CHAPTER XXI

VACATION was approaching. The school-
master, always severe, grew severer and
more exacting than ever, for he wanted
the school to make a good showing on
"Examination" day. His rod and his
ferule were seldom idle now -- at least
among the smaller pupils. Only the biggest boys, and
young ladies of eighteen and twenty, escaped lashing.
Mr. Dobbins' lashings were very vigorous ones, too; for
although he carried, under his wig, a perfectly bald
and shiny head, he had only reached middle age, and
there was no sign of feebleness in his muscle. As
the great day approached, all the tyranny that was
in him came to the surface; he seemed to take a vin-
dictive pleasure in punishing the least shortcomings.
The consequence was, that the smaller boys spent their
days in terror and suffering and their nights in plotting
revenge. They threw away no opportunity to do the
master a mischief. But he kept ahead all the time.
The retribution that followed every vengeful success
was so sweeping and majestic that the boys always
retired from the field badly worsted. At last they con-
spired together and hit upon a plan that promised a
dazzling victory. They swore in the sign-painter's boy,
told him the scheme, and asked his help. He had his
own reasons for being delighted, for the master boarded
in his father's family and had given the boy ample
cause to hate him. The master's wife would go on a visit
to the country in a few days, and there would be nothing
to interfere with the plan; the master always pre-
pared himself for great occasions by getting pretty well
fuddled, and the sign-painter's boy said that when the
dominie had reached the proper condition on Examina-
tion Evening he would "manage the thing" while he
napped in his chair; then he would have him awakened
at the right time and hurried away to school.

In the fulness of time the interesting occasion ar-
rived. At eight in the evening the schoolhouse was
brilliantly lighted, and adorned with wreaths and fes-
toons of foliage and flowers. The master sat throned
in his great chair upon a raised platform, with his
blackboard behind him. He was looking tolerably
mellow. Three rows of benches on each side and six
rows in front of him were occupied by the dignitaries of
the town and by the parents of the pupils. To his left,
back of the rows of citizens, was a spacious temporary
platform upon which were seated the scholars who were
to take part in the exercises of the evening; rows of
small boys, washed and dressed to an intolerable state
of discomfort; rows of gawky big boys; snowbanks of
girls and young ladies clad in lawn and muslin and
conspicuously conscious of their bare arms, their grand-
mothers' ancient trinkets, their bits of pink and blue
ribbon and the flowers in their hair. All the rest of
the house was filled with non-participating scholars.

The exercises began. A very little boy stood up and
sheepishly recited, "You'd scarce expect one of my
age to speak in public on the stage," etc. -- accompany-
ing himself with the painfully exact and spasmodic
gestures which a machine might have used -- supposing
the machine to be a trifle out of order. But he got
through safely, though cruelly scared, and got a fine
round of applause when he made his manufactured
bow and retired.

A little shamefaced girl lisped, "Mary had a little
lamb," etc., performed a compassion-inspiring curtsy,
got her meed of applause, and sat down flushed and
happy.

Tom Sawyer stepped forward with conceited con-
fidence and soared into the unquenchable and inde-
structible "Give me liberty or give me death" speech,
with fine fury and frantic gesticulation, and broke down
in the middle of it. A ghastly stage-fright seized him,
his legs quaked under him and he was like to choke.
True, he had the manifest sympathy of the house but
he had the house's silence, too, which was even worse
than its sympathy. The master frowned, and this com-
pleted the disaster. Tom struggled awhile and then
retired, utterly defeated. There was a weak attempt
at applause, but it died early.

"The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" followed;
also "The Assyrian Came Down," and other declama-
tory gems. Then there were reading exercises, and a
spelling fight. The meagre Latin class recited with
honor. The prime feature of the evening was in order,
now -- original "compositions" by the young ladies.
Each in her turn stepped forward to the edge of the
platform, cleared her throat, held up her manuscript
(tied with dainty ribbon), and proceeded to read, with
labored attention to "expression" and punctuation.
The themes were the same that had been illuminated
upon similar occasions by their mothers before them,
their grandmothers, and doubtless all their ancestors in
the female line clear back to the Crusades. "Friend-
ship" was one; "Memories of Other Days"; "Religion
in History"; "Dream Land"; "The Advantages of
Culture"; "Forms of Political Government Compared
and Contrasted"; "Melancholy"; "Filial Love";
"Heart Longings," etc., etc.

A prevalent feature in these compositions was a
nursed and petted melancholy; another was a wasteful
and opulent gush of "fine language"; another was a
tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words
and phrases until they were worn entirely out; and
a peculiarity that conspicuously marked and marred
them was the inveterate and intolerable sermon that
wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every
one of them. No matter what the subject might be, a
brain-racking effort was made to squirm it into some
aspect or other that the moral and religious mind could
contemplate with edification. The glaring insincerity
of these sermons was not sufficient to compass the
banishment of the fashion from the schools, and it is
not sufficient to-day; it never will be sufficient while
the world stands, perhaps. There is no school in all
our land where the young ladies do not feel obliged to
close their compositions with a sermon; and you will
find that the sermon of the most frivolous and the least
religious girl in the school is always the longest and the
most relentlessly pious. But enough of this. Homely
truth is unpalatable.

Let us return to the "Examination." The first
composition that was read was one entitled "Is this,
then, Life?" Perhaps the reader can endure an ex-
tract from it:

  "In the common walks of life, with what delightful
   emotions does the youthful mind look forward to some
   anticipated scene of festivity! Imagination is busy
   sketching rose-tinted pictures of joy. In fancy, the
   voluptuous votary of fashion sees herself amid the
   festive throng, 'the observed of all observers.' Her
   graceful form, arrayed in snowy robes, is whirling
   through the mazes of the joyous dance; her eye is
   brightest, her step is lightest in the gay assembly.

