

stolen odds and ends of food, and was lying off, now, in comfort, with

his pipe. He was unkempt, uncombed, and clad in the same old ruin of

rags that had made him picturesque in the days when he was free and

happy. Tom routed him out, told him the trouble he had been causing,

and urged him to go home. Huck's face lost its tranquil content, and

took a melancholy cast. He said:

"Don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried it, and it don't work; it don't

work, Tom. It ain't for me; I ain't used to it. The widder's good to

me, and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me get up just

at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to

thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them

blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to any air

git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set

down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a

cellar-door for--well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and

sweat and sweat--I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in

there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by

a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell--everything's

so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."

"Well, everybody does that way, Huck."

"Tom, it don't make no difference. I ain't everybody, and I can't

STAND it. It's awful to be tied up so. And grub comes too easy--I don't

take no interest in vittles, that way. I got to ask to go a-fishing; I

got to ask to go in a-swimming--dern'd if I hain't got to ask to do

everything. Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort--I'd got

to go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste in

my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom. The widder wouldn't let me smoke; she

wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me gape, nor stretch, nor

scratch, before folks--" [Then with a spasm of special irritation and

injury]--"And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I never see such a

woman! I HAD to shove, Tom--I just had to. And besides, that school's

going to open, and I'd a had to go to it--well, I wouldn't stand THAT,

Tom. Looky here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's

just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead

all the time. Now these clothes suits me, and this bar'l suits me, and

I ain't ever going to shake 'em any more. Tom, I wouldn't ever got into

all this trouble if it hadn't 'a' ben for that money; now you just take

my sheer of it along with your'n, and gimme a ten-center sometimes--not

many times, becuz I don't give a dern for a thing 'thout it's tollable

hard to git--and you go and beg off for me with the widder."

"Oh, Huck, you know I can't do that. 'Tain't fair; and besides if

you'll try this thing just a while longer you'll come to like it."

"Like it! Yes--the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long

enough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed

smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and

I'll stick to 'em, too. Blame it all! just as we'd got guns, and a

cave, and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to

come up and spile it all!"

Tom saw his opportunity--

"Lookyhere, Huck, being rich ain't going to keep me back from turning

robber."

"No! Oh, good-licks; are you in real dead-wood earnest, Tom?"

"Just as dead earnest as I'm sitting here. But Huck, we can't let you

into the gang if you ain't respectable, you know."

Huck's joy was quenched.

"Can't let me in, Tom? Didn't you let me go for a pirate?"

"Yes, but that's different. A robber is more high-toned than what a

pirate is--as a general thing. In most countries they're awful high up

in the nobility--dukes and such."

"Now, Tom, hain't you always ben friendly to me? You wouldn't shet me

out, would you, Tom? You wouldn't do that, now, WOULD you, Tom?"

"Huck, I wouldn't want to, and I DON'T want to--but what would people

say? Why, they'd say, 'Mph! Tom Sawyer's Gang! pretty low characters in

it!' They'd mean you, Huck. You wouldn't like that, and I wouldn't."

Huck was silent for some time, engaged in a mental struggle. Finally

he said:

"Well, I'll go back to the widder for a month and tackle it and see if

I can come to stand it, if you'll let me b'long to the gang, Tom."

"All right, Huck, it's a whiz! Come along, old chap, and I'll ask the

widow to let up on you a little, Huck."

"Will you, Tom--now will you? That's good. If she'll let up on some of

the roughest things, I'll smoke private and cuss private, and crowd

through or bust. When you going to start the gang and turn robbers?"

"Oh, right off. We'll get the boys together and have the initiation

to-night, maybe."

"Have the which?"

"Have the initiation."

"What's that?"

"It's to swear to stand by one another, and never tell the gang's

secrets, even if you're chopped all to flinders, and kill anybody and

all his family that hurts one of the gang."

"That's gay--that's mighty gay, Tom, I tell you."

"Well, I bet it is. And all that swearing's got to be done at

midnight, in the lonesomest, awfulest place you can find--a ha'nted

house is the best, but they're all ripped up now."

"Well, midnight's good, anyway, Tom."

"Yes, so it is. And you've got to swear on a coffin, and sign it with

blood."

