THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER 14 страница

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! "