  "In such delicious fancies time quickly glides by,
   and the welcome hour arrives for her entrance into
   the Elysian world, of which she has had such bright
   dreams. How fairy-like does everything appear to
   her enchanted vision! Each new scene is more charming
   than the last. But after a while she finds that
   beneath this goodly exterior, all is vanity, the
   flattery which once charmed her soul, now grates
   harshly upon her ear; the ball-room has lost its
   charms; and with wasted health and imbittered heart,
   she turns away with the conviction that earthly
   pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul!"

And so forth and so on. There was a buzz of grati-
fication from time to time during the reading, accom-
panied by whispered ejaculations of "How sweet!"
"How eloquent!" "So true!" etc., and after the thing
had closed with a peculiarly afflicting sermon the
applause was enthusiastic.

Then arose a slim, melancholy girl, whose face had
the "interesting" paleness that comes of pills and indi-
gestion, and read a "poem." Two stanzas of it will do:

   "A MISSOURI MAIDEN'S FAREWELL TO ALABAMA

   "Alabama, good-bye! I love thee well!
      But yet for a while do I leave thee now!
    Sad, yes, sad thoughts of thee my heart doth swell,
      And burning recollections throng my brow!
    For I have wandered through thy flowery woods;
      Have roamed and read near Tallapoosa's stream;
    Have listened to Tallassee's warring floods,
      And wooed on Coosa's side Aurora's beam.

   "Yet shame I not to bear an o'er-full heart,
      Nor blush to turn behind my tearful eyes;
    'Tis from no stranger land I now must part,
      'Tis to no strangers left I yield these sighs.
    Welcome and home were mine within this State,
      Whose vales I leave -- whose spires fade fast from me
    And cold must be mine eyes, and heart, and tete,
      When, dear Alabama! they turn cold on thee!"

There were very few there who knew what "tete"
meant, but the poem was very satisfactory, nevertheless.

Next appeared a dark-complexioned, black-eyed,
black-haired young lady, who paused an impressive
moment, assumed a tragic expression, and began to
read in a measured, solemn tone:

  "A VISION

   "Dark and tempestuous was night. Around the
   throne on high not a single star quivered; but
   the deep intonations of the heavy thunder
   constantly vibrated upon the ear; whilst the
   terrific lightning revelled in angry mood
   through the cloudy chambers of heaven, seeming
   to scorn the power exerted over its terror by
   the illustrious Franklin! Even the boisterous
   winds unanimously came forth from their mystic
   homes, and blustered about as if to enhance by
   their aid the wildness of the scene.

   "At such a time,so dark,so dreary, for human
   sympathy my very spirit sighed; but instead thereof,

   "'My dearest friend, my counsellor, my comforter
   and guide -- My joy in grief, my second bliss
   in joy,' came to my side. She moved like one of
   those bright beings pictured in the sunny walks
   of fancy's Eden by the romantic and young, a
   queen of beauty unadorned save by her own
   transcendent loveliness. So soft was her step, it
   failed to make even a sound, and but for the
   magical thrill imparted by her genial touch, as
   other unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided
   away un-perceived -- unsought. A strange sadness
   rested upon her features, like icy tears upon
   the robe of December, as she pointed to the
   contending elements without, and bade me contemplate
   the two beings presented."

This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manu-
script and wound up with a sermon so destructive of
all hope to non-Presbyterians that it took the first prize.
This composition was considered to be the very finest
effort of the evening. The mayor of the village, in
delivering the prize to the author of it, made a warm
speech in which he said that it was by far the most
"eloquent" thing he had ever listened to, and that
Daniel Webster himself might well be proud of it.

It may be remarked, in passing, that the number
of compositions in which the word "beauteous" was
over-fondled, and human experience referred to as
"life's page," was up to the usual average.

Now the master, mellow almost to the verge of
geniality, put his chair aside, turned his back to the
audience, and began to draw a map of America on
the blackboard, to exercise the geography class upon.
But he made a sad business of it with his unsteady hand,
and a smothered titter rippled over the house. He
knew what the matter was, and set himself to right it.
He sponged out lines and remade them; but he only
distorted them more than ever, and the tittering was
more pronounced. He threw his entire attention upon
his work, now, as if determined not to be put down by
the mirth. He felt that all eyes were fastened upon
him; he imagined he was succeeding, and yet the titter-
ing continued; it even manifestly increased. And well
it might. There was a garret above, pierced with a
scuttle over his head; and down through this scuttle
came a cat, suspended around the haunches by a
string; she had a rag tied about her head and jaws
to keep her from mewing; as she slowly descended she
curved upward and clawed at the string, she swung
downward and clawed at the intangible air. The
tittering rose higher and higher -- the cat was within
six inches of the absorbed teacher's head -- down, down,
a little lower, and she grabbed his wig with her desperate
claws, clung to it, and was snatched up into the garret
in an instant with her trophy still in her possession!
And how the light did blaze abroad from the master's
bald pate -- for the sign-painter's boy had GILDED it!

That broke up the meeting. The boys were avenged.
Vacation had come.

   NOTE:-- The pretended "compositions" quoted in
   this chapter are taken without alteration from a
   volume entitled "Prose and Poetry, by a Western
   Lady" -- but they are exactly and precisely after
   the schoolgirl pattern, and hence are much
   happier than any mere imitations could be.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXII

TOM joined the new order of Cadets of
Temperance, being attracted by the showy
character of their "regalia." He promised
to abstain from smoking, chewing, and
profanity as long as he remained a mem-
ber. Now he found out a new thing --
namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest
way in the world to make a body want to go and do that
very thing. Tom soon found himself tormented with a
desire to drink and swear; the desire grew to be so
intense that nothing but the hope of a chance to dis-
play himself in his red sash kept him from withdrawing
from the order. Fourth of July was coming; but he
soon gave that up -- gave it up before he had worn his
shackles over forty-eight hours -- and fixed his hopes
upon old Judge Frazer, justice of the peace, who was
apparently on his deathbed and would have a big
public funeral, since he was so high an official. Dur-
ing three days Tom was deeply concerned about the
Judge's condition and hungry for news of it. Some-
times his hopes ran high -- so high that he would venture
to get out his regalia and practise before the looking-
glass. But the Judge had a most discouraging way
of fluctuating. At last he was pronounced upon the
mend -- and then convalescent. Tom was disgusted;
and felt a sense of injury, too. He handed in his res-
ignation at once -- and that night the Judge suffered a
relapse and died. Tom resolved that he would never
trust a man like that again.