"Now, that's something LIKE! Why, it's a million times bullier than

pirating. I'll stick to the widder till I rot, Tom; and if I git to be

a reg'lar ripper of a robber, and everybody talking 'bout it, I reckon

she'll be proud she snaked me in out of the wet."

CONCLUSION

SO endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a BOY, it

must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming

the history of a MAN. When one writes a novel about grown people, he

knows exactly where to stop--that is, with a marriage; but when he

writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can.

Most of the characters that perform in this book still live, and are

prosperous and happy. Some day it may seem worth while to take up the

story of the younger ones again and see what sort of men and women they

turned out to be; therefore it will be wisest not to reveal any of that

part of their lives at present.

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ALONZO FITZ AND OTHER STORIES

by Mark Twain

Contents:

The Loves Of Alonzo Fitz Clarence And Rosannah Ethelton

On The Decay Of The Art Of Lying

About Magnanimous-Incident Literature

The Grateful Poodle

The Benevolent Author

The Grateful Husband

Punch, Brothers, Punch

The Great Revolution In Pitcairn

The Canvasser's Tale

An Encounter With An Interviewer

Paris Notes

Legend Of Sagenfeld, In Germany

Speech On The Babies

Speech On The Weather

Concerning The American Language

Rogers

THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON

It was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winter's day. The town of

Eastport, in the state of Maine, lay buried under a deep snow that was

newly fallen. The customary bustle in the streets was wanting. One

could look long distances down them and see nothing but a dead-white

emptiness, with silence to match. Of course I do not mean that you could

see the silence--no, you could only hear it. The sidewalks were merely

long, deep ditches, with steep snow walls on either side. Here and there

you might hear the faint, far scrape of a wooden shovel, and if you were

quick enough you might catch a glimpse of a distant black figure stooping

and disappearing in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next moment

with a motion which you would know meant the heaving out of a shovelful

of snow. But you needed to be quick, for that black figure would not

linger, but would soon drop that shovel and scud for the house, thrashing

itself with its arms to warm them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for

snow-shovelers or anybody else to stay out long.

Presently the sky darkened; then the wind rose and began to blow in

fitful, vigorous gusts, which sent clouds of powdery snow aloft, and

straight ahead, and everywhere. Under the impulse of one of these gusts,

great white drifts banked themselves like graves across the streets; a

moment later another gust shifted them around the other way, driving a

fine spray of snow from their sharp crests, as the gale drives the spume

flakes from wave-crests at sea; a third gust swept that place as clean as

your hand, if it saw fit. This was fooling, this was play; but each and

all of the gusts dumped some snow into the sidewalk ditches, for that was

business.

Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and elegant little parlor,

in a lovely blue silk dressing-gown, with cuffs and facings of crimson

satin, elaborately quilted. The remains of his breakfast were before

him, and the dainty and costly little table service added a harmonious

charm to the grace, beauty, and richness of the fixed appointments of the

room. A cheery fire was blazing on the hearth.

A furious gust of wind shook the windows, and a great wave of snow washed

against them with a drenching sound, so to speak. The handsome young

bachelor murmured:

"That means, no going out to-day. Well, I am content. But what to do

for company? Mother is well enough, Aunt Susan is well enough; but

these, like the poor, I have with me always. On so grim a day as this,

one needs a new interest, a fresh element, to whet the dull edge of

captivity. That was very neatly said, but it doesn't mean anything.

One doesn't want the edge of captivity sharpened up, you know, but just

the reverse."

He glanced at his pretty French mantel-clock.

"That clock's wrong again. That clock hardly ever knows what time it is;

and when it does know, it lies about it--which amounts to the same thing.

Alfred!"

There was no answer.

"Alfred! . . . Good servant, but as uncertain as the clock."

Alonzo touched an electric bell button in the wall. He waited a moment,

then touched it again; waited a few moments more, and said:

"Battery out of order, no doubt. But now that I have started, I will

find out what time it is." He stepped to a speaking-tube in the wall,

blew its whistle, and called, "Mother!" and repeated it twice.

"Well, that's no use. Mother's battery is out of order, too. Can't

raise anybody down-stairs--that is plain."

He sat down at a rosewood desk, leaned his chin on the left-hand edge of

it and spoke, as if to the floor: "Aunt Susan!"

A low, pleasant voice answered, "Is that you, Alonzo?'

