THE DISAPPEARING LAKE
We had an early breakfast in the morning, and set looking down on the
desert, and the weather was ever so bammy and lovely, although we
warn’t high up. You have to come down lower and lower after sundown in
the desert, because it cools off so fast; and so, by the time it is
getting toward dawn, you are skimming along only a little ways above
the sand.
We was watching the shadder of the balloon slide along the ground, and
now and then gazing off across the desert to see if anything was
stirring, and then down on the shadder again, when all of a sudden
almost right under us we see a lot of men and camels laying scattered
about, perfectly quiet, like they was asleep.
We shut off the power, and backed up and stood over them, and then we
see that they was all dead. It give us the cold shivers. And it made us
hush down, too, and talk low, like people at a funeral. We dropped down
slow and stopped, and me and Tom clumb down and went among them. There
was men, and women, and children. They was dried by the sun and dark
and shriveled and leathery, like the pictures of mummies you see in
books. And yet they looked just as human, you wouldn’t ’a’ believed it;
just like they was asleep.
Some of the people and animals was partly covered with sand, but most
of them not, for the sand was thin there, and the bed was gravel and
hard. Most of the clothes had rotted away; and when you took hold of a
rag, it tore with a touch, like spiderweb. Tom reckoned they had been
laying there for years.
Some of the men had rusty guns by them, some had swords on and had
shawl belts with long, silver-mounted pistols stuck in them. All the
camels had their loads on yet, but the packs had busted or rotted and
spilt the freight out on the ground. We didn’t reckon the swords was
any good to the dead people any more, so we took one apiece, and some
pistols. We took a small box, too, because it was so handsome and
inlaid so fine; and then we wanted to bury the people; but there warn’t
no way to do it that we could think of, and nothing to do it with but
sand, and that would blow away again, of course.
Then we mounted high and sailed away, and pretty soon that black spot
on the sand was out of sight, and we wouldn’t ever see them poor people
again in this world. We wondered, and reasoned, and tried to guess how
they come to be there, and how it all happened to them, but we couldn’t
make it out. First we thought maybe they got lost, and wandered around
and about till their food and water give out and they starved to death;
but Tom said no wild animals nor vultures hadn’t meddled with them, and
so that guess wouldn’t do. So at last we give it up, and judged we
wouldn’t think about it no more, because it made us low-spirited.
[Illustration: “We opened the box, and it had gems and jewels in it”]
Then we opened the box, and it had gems and jewels in it, quite a pile,
and some little veils of the kind the dead women had on, with fringes
made out of curious gold money that we warn’t acquainted with. We
wondered if we better go and try to find them again and give it back;
but Tom thought it over and said no, it was a country that was full of
robbers, and they would come and steal it; and then the sin would be on
us for putting the temptation in their way. So we went on; but I wished
we had took all they had, so there wouldn’t ’a’ been no temptation at
all left.
We had had two hours of that blazing weather down there, and was
dreadful thirsty when we got aboard again. We went straight for the
water, but it was spoiled and bitter, besides being pretty near hot
enough to scald your mouth. We couldn’t drink it. It was Mississippi
river water, the best in the world, and we stirred up the mud in it to
see if that would help, but no, the mud wasn’t any better than the
water. Well, we hadn’t been so very, very thirsty before, while we was
interested in the lost people, but we was now, and as soon as we found
we couldn’t have a drink, we was more than thirty-five times as thirsty
as we was a quarter of a minute before. Why, in a little while we
wanted to hold our mouths open and pant like a dog.
Tom said to keep a sharp lookout, all around, everywheres, because we’d
got to find an oasis or there warn’t no telling what would happen. So
we done it. We kept the glasses gliding around all the time, till our
arms got so tired we couldn’t hold them any more. Two hours—three
hours—just gazing and gazing, and nothing but sand, sand, SAND, and you
could see the quivering heat-shimmer playing over it. Dear, dear, a
body don’t know what real misery is till he is thirsty all the way
through and is certain he ain’t ever going to come to any water any
more. At last I couldn’t stand it to look around on them baking plains;
I laid down on the locker, and give it up.
But by and by Tom raised a whoop, and there she was! A lake, wide and
shiny, with pa’m-trees leaning over it asleep, and their shadders in
the water just as soft and delicate as ever you see. I never see
anything look so good. It was a long ways off, but that warn’t anything
to us; we just slapped on a hundred-mile gait, and calculated to be
there in seven minutes; but she stayed the same old distance away, all
the time; we couldn’t seem to gain on her; yes, sir, just as far, and
shiny, and like a dream; but we couldn’t get no nearer; and at last,
all of a sudden, she was gone!
Tom’s eyes took a spread, and he says:
“Boys, it was a _my_ridge!” Said it like he was glad. I didn’t see
nothing to be glad about. I says:
“Maybe. I don’t care nothing about its name, the thing I want to know
is, what’s become of it?”
Jim was trembling all over, and so scared he couldn’t speak, but he
wanted to ask that question himself if he could ’a’ done it. Tom says:
“What’s _become_ of it? Why, you see yourself it’s gone.”
