The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Part 7. - Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
"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.