"Yes. I'm too lazy and comfortable to go downstairs; I am in extremity,

and I can't seem to scare up any help."

"Dear me, what is the matter?"

"Matter enough, I can tell you!"

"Oh, don't keep me in suspense, dear! What is it?"

"I want to know what time it is."

"You abominable boy, what a turn you did give me! Is that all?"

"All--on my honor. Calm yourself. Tell me the time, and receive my

blessing."

"Just five minutes after nine. No charge--keep your blessing."

"Thanks. It wouldn't have impoverished me, aunty, nor so enriched you

that you could live without other means."

He got up, murmuring, "Just five minutes after nine," and faced his

clock. "Ah," said he, "you are doing better than usual. You are only

thirty-four minutes wrong. Let me see . . . let me see. . . .

Thirty-three and twenty-one are fifty-four; four times fifty-four are two

hundred and thirty-six. One off, leaves two hundred and thirty-five.

That's right."

He turned the hands of his clock forward till they marked twenty-five

minutes to one, and said, "Now see if you can't keep right for a while

--else I'll raffle you!"

He sat down at the desk again, and said, "Aunt Susan!"

"Yes, dear."

"Had breakfast?"

"Yes, indeed, an hour ago."

"Busy?"

"No--except sewing. Why?"

"Got any company?"

"No, but I expect some at half past nine."

"I wish I did. I'm lonesome. I want to talk to somebody."

"Very well, talk to me."

"But this is very private."

"Don't be afraid--talk right along, there's nobody here but me."

"I hardly know whether to venture or not, but--"

"But what? Oh, don't stop there! You know you can trust me, Alonzo--you

know, you can."

"I feel it, aunt, but this is very serious. It affects me deeply--me,

and all the family---even the whole community."

"Oh, Alonzo, tell me! I will never breathe a word of it. What is it?"

"Aunt, if I might dare--"

"Oh, please go on! I love you, and feel for you. Tell me all.

Confide in me. What is it?"

"The weather!"

"Plague take the weather! I don't see how you can have the heart to

serve me so, Lon."

"There, there, aunty dear, I'm sorry; I am, on my honor. I won't do it

again. Do you forgive me?"

"Yes, since you seem so sincere about it, though I know I oughtn't to.

You will fool me again as soon as I have forgotten this time."

"No, I won't, honor bright. But such weather, oh, such weather! You've

got to keep your spirits up artificially. It is snowy, and blowy, and

gusty, and bitter cold! How is the weather with you?"

"Warm and rainy and melancholy. The mourners go about the streets with

their umbrellas running streams from the end of every whalebone. There's

an elevated double pavement of umbrellas, stretching down the sides of

the streets as far as I can see. I've got a fire for cheerfulness, and

the windows open to keep cool. But it is vain, it is useless: nothing

comes in but the balmy breath of December, with its burden of mocking

odors from the flowers that possess the realm outside, and rejoice in

their lawless profusion whilst the spirit of man is low, and flaunt their

gaudy splendors in his face while his soul is clothed in sackcloth and

ashes and his heart breaketh."

Alonzo opened his lips to say, "You ought to print that, and get it

framed," but checked himself, for he heard his aunt speaking to some one

else. He went and stood at the window and looked out upon the wintry

prospect. The storm was driving the snow before it more furiously than

ever; window-shutters were slamming and banging; a forlorn dog, with

bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was pressing his quaking body

against a windward wall for shelter and protection; a young girl was

plowing knee-deep through the drifts, with her face turned from the

blast, and the cape of her waterproof blowing straight rearward over her

head. Alonzo shuddered, and said with a sigh, "Better the slop, and the

sultry rain, and even the insolent flowers, than this!"

He turned from the window, moved a step, and stopped in a listening

attitude. The faint, sweet notes of a familiar song caught his ear. He

remained there, with his head unconsciously bent forward, drinking in the

melody, stirring neither hand nor foot, hardly breathing. There was a

blemish in the execution of the song, but to Alonzo it seemed an added

charm instead of a defect. This blemish consisted of a marked flatting

of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh notes of the refrain or

chorus of the piece. When the music ended, Alonzo drew a deep breath,

and said, "Ah, I never have heard 'In the Sweet By-and-by' sung like that

before!"