“Yes, I know; but where’s it gone _to?_”
He looked me over and says:
“Well, now, Huck Finn, where _would_ it go to! Don’t you know what a
myridge is?”
“No, I don’t. What is it?”
“It ain’t anything but imagination. There ain’t anything _to_ it.”
It warmed me up a little to hear him talk like that, and I says:
“What’s the use you talking that kind of stuff, Tom Sawyer? Didn’t I
see the lake?”
“Yes—you think you did.”
“I don’t think nothing about it, I _did_ see it.”
“I tell you you _didn’t_ see it either—because it warn’t there to see.”
It astonished Jim to hear him talk so, and he broke in and says, kind
of pleading and distressed:
“Mars Tom, _please_ don’t say sich things in sich an awful time as dis.
You ain’t only reskin’ yo’ own self, but you’s reskin’ us—same way like
Anna Nias en Siffra. De lake _wuz_ dah—I seen it jis’ as plain as I
sees you en Huck dis minute.”
I says:
“Why, he seen it himself! He was the very one that seen it first.
_Now_, then!”
“Yes, Mars Tom, hit’s so—you can’t deny it. We all seen it, en dat
_prove_ it was dah.”
“Proves it! How does it prove it?”
“Same way it does in de courts en everywheres, Mars Tom. One pusson
might be drunk, or dreamy or suthin’, en he could be mistaken; en two
might, maybe; but I tell you, sah, when three sees a thing, drunk er
sober, it’s _so_. Dey ain’t no gittin’ aroun’ dat, en you knows it,
Mars Tom.”
“I don’t know nothing of the kind. There used to be forty thousand
million people that seen the sun move from one side of the sky to the
other every day. Did that prove that the sun _done_ it?”
“Course it did. En besides, dey warn’t no ’casion to prove it. A body
’at’s got any sense ain’t gwine to doubt it. Dah she is now—a sailin’
thoo de sky, like she allays done.”
Tom turned on me, then, and says:
“What do _you_ say—is the sun standing still?”
“Tom Sawyer, what’s the use to ask such a jackass question? Anybody
that ain’t blind can see it don’t stand still.”
“Well,” he says, “I’m lost in the sky with no company but a passel of
low-down animals that don’t know no more than the head boss of a
university did three or four hundred years ago.”
It warn’t fair play, and I let him know it. I says:
“Throwin’ mud ain’t arguin’, Tom Sawyer.”
“Oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness gracious, dah’s de lake agi’n!”
yelled Jim, just then. “_Now_, Mars Tom, what you gwine to say?”
Yes, sir, there was the lake again, away yonder across the desert,
perfectly plain, trees and all, just the same as it was before. I says:
“I reckon you’re satisfied now, Tom Sawyer.”
But he says, perfectly ca’m:
“Yes, satisfied there ain’t no lake there.”
Jim says:
“_Don’t!_ talk so, Mars Tom—it sk’yers me to hear you. It’s so hot, en
you’s so thirsty, dat you ain’t in yo’ right mine, Mars Tom. Oh, but
don’t she look good! ’clah I doan’ know how I’s gwine to wait tell we
gits dah, I’s _so_ thirsty.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait; and it won’t do you no good, either,
because there ain’t no lake there, I tell you.”
I says:
“Jim, don’t you take your eye off of it, and I won’t, either.”
“’Deed I won’t; en bless you, honey, I couldn’t ef I wanted to.”
We went a-tearing along toward it, piling the miles behind us like
nothing, but never gaining an inch on it—and all of a sudden it was
gone again! Jim staggered, and ’most fell down. When he got his breath
he says, gasping like a fish:
“Mars Tom, hit’s a _ghos_’, dat’s what it is, en I hopes to goodness we
ain’t gwine to see it no mo’. Dey’s _been_ a lake, en suthin’s
happened, en de lake’s dead, en we’s seen its ghos’; we’s seen it
twiste, en dat’s proof. De desert’s ha’nted, it’s ha’nted, sho; oh,
Mars Tom, le’ ’s git outen it; I’d ruther die den have de night ketch
us in it ag’in en de ghos’ er dat lake come a-mournin’ aroun’ us en we
asleep en doan’ know de danger we’s in.”
“Ghost, you gander! It ain’t anything but air and heat and thirstiness
pasted together by a person’s imagination. If I—gimme the glass!”
He grabbed it and begun to gaze off to the right.
“It’s a flock of birds,” he says. “It’s getting toward sundown, and
they’re making a bee-line across our track for somewheres. They mean
business—maybe they’re going for food or water, or both. Let her go to
starboard!—Port your hellum! Hard down! There—ease up—steady, as you
go.”
We shut down some of the power, so as not to outspeed them, and took
out after them. We went skimming along a quarter of a mile behind them,
and when we had followed them an hour and a half and was getting pretty
discouraged, and was thirsty clean to unendurableness, Tom says:
“Take the glass, one of you, and see what that is, away ahead of the
birds.”