The funeral was a fine thing. The Cadets paraded
in a style calculated to kill the late member with envy.
Tom was a free boy again, however -- there was some-
thing in that. He could drink and swear, now -- but
found to his surprise that he did not want to. The
simple fact that he could, took the desire away, and
the charm of it.

Tom presently wondered to find that his coveted
vacation was beginning to hang a little heavily on his
hands.

He attempted a diary -- but nothing happened dur-
ing three days, and so he abandoned it.

The first of all the negro minstrel shows came to
town, and made a sensation. Tom and Joe Harper
got up a band of performers and were happy for two
days.

Even the Glorious Fourth was in some sense a failure,
for it rained hard, there was no procession in con-
sequence, and the greatest man in the world (as Tom
supposed), Mr. Benton, an actual United States Senator,
proved an overwhelming disappointment -- for he was
not twenty-five feet high, nor even anywhere in the
neighborhood of it.

A circus came. The boys played circus for three
days afterward in tents made of rag carpeting -- ad-
mission, three pins for boys, two for girls -- and then
circusing was abandoned.

A phrenologist and a mesmerizer came -- and went
again and left the village duller and drearier than
ever.

There were some boys-and-girls' parties, but they
were so few and so delightful that they only made the
aching voids between ache the harder.

Becky Thatcher was gone to her Constantinople
home to stay with her parents during vacation -- so
there was no bright side to life anywhere.

The dreadful secret of the murder was a chronic
misery. It was a very cancer for permanency and
pain.

Then came the measles.

During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead
to the world and its happenings. He was very ill, he
was interested in nothing. When he got upon his feet
at last and moved feebly down-town, a melancholy
change had come over everything and every creature.
There had been a "revival," and everybody had "got
religion," not only the adults, but even the boys and
girls. Tom went about, hoping against hope for the
sight of one blessed sinful face, but disappointment
crossed him everywhere. He found Joe Harper study-
ing a Testament, and turned sadly away from the de-
pressing spectacle. He sought Ben Rogers, and found
him visiting the poor with a basket of tracts. He hunted
up Jim Hollis, who called his attention to the precious
blessing of his late measles as a warning. Every boy
he encountered added another ton to his depression;
and when, in desperation, he flew for refuge at last to
the bosom of Huckleberry Finn and was received with
a Scriptural quotation, his heart broke and he crept
home and to bed realizing that he alone of all the town
was lost, forever and forever.

And that night there came on a terrific storm, with
driving rain, awful claps of thunder and blinding sheets
of lightning. He covered his head with the bedclothes
and waited in a horror of suspense for his doom; for he
had not the shadow of a doubt that all this hubbub was
about him. He believed he had taxed the forbearance
of the powers above to the extremity of endurance and
that this was the result. It might have seemed to him
a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with a
battery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incon-
gruous about the getting up such an expensive thunder-
storm as this to knock the turf from under an insect like
himself.

By and by the tempest spent itself and died without
accomplishing its object. The boy's first impulse was
to be grateful, and reform. His second was to wait
-- for there might not be any more storms.

The next day the doctors were back; Tom had re-
lapsed. The three weeks he spent on his back this time
seemed an entire age. When he got abroad at last he
was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remem-
bering how lonely was his estate, how companionless
and forlorn he was. He drifted listlessly down the
street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in a juvenile
court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence
of her victim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck
Finn up an alley eating a stolen melon. Poor lads!
they -- like Tom -- had suffered a relapse.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXIII

AT last the sleepy atmosphere was stirred --
and vigorously: the murder trial came on
in the court. It became the absorbing
topic of village talk immediately. Tom
could not get away from it. Every ref-
erence to the murder sent a shudder to
his heart, for his troubled conscience and fears almost
persuaded him that these remarks were put forth in his
hearing as "feelers"; he did not see how he could be
suspected of knowing anything about the murder, but
still he could not be comfortable in the midst of this
gossip. It kept him in a cold shiver all the time. He
took Huck to a lonely place to have a talk with him.
It would be some relief to unseal his tongue for a little
while; to divide his burden of distress with another suf-
ferer. Moreover, he wanted to assure himself that
Huck had remained discreet.

"Huck, have you ever told anybody about -- that?"

"'Bout what?"

"You know what."

"Oh -- 'course I haven't."

"Never a word?"

"Never a solitary word, so help me. What makes
you ask?"

"Well, I was afeard."

"Why, Tom Sawyer, we wouldn't be alive two days
if that got found out. YOU know that."

Tom felt more comfortable. After a pause:

"Huck, they couldn't anybody get you to tell, could
they?"

"Get me to tell? Why, if I wanted that half-breed
devil to drownd me they could get me to tell. They
ain't no different way."

"Well, that's all right, then. I reckon we're safe
as long as we keep mum. But let's swear again, any-
way. It's more surer."

"I'm agreed."

So they swore again with dread solemnities.

"What is the talk around, Huck? I've heard a
power of it."

"Talk? Well, it's just Muff Potter, Muff Potter,
Muff Potter all the time. It keeps me in a sweat, con-
stant, so's I want to hide som'ers."

"That's just the same way they go on round me.
I reckon he's a goner. Don't you feel sorry for him,
sometimes?"

"Most always -- most always. He ain't no account;
but then he hain't ever done anything to hurt anybody.
Just fishes a little, to get money to get drunk on -- and
loafs around considerable; but lord, we all do that --
leastways most of us -- preachers and such like. But
he's kind of good -- he give me half a fish, once, when
there warn't enough for two; and lots of times he's kind
of stood by me when I was out of luck."

"Well, he's mended kites for me, Huck, and knitted
hooks on to my line. I wish we could get him out of
there."

"My! we couldn't get him out, Tom. And besides,
'twouldn't do any good; they'd ketch him again."

"Yes -- so they would. But I hate to hear 'em abuse
him so like the dickens when he never done -- that."

"I do too, Tom. Lord, I hear 'em say he's the
bloodiest looking villain in this country, and they won-
der he wasn't ever hung before."

"Yes, they talk like that, all the time. I've heard
'em say that if he was to get free they'd lynch him."

"And they'd do it, too."

The boys had a long talk, but it brought them little
comfort. As the twilight drew on, they found them-
selves hanging about the neighborhood of the little
isolated jail, perhaps with an undefined hope that
something would happen that might clear away their
difficulties. But nothing happened; there seemed to
be no angels or fairies interested in this luckless
captive.

The boys did as they had often done before -- went
to the cell grating and gave Potter some tobacco and
matches. He was on the ground floor and there were
no guards.

His gratitude for their gifts had always smote their
consciences before -- it cut deeper than ever, this time.
They felt cowardly and treacherous to the last degree
when Potter said:

"You've been mighty good to me, boys -- better'n any-
body else in this town. And I don't forget it, I don't.
Often I says to myself, says I, 'I used to mend all the
boys' kites and things, and show 'em where the good
fishin' places was, and befriend 'em what I could, and
now they've all forgot old Muff when he's in trouble;
but Tom don't, and Huck don't -- THEY don't forget him,
says I, 'and I don't forget them.' Well, boys, I done
an awful thing -- drunk and crazy at the time -- that's
the only way I account for it -- and now I got to swing
for it, and it's right. Right, and BEST, too, I reckon --
hope so, anyway. Well, we won't talk about that. I
don't want to make YOU feel bad; you've befriended me.
But what I want to say, is, don't YOU ever get drunk --
then you won't ever get here. Stand a litter furder west
-- so -- that's it; it's a prime comfort to see faces that's
friendly when a body's in such a muck of trouble, and
there don't none come here but yourn. Good friendly
faces -- good friendly faces. Git up on one another's
backs and let me touch 'em. That's it. Shake hands
-- yourn'll come through the bars, but mine's too big.
Little hands, and weak -- but they've helped Muff
Potter a power, and they'd help him more if they
could."

Tom went home miserable, and his dreams that
night were full of horrors. The next day and the day
after, he hung about the court-room, drawn by an al-
most irresistible impulse to go in, but forcing himself
to stay out. Huck was having the same experience.
They studiously avoided each other. Each wandered
away, from time to time, but the same dismal fascina-
tion always brought them back presently. Tom kept
his ears open when idlers sauntered out of the court-
room, but invariably heard distressing news -- the toils
were closing more and more relentlessly around poor
Potter. At the end of the second day the village talk
was to the effect that Injun Joe's evidence stood firm
and unshaken, and that there was not the slightest ques-
tion as to what the jury's verdict would be.

Tom was out late, that night, and came to bed through
the window. He was in a tremendous state of excite-
ment. It was hours before he got to sleep. All the
village flocked to the court-house the next morning, for
this was to be the great day. Both sexes were about
equally represented in the packed audience. After a
long wait the jury filed in and took their places; shortly
afterward, Potter, pale and haggard, timid and hopeless,
was brought in, with chains upon him, and seated where
all the curious eyes could stare at him; no less con-
spicuous was Injun Joe, stolid as ever. There was an-
other pause, and then the judge arrived and the sheriff
proclaimed the opening of the court. The usual whis-
perings among the lawyers and gathering together of
papers followed. These details and accompanying
delays worked up an atmosphere of preparation that
was as impressive as it was fascinating.

Now a witness was called who testified that he found
Muff Potter washing in the brook, at an early hour of
the morning that the murder was discovered, and that
he immediately sneaked away. After some further ques-
tioning, counsel for the prosecution said:

"Take the witness."

The prisoner raised his eyes for a moment, but
dropped them again when his own counsel said:

"I have no questions to ask him."

The next witness proved the finding of the knife
near the corpse. Counsel for the prosecution said:

"Take the witness."

"I have no questions to ask him," Potter's lawyer
replied.

A third witness swore he had often seen the knife in
Potter's possession.

"Take the witness."

Counsel for Potter declined to question him. The
faces of the audience began to betray annoyance.
Did this attorney mean to throw away his client's life
without an effort?

Several witnesses deposed concerning Potter's guilty
behavior when brought to the scene of the murder.
They were allowed to leave the stand without being
cross-questioned.

Every detail of the damaging circumstances that
occurred in the graveyard upon that morning which
all present remembered so well was brought out by
credible witnesses, but none of them were cross-
examined by Potter's lawyer. The perplexity and
dissatisfaction of the house expressed itself in mur-
murs and provoked a reproof from the bench. Counsel
for the prosecution now said:

"By the oaths of citizens whose simple word is
above suspicion, we have fastened this awful crime,
beyond all possibility of question, upon the unhappy
prisoner at the bar. We rest our case here."

A groan escaped from poor Potter, and he put his
face in his hands and rocked his body softly to and
fro, while a painful silence reigned in the court-room.
Many men were moved, and many women's com-
passion testified itself in tears. Counsel for the de-
fence rose and said:

"Your honor, in our remarks at the opening of this
trial, we foreshadowed our purpose to prove that our
client did this fearful deed while under the influence
of a blind and irresponsible delirium produced by drink.
We have changed our mind. We shall not offer that
plea." [Then to the clerk:] "Call Thomas Sawyer!"

A puzzled amazement awoke in every face in the
house, not even excepting Potter's. Every eye fast-
ened itself with wondering interest upon Tom as he
rose and took his place upon the stand. The boy
looked wild enough, for he was badly scared. The
oath was administered.

"Thomas Sawyer, where were you on the seventeenth
of June, about the hour of midnight?"

Tom glanced at Injun Joe's iron face and his tongue
failed him. The audience listened breathless, but the
words refused to come. After a few moments, however,
the boy got a little of his strength back, and managed
to put enough of it into his voice to make part of the
house hear:

"In the graveyard!"