Jim got the first glimpse, and slumped down on the locker sick. He was
most crying, and says:
“She’s dah ag’in, Mars Tom, she’s dah ag’in, en I knows I’s gwine to
die, ’case when a body sees a ghos’ de third time, dat’s what it means.
I wisht I’d never come in dis balloon, dat I does.”
He wouldn’t look no more, and what he said made me afraid, too, because
I knowed it was true, for that has always been the way with ghosts; so
then I wouldn’t look any more, either. Both of us begged Tom to turn
off and go some other way, but he wouldn’t, and said we was ignorant
superstitious blatherskites. Yes, and he’ll git come up with, one of
these days, I says to myself, insulting ghosts that way. They’ll stand
it for a while, maybe, but they won’t stand it always, for anybody that
knows about ghosts knows how easy they are hurt, and how revengeful
they are.
So we was all quiet and still, Jim and me being scared, and Tom busy.
By and by Tom fetched the balloon to a standstill, and says:
“_Now_ get up and look, you sapheads.”
We done it, and there was the sure-enough water right under us!—clear,
and blue, and cool, and deep, and wavy with the breeze, the loveliest
sight that ever was. And all about it was grassy banks, and flowers,
and shady groves of big trees, looped together with vines, and all
looking so peaceful and comfortable—enough to make a body cry, it was
so beautiful.
Jim _did_ cry, and rip and dance and carry on, he was so thankful and
out of his mind for joy. It was my watch, so I had to stay by the
works, but Tom and Jim clumb down and drunk a barrel apiece, and
fetched me up a lot, and I’ve tasted a many a good thing in my life,
but nothing that ever begun with that water.
Then we went down and had a swim, and then Tom came up and spelled me,
and me and Jim had a swim, and then Jim spelled Tom, and me and Tom had
a foot-race and a boxing-mill, and I don’t reckon I ever had such a
good time in my life. It warn’t so very hot, because it was close on to
evening, and we hadn’t any clothes on, anyway. Clothes is well enough
in school, and in towns, and at balls, too, but there ain’t no sense in
them when there ain’t no civilization nor other kinds of bothers and
fussiness around.
“Lions a-comin’!—lions! Quick, Mars Tom! Jump for yo’ life, Huck!”
Oh, and didn’t we! We never stopped for clothes, but waltzed up the
ladder just so. Jim lost his head straight off—he always done it
whenever he got excited and scared; and so now, ’stead of just easing
the ladder up from the ground a little, so the animals couldn’t reach
it, he turned on a raft of power, and we went whizzing up and was
dangling in the sky before he got his wits together and seen what a
foolish thing he was doing. Then he stopped her, but he had clean
forgot what to do next; so there we was, so high that the lions looked
like pups, and we was drifting off on the wind.
But Tom he shinned up and went for the works and begun to slant her
down, and back toward the lake, where the animals was gathering like a
camp-meeting, and I judged he had lost _his_ head, too; for he knowed I
was too scared to climb, and did he want to dump me among the tigers
and things?
But no, his head was level, he knowed what he was about. He swooped
down to within thirty or forty feet of the lake, and stopped right over
the center, and sung out:
“Leggo, and drop!”
I done it, and shot down, feet first, and seemed to go about a mile
toward the bottom; and when I come up, he says:
“Now lay on your back and float till you’re rested and got your pluck
back, then I’ll dip the ladder in the water and you can climb aboard.”
I done it. Now that was ever so smart in Tom, because if he had started
off somewheres else to drop down on the sand, the menagerie would ’a’
come along, too, and might ’a’ kept us hunting a safe place till I got
tuckered out and fell.
[Illustration: “And all this time the lions and tigers was sorting out
the clothes”]
And all this time the lions and tigers was sorting out the clothes, and
trying to divide them up so there would be some for all, but there was
a misunderstanding about it somewheres, on account of some of them
trying to hog more than their share; so there was another insurrection,
and you never see anything like it in the world. There must ’a’ been
fifty of them, all mixed up together, snorting and roaring and snapping
and biting and tearing, legs and tails in the air, and you couldn’t
tell which was which, and the sand and fur a-flying. And when they got
done, some was dead and some was limping off crippled, and the rest was
setting around on the battlefield, some of them licking their sore
places and the others looking up at us and seemed to be kind of
inviting us to come down and have some fun, but which we didn’t want
any.
As for the clothes, they warn’t any, any more. Every last rag of them
was inside of the animals; and not agreeing with them very well, I
don’t reckon, for there was considerable many brass buttons on them,
and there was knives in the pockets, too, and smoking tobacco, and
nails and chalk and marbles and fishhooks and things. But I wasn’t
caring. All that was bothering me was, that all we had now was the
professor’s clothes, a big enough assortment, but not suitable to go
into company with, if we came across any, because the britches was as
long as tunnels, and the coats and things according. Still, there was
everything a tailor needed, and Jim was a kind of jack legged tailor,
and he allowed he could soon trim a suit or two down for us that would
answer.