"A little bit louder, please. Don't be afraid. You
were --"

"In the graveyard."

A contemptuous smile flitted across Injun Joe's face.

"Were you anywhere near Horse Williams' grave?"

"Yes, sir."

"Speak up -- just a trifle louder. How near were
you?"

"Near as I am to you."

"Were you hidden, or not?"

"I was hid."

"Where?"

"Behind the elms that's on the edge of the grave."

Injun Joe gave a barely perceptible start.

"Any one with you?"

"Yes, sir. I went there with --"

"Wait -- wait a moment. Never mind mentioning
your companion's name. We will produce him at the
proper time. Did you carry anything there with you."

Tom hesitated and looked confused.

"Speak out, my boy -- don't be diffident. The truth
is always respectable. What did you take there?"

"Only a -- a -- dead cat."

There was a ripple of mirth, which the court checked.

"We will produce the skeleton of that cat. Now,
my boy, tell us everything that occurred -- tell it in
your own way -- don't skip anything, and don't be
afraid."

Tom began -- hesitatingly at first, but as he warmed
to his subject his words flowed more and more easily;
in a little while every sound ceased but his own voice;
every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and
bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking
no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the
tale. The strain upon pent emotion reached its climax
when the boy said:

"-- and as the doctor fetched the board around and
Muff Potter fell, Injun Joe jumped with the knife
and --"

Crash! Quick as lightning the half-breed sprang
for a window, tore his way through all opposers, and
was gone!
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXIV

TOM was a glittering hero once more -- the
pet of the old, the envy of the young.
His name even went into immortal print,
for the village paper magnified him.
There were some that believed he would
be President, yet, if he escaped hanging.

As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff
Potter to its bosom and fondled him as lavishly as it
had abused him before. But that sort of conduct is
to the world's credit; therefore it is not well to find
fault with it.

Tom's days were days of splendor and exultation
to him, but his nights were seasons of horror. Injun
Joe infested all his dreams, and always with doom
in his eye. Hardly any temptation could persuade
the boy to stir abroad after nightfall. Poor Huck
was in the same state of wretchedness and terror, for
Tom had told the whole story to the lawyer the night
before the great day of the trial, and Huck was sore
afraid that his share in the business might leak out,
yet, notwithstanding Injun Joe's flight had saved
him the suffering of testifying in court. The poor
fellow had got the attorney to promise secrecy, but
what of that? Since Tom's harassed conscience had
managed to drive him to the lawyer's house by night
and wring a dread tale from lips that had been sealed
with the dismalest and most formidable of oaths,
Huck's confidence in the human race was well-nigh
obliterated.

Daily Muff Potter's gratitude made Tom glad he
had spoken; but nightly he wished he had sealed up
his tongue.

Half the time Tom was afraid Injun Joe would
never be captured; the other half he was afraid he
would be. He felt sure he never could draw a safe
breath again until that man was dead and he had
seen the corpse.

Rewards had been offered, the country had been
scoured, but no Injun Joe was found. One of those
omniscient and awe-inspiring marvels, a detective,
came up from St. Louis, moused around, shook his
head, looked wise, and made that sort of astounding
success which members of that craft usually achieve.
That is to say, he "found a clew." But you can't
hang a "clew" for murder, and so after that detec-
tive had got through and gone home, Tom felt just
as insecure as he was before.

The slow days drifted on, and each left behind it
a slightly lightened weight of apprehension.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXV

THERE comes a time in every rightly-
constructed boy's life when he has a
raging desire to go somewhere and dig
for hidden treasure. This desire sud-
denly came upon Tom one day. He sal-
lied out to find Joe Harper, but failed
of success. Next he sought Ben Rogers; he had gone
fishing. Presently he stumbled upon Huck Finn the
Red-Handed. Huck would answer. Tom took him to
a private place and opened the matter to him confi-
dentially. Huck was willing. Huck was always willing
to take a hand in any enterprise that offered enter-
tainment and required no capital, for he had a troub-
lesome superabundance of that sort of time which is
not money. "Where'll we dig?" said Huck.

"Oh, most anywhere."

"Why, is it hid all around?"

"No, indeed it ain't. It's hid in mighty particular
places, Huck -- sometimes on islands, sometimes in rot-
ten chests under the end of a limb of an old dead tree,
just where the shadow falls at midnight; but mostly
under the floor in ha'nted houses."

"Who hides it?"

"Why, robbers, of course -- who'd you reckon? Sun-
day-school sup'rintendents?"

"I don't know. If 'twas mine I wouldn't hide it;
I'd spend it and have a good time."

"So would I. But robbers don't do that way. They
always hide it and leave it there."

"Don't they come after it any more?"

"No, they think they will, but they generally forget
the marks, or else they die. Anyway, it lays there a
long time and gets rusty; and by and by somebody
finds an old yellow paper that tells how to find the
marks -- a paper that's got to be ciphered over about a
week because it's mostly signs and hy'roglyphics."

"HyroQwhich?"

"Hy'roglyphics -- pictures and things, you know, that
don't seem to mean anything."

"Have you got one of them papers, Tom?"

"No."

"Well then, how you going to find the marks?"

"I don't want any marks. They always bury it
under a ha'nted house or on an island, or under a
dead tree that's got one limb sticking out. Well,
we've tried Jackson's Island a little, and we can try
it again some time; and there's the old ha'nted house
up the Still-House branch, and there's lots of dead-
limb trees -- dead loads of 'em."

"Is it under all of them?"

"How you talk! No!"

"Then how you going to know which one to go for?"

"Go for all of 'em!"

"Why, Tom, it'll take all summer."

"Well, what of that? Suppose you find a brass
pot with a hundred dollars in it, all rusty and gray, or
rotten chest full of di'monds. How's that?"

Huck's eyes glowed.

"That's bully. Plenty bully enough for me. Just
you gimme the hundred dollars and I don't want no
di'monds."

"All right. But I bet you I ain't going to throw
off on di'monds. Some of 'em's worth twenty dol-
lars apiece -- there ain't any, hardly, but's worth six
bits or a dollar."

"No! Is that so?"

"Cert'nly -- anybody'll tell you so. Hain't you ever
seen one, Huck?"

"Not as I remember."

"Oh, kings have slathers of them."

"Well, I don' know no kings, Tom."

"I reckon you don't. But if you was to go to
Europe you'd see a raft of 'em hopping around."

"Do they hop?"

"Hop? -- your granny! No!"

"Well, what did you say they did, for?"

"Shucks, I only meant you'd SEE 'em -- not hopping,
of course -- what do they want to hop for? -- but I mean
you'd just see 'em -- scattered around, you know, in a
kind of a general way. Like that old humpbacked
Richard."

"Richard? What's his other name?"

"He didn't have any other name. Kings don't
have any but a given name."

"No?"

"But they don't."

"Well, if they like it, Tom, all right; but I don't want
to be a king and have only just a given name, like a
nigger. But say -- where you going to dig first?"

"Well, I don't know. S'pose we tackle that old
dead-limb tree on the hill t'other side of Still-House
branch?"

"I'm agreed."

So they got a crippled pick and a shovel, and set
out on their three-mile tramp. They arrived hot and
panting, and threw themselves down in the shade of a
neighboring elm to rest and have a smoke.

"I like this," said Tom.

"So do I."

"Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you
going to do with your share?"

"Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day,
and I'll go to every circus that comes along. I bet I'll
have a gay time."

"Well, ain't you going to save any of it?"

"Save it? What for?"

"Why, so as to have something to live on, by and
by."

"Oh, that ain't any use. Pap would come back to
thish-yer town some day and get his claws on it if I
didn't hurry up, and I tell you he'd clean it out pretty
quick. What you going to do with yourn, Tom?"

"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure-'nough
sword, and a red necktie and a bull pup, and get mar-
ried."

"Married!"

"That's it."

"Tom, you -- why, you ain't in your right mind."

"Wait -- you'll see."

"Well, that's the foolishest thing you could do.
Look at pap and my mother. Fight! Why, they used
to fight all the time. I remember, mighty well."

"That ain't anything. The girl I'm going to marry
won't fight."

"Tom, I reckon they're all alike. They'll all comb
a body. Now you better think 'bout this awhile. I
tell you you better. What's the name of the gal?"

"It ain't a gal at all -- it's a girl."

"It's all the same, I reckon; some says gal, some
says girl -- both's right, like enough. Anyway, what's
her name, Tom?"

"I'll tell you some time -- not now."

"All right -- that'll do. Only if you get married I'll
be more lonesomer than ever."

"No you won't. You'll come and live with me.
Now stir out of this and we'll go to digging."

They worked and sweated for half an hour. No
result. They toiled another half-hour. Still no result.
Huck said:

"Do they always bury it as deep as this?"

"Sometimes -- not always. Not generally. I reckon
we haven't got the right place."

So they chose a new spot and began again. The
labor dragged a little, but still they made progress.
They pegged away in silence for some time. Finally
Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed the beaded drops
from his brow with his sleeve, and said:

"Where you going to dig next, after we get this
one?"

"I reckon maybe we'll tackle the old tree that's
over yonder on Cardiff Hill back of the widow's."

"I reckon that'll be a good one. But won't the
widow take it away from us, Tom? It's on her land."

"SHE take it away! Maybe she'd like to try it once.
Whoever finds one of these hid treasures, it belongs
to him. It don't make any difference whose land
it's on."

That was satisfactory. The work went on. By
and by Huck said:

"Blame it, we must be in the wrong place again.
What do you think?"

"It is mighty curious, Huck. I don't understand it.
Sometimes witches interfere. I reckon maybe that's
what's the trouble now."

"Shucks! Witches ain't got no power in the day-
time."

"Well, that's so. I didn't think of that. Oh, I
know what the matter is! What a blamed lot of fools
we are! You got to find out where the shadow of the
limb falls at midnight, and that's where you dig!"

"Then consound it, we've fooled away all this work
for nothing. Now hang it all, we got to come back
in the night. It's an awful long way. Can you get
out?"

"I bet I will. We've got to do it to-night, too, be-
cause if somebody sees these holes they'll know in a
minute what's here and they'll go for it."

"Well, I'll come around and maow to-night."

"All right. Let's hide the tools in the bushes."

The boys were there that night, about the appoint-
ed time. They sat in the shadow waiting. It was a
lonely place, and an hour made solemn by old traditions.
Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves, ghosts lurked
in the murky nooks, the deep baying of a hound floated
up out of the distance, an owl answered with his
sepulchral note. The boys were subdued by these
solemnities, and talked little. By and by they judged
that twelve had come; they marked where the shadow
fell, and began to dig. Their hopes commenced to rise.
Their interest grew stronger, and their industry kept
pace with it. The hole deepened and still deepened,
but every time their hearts jumped to hear the pick
strike upon something, they only suffered a new disap-
pointment. It was only a stone or a chunk. At last
Tom said:

"It ain't any use, Huck, we're wrong again."

"Well, but we CAN'T be wrong. We spotted the
shadder to a dot."

"I know it, but then there's another thing."

"What's that?".

"Why, we only guessed at the time. Like enough
it was too late or too early."

Huck dropped his shovel.

"That's it," said he. "That's the very trouble.
We got to give this one up. We can't ever tell the
right time, and besides this kind of thing's too awful,
here this time of night with witches and ghosts a-flut-
tering around so. I feel as if something's behind
me all the time;  and I'm afeard to turn around,
becuz maybe there's others in front a-waiting for a
chance. I been creeping all over, ever since I got
here."

"Well, I've been pretty much so, too, Huck. They
most always put in a dead man when they bury a
treasure under a tree, to look out for it."

"Lordy!"

"Yes, they do. I've always heard that."

"Tom, I don't like to fool around much where
there's dead people. A body's bound to get into
trouble with 'em, sure."

"I don't like to stir 'em up, either. S'pose this one
here was to stick his skull out and say something!"

"Don't Tom! It's awful."

"Well, it just is. Huck, I don't feel comfortable
a bit."

"Say, Tom, let's give this place up, and try some-
wheres else."

"All right, I reckon we better."

"What'll it be?"

Tom considered awhile; and then said:

"The ha'nted house. That's it!"

"Blame it, I don't like ha'nted houses, Tom. Why,
they're a dern sight worse'n dead people. Dead people
might talk, maybe, but they don't come sliding around
in a shroud, when you ain't noticing, and peep over
your shoulder all of a sudden and grit their teeth, the
way a ghost does. I couldn't stand such a thing as that,
Tom -- nobody could."

"Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don't travel around only
at night. They won't hender us from digging there in
the daytime."

"Well, that's so. But you know mighty well people
don't go about that ha'nted house in the day nor the
night."

"Well, that's mostly because they don't like to go
where a man's been murdered, anyway -- but nothing's
ever been seen around that house except in the night --
just some blue lights slipping by the windows -- no
regular ghosts."

"Well, where you see one of them blue lights flicker-
ing around, Tom, you can bet there's a ghost mighty
close behind it. It stands to reason. Becuz you know
that they don't anybody but ghosts use 'em."

"Yes, that's so. But anyway they don't come
around in the daytime, so what's the use of our being
afeard?"

"Well, all right. We'll tackle the ha'nted house
if you say so -- but I reckon it's taking chances."

They had started down the hill by this time. There
in the middle of the moonlit valley below them stood
the "ha'nted" house, utterly isolated, its fences gone
long ago, rank weeds smothering the very doorsteps,
the chimney crumbled to ruin, the window-sashes
vacant, a corner of the roof caved in. The boys gazed
awhile, half expecting to see a blue light flit past a
window; then talking in a low tone, as befitted the time
and the circumstances, they struck far off to the right,
to give the haunted house a wide berth, and took their
way homeward through the woods that adorned the
rearward side of Cardiff Hill.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXVI

ABOUT noon the next day the boys ar-
rived at the dead tree; they had come
for their tools. Tom was impatient
to go to the haunted house; Huck
was measurably so, also -- but suddenly
said:

"Lookyhere, Tom, do you know what day it is?"

Tom mentally ran over the days of the week, and
then quickly lifted his eyes with a startled look in
them --

"My! I never once thought of it, Huck!"

"Well, I didn't neither, but all at once it popped
onto me that it was Friday."

"Blame it, a body can't be too careful, Huck. We
might 'a' got into an awful scrape, tackling such a thing
on a Friday."

"MIGHT! Better say we WOULD! There's some lucky
days, maybe, but Friday ain't."

"Any fool knows that. I don't reckon YOU was the
first that found it out, Huck."

"Well, I never said I was, did I? And Friday ain't
all, neither. I had a rotten bad dream last night --
dreampt about rats."

"No! Sure sign of trouble. Did they fight?"

"No."

"Well, that's good, Huck. When they don't fight
it's only a sign that there's trouble around, you know.
All we got to do is to look mighty sharp and keep out of
it. We'll drop this thing for to-day, and play. Do
you know Robin Hood, Huck?"

"No. Who's Robin Hood?"

"Why, he was one of the greatest men that was
ever in England -- and the best. He was a rob-
ber."

"Cracky, I wisht I was. Who did he rob?"

"Only sheriffs and bishops and rich people and kings,
and such like. But he never bothered the poor. He
loved 'em. He always divided up with 'em perfectly
square."

"Well, he must 'a' been a brick."

"I bet you he was, Huck. Oh, he was the noblest
man that ever was. They ain't any such men now, I
can tell you. He could lick any man in England, with
one hand tied behind him; and he could take his yew
bow and plug a ten-cent piece every time, a mile and a
half."

"What's a YEW bow?"

"I don't know. It's some kind of a bow, of course.
And if he hit that dime only on the edge he would set
down and cry -- and curse. But we'll play Robin Hood
-- it's nobby fun. I'll learn you."

"I'm agreed."

So they played Robin Hood all the afternoon, now
and then casting a yearning eye down upon the haunted
house and passing a remark about the morrow's pros-
pects and possibilities there. As the sun began to sink
into the west they took their way homeward athwart the
long shadows of the trees and soon were buried from
sight in the forests of Cardiff Hill.

On Saturday, shortly after noon, the boys were
at the dead tree again. They had a smoke and a
chat in the shade, and then dug a little in their last
hole, not with great hope, but merely because Tom
said there were so many cases where people had given
up a treasure after getting down within six inches of it,
and then somebody else had come along and turned
it up with a single thrust of a shovel. The thing failed
this time, however, so the boys shouldered their tools
and went away feeling that they had not trifled with
fortune, but had fulfilled all the requirements that be-
long to the business of treasure-hunting.

When they reached the haunted house there was
something so weird and grisly about the dead silence
that reigned there under the baking sun, and some-
thing so depressing about the loneliness and desola-
tion of the place, that they were afraid, for a mo-
ment, to venture in. Then they crept to the door and
took a trembling peep. They saw a weed-grown,
floorless room, unplastered, an ancient fireplace, va-
cant windows, a ruinous staircase; and here, there,
and everywhere hung ragged and abandoned cobwebs.
They presently entered, softly, with quickened pulses,
talking in whispers, ears alert to catch the slightest
sound, and muscles tense and ready for instant retreat.

In a little while familiarity modified their fears and
they gave the place a critical and interested exam-
ination, rather admiring their own boldness, and won-
dering at it, too. Next they wanted to look up-stairs.
This was something like cutting off retreat, but they got
to daring each other, and of course there could be but
one result -- they threw their tools into a corner and made
the ascent. Up there were the same signs of decay.
In one corner they found a closet that promised mystery,
but the promise was a fraud -- there was nothing in it.
Their courage was up now and well in hand. They
were about to go down and begin work when --

"Sh!" said Tom.

"What is it?" whispered Huck, blanching with fright.

"Sh! ... There! ... Hear it?"

"Yes! ... Oh, my! Let's run!"

"Keep still! Don't you budge! They're coming
right toward the door."

The boys stretched themselves upon the floor with
their eyes to knot-holes in the planking, and lay wait-
ing, in a misery of fear.

"They've stopped.... No -- coming.... Here they
are. Don't whisper another word, Huck. My good-
ness, I wish I was out of this!"

Two men entered. Each boy said to himself:
"There's the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that's been
about town once or twice lately -- never saw t'other
man before."

"T'other" was a ragged, unkempt creature, with
nothing very pleasant in his face. The Spaniard was
wrapped in a serape; he had bushy white whiskers; long
white hair flowed from under his sombrero, and he
wore green goggles. When they came in, "t'other" was
talking in a low voice; they sat down on the ground,
facing the door, with their backs to the wall, and the
speaker continued his remarks. His manner became
less guarded and his words more distinct as he proceeded:

"No," said he, "I've thought it all over, and I don't
like it. It's dangerous."

"Dangerous!" grunted the "deaf and dumb" Span-
iard -- to the vast surprise of the boys. "Milksop!"

This voice made the boys gasp and quake. It was
Injun Joe's! There was silence for some time. Then
Joe said:

"What's any more dangerous than that job up yon-
der -- but nothing's come of it."

"That's different. Away up the river so, and not
another house about. 'Twon't ever be known that we
tried, anyway, long as we didn't succeed."

"Well, what's more dangerous than coming here in
the daytime! -- anybody would suspicion us that saw us."

"I know that. But there warn't any other place as
handy after that fool of a job. I want to quit this
shanty. I wanted to yesterday, only it warn't any use
trying to stir out of here, with those infernal boys play-
ing over there on the hill right in full view."

"Those infernal boys" quaked again under the in-
spiration of this remark, and thought how lucky it was
that they had remembered it was Friday and concluded
to wait a day. They wished in their hearts they had
waited a year.

The two men got out some food and made a luncheon.
After a long and thoughtful silence, Injun Joe said:

"Look here, lad -- you go back up the river where
you belong. Wait there till you hear from me. I'll
take the chances on dropping into this town just once
more, for a look. We'll do that 'dangerous' job after
I've spied around a little and think things look well for
it. Then for Texas! We'll leg it together!"

This was satisfactory. Both men presently fell to
yawning, and Injun Joe said:

"I'm dead for sleep! It's your turn to watch."

He curled down in the weeds and soon began to
snore. His comrade stirred him once or twice and he
became quiet. Presently the watcher began to nod;
his head drooped lower and lower, both men began to
snore now.

The boys drew a long, grateful breath. Tom whis-
pered:

"Now's our chance -- come!"

Huck said:

"I can't -- I'd die if they was to wake."

Tom urged -- Huck held back. At last Tom rose
slowly and softly, and started alone. But the first
step he made wrung such a hideous creak from the
crazy floor that he sank down almost dead with fright.
He never made a second attempt. The boys lay there
counting the dragging moments till it seemed to them
that time must be done and eternity growing gray; and
then they were grateful to note that at last the sun was
setting.

Now one snore ceased. Injun Joe sat up, stared
around -- smiled grimly upon his comrade, whose head
was drooping upon his knees -- stirred him up with his
foot and said:

"Here! YOU'RE a watchman, ain't you! All right,
though -- nothing's happened."

"My! have I been asleep?"

"Oh, partly, partly. Nearly time for us to be mov-
ing, pard. What'll we do with what little swag we've
got left?"

"I don't know -- leave it here as we've always done,
I reckon. No use to take it away till we start
south. Six hundred and fifty in silver's something to
carry."

"Well -- all right -- it won't matter to come here once
more."

"No -- but I'd say come in the night as we used to do
-- it's better."

"Yes: but look here; it may be a good while before
I get the right chance at that job; accidents might hap-
pen; 'tain't in such a very good place; we'll just regularly
bury it -- and bury it deep."

"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 them-
selves, 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 con-
templated 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 busi-
ness 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 be-
fore. 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 some-
thing. 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 mis-
fortune 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 improve-
ment, he thought.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXVII

THE adventure of the day mightily tor-
mented 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 for-
sook him and wakefulness brought back
the hard reality of his misfortune. As he lay in the
early morning recalling the incidents of his great ad-
venture, 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 oc-
curred 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 "thou-
sands" 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 hun-
dred 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, splen-
did, 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, list-
lessly 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 any-
body 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 enter-
taining 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."
<--split-->
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; no-
body 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 consider-
able 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 auspi-
cious. 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 along-
side 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."
<--split-->
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 second-
ary 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 pe-
culiarly 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 dis-
appointed. 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 ferry-
boat 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 there-
fore 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 ferry-
boat's lights went glinting past the wharf. He heard
no noise on board, for the young people were as sub-
dued 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 noth-
ing 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 hesi-
tating, 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 sum-
mit. 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.
<--split-->
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 your-
self 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 de-
scription; 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! Hap-
pened 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 any-
thing 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 think-
ing 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. Pres-
ently 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 pro-
tect 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, un-
utterably 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 sense-
less 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, be-
cause 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 preser-
vation 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 ex-
pected 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, be-
ginning 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 anx-
iously 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 in-
significance, 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 encourage-
ment 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 some-
where 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 acci-
dental 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."
<--split-->
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 com-
pany, visiting the familiar wonders of the
cave -- wonders dubbed with rather over-
descriptive names, such as "The Draw-
ing-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 ambi-
tion 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 be-
witching 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 fan-
tastic 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 creat-
ures 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 shout-
ed. 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 be-
fore a certain indecision in his manner revealed an-
other 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 econ-
omize.

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 comfort-
ing her, but all his encouragements were grown thread-
bare 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 abun-
dance 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 tor-
ment 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 weak-
ened 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 chil-
dren 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.