The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
awhile; then slackened his pace, fearing he was gaining too fast; moved
on a piece, then stopped altogether; listened; no sound; none, save that
he seemed to hear the beating of his own heart. The hooting of an
owl came over the hill—ominous sound! But no footsteps. Heavens, was
everything lost! He was about to spring with winged feet, when a man
cleared his throat not four feet from him! Huck’s heart shot into his
throat, but he swallowed it again; and then he stood there shaking as
if a dozen agues had taken charge of him at once, and so weak that he
thought he must surely fall to the ground. He knew where he was. He
knew he was within five steps of the stile leading into Widow Douglas’
grounds. Very well, he thought, let them bury it there; it won’t be hard
to find.
Now there was a voice—a very low voice—Injun Joe’s:
“Damn her, maybe she’s got company—there’s lights, late as it is.”
“I can’t see any.”
This was that stranger’s voice—the stranger of the haunted house. A
deadly chill went to Huck’s heart—this, then, was the “revenge” job! His
thought was, to fly. Then he remembered that the Widow Douglas had been
kind to him more than once, and maybe these men were going to murder
her. He wished he dared venture to warn her; but he knew he didn’t
dare—they might come and catch him. He thought all this and more in
the moment that elapsed between the stranger’s remark and Injun Joe’s
next—which was—
“Because the bush is in your way. Now—this way—now you see, don’t you?”
“Yes. Well, there _is_ company there, I reckon. Better give it up.”
“Give it up, and I just leaving this country forever! Give it up and
maybe never have another chance. I tell you again, as I’ve told you
before, I don’t care for her swag—you may have it. But her husband was
rough on me—many times he was rough on me—and mainly he was the justice
of the peace that jugged me for a vagrant. And that ain’t all. It ain’t
a millionth part of it! He had me _horsewhipped_!—horsewhipped in
front of the jail, like a nigger!—with all the town looking on!
_Horsewhipped_!—do you understand? He took advantage of me and died. But
I’ll take it out of _her_.”
“Oh, don’t kill her! Don’t do that!”
“Kill? Who said anything about killing? I would kill _him_ if he was
here; but not her. When you want to get revenge on a woman you don’t
kill her—bosh! you go for her looks. You slit her nostrils—you notch her
ears like a sow!”
“By God, that’s—”
“Keep your opinion to yourself! It will be safest for you. I’ll tie her
to the bed. If she bleeds to death, is that my fault? I’ll not cry, if
she does. My friend, you’ll help me in this thing—for _my_ sake—that’s
why you’re here—I mightn’t be able alone. If you flinch, I’ll kill you.
Do you understand that? And if I have to kill you, I’ll kill her—and
then I reckon nobody’ll ever know much about who done this business.”
“Well, if it’s got to be done, let’s get at it. The quicker the
better—I’m all in a shiver.”
“Do it _now_? And company there? Look here—I’ll get suspicious of you,
first thing you know. No—we’ll wait till the lights are out—there’s no
hurry.”
Huck felt that a silence was going to ensue—a thing still more awful
than any amount of murderous talk; so he held his breath and stepped
gingerly back; planted his foot carefully and firmly, after balancing,
one-legged, in a precarious way and almost toppling over, first on one
side and then on the other. He took another step back, with the same
elaboration and the same risks; then another and another, and—a twig
snapped under his foot! His breath stopped and he listened. There was no
sound—the stillness was perfect. His gratitude was measureless. Now he
turned in his tracks, between the walls of sumach bushes—turned
himself as carefully as if he were a ship—and then stepped quickly but
cautiously along. When he emerged at the quarry he felt secure, and
so he picked up his nimble heels and flew. Down, down he sped, till he
reached the Welshman’s. He banged at the door, and presently the heads
of the old man and his two stalwart sons were thrust from windows.
“What’s the row there? Who’s banging? What do you want?”
“Let me in—quick! I’ll tell everything.”
“Why, who are you?”
“Huckleberry Finn—quick, let me in!”
“Huckleberry Finn, indeed! It ain’t a name to open many doors, I judge!
But let him in, lads, and let’s see what’s the trouble.”
“Please don’t ever tell I told you,” were Huck’s first words when he got
in. “Please don’t—I’d be killed, sure—but the widow’s been good friends
to me sometimes, and I want to tell—I _will_ tell if you’ll promise you
won’t ever say it was me.”
“By George, he _has_ got something to tell, or he wouldn’t act so!”
exclaimed the old man; “out with it and nobody here’ll ever tell, lad.”
Three minutes later the old man and his sons, well armed, were up the
hill, and just entering the sumach path on tiptoe, their weapons in
their hands. Huck accompanied them no further. He hid behind a great
bowlder and fell to listening. There was a lagging, anxious silence, and
then all of a sudden there was an explosion of firearms and a cry.
Huck waited for no particulars. He sprang away and sped down the hill as
fast as his legs could carry him.
CHAPTER XXX
As the earliest suspicion of dawn appeared on Sunday morning, Huck came
groping up the hill and rapped gently at the old Welshman’s door. The
inmates were asleep, but it was a sleep that was set on a hair-trigger,
on account of the exciting episode of the night. A call came from a
window:
“Who’s there!”
Huck’s scared voice answered in a low tone:
“Please let me in! It’s only Huck Finn!”
“It’s a name that can open this door night or day, lad!—and welcome!”
These were strange words to the vagabond boy’s ears, and the pleasantest
he had ever heard. He could not recollect that the closing word had ever
been applied in his case before. The door was quickly unlocked, and he
entered. Huck was given a seat and the old man and his brace of tall
sons speedily dressed themselves.
“Now, my boy, I hope you’re good and hungry, because breakfast will be
ready as soon as the sun’s up, and we’ll have a piping hot one, too—make
yourself easy about that! I and the boys hoped you’d turn up and stop
here last night.”
“I was awful scared,” said Huck, “and I run. I took out when the pistols
went off, and I didn’t stop for three mile. I’ve come now becuz I wanted
to know about it, you know; and I come before daylight becuz I didn’t
want to run across them devils, even if they was dead.”
“Well, poor chap, you do look as if you’d had a hard night of it—but
there’s a bed here for you when you’ve had your breakfast. No, they
ain’t dead, lad—we are sorry enough for that. You see we knew right
where to put our hands on them, by your description; so we crept along
on tiptoe till we got within fifteen feet of them—dark as a cellar that
sumach path was—and just then I found I was going to sneeze. It was the
meanest kind of luck! I tried to keep it back, but no use—’twas bound to
come, and it did come! I was in the lead with my pistol raised, and when
the sneeze started those scoundrels a-rustling to get out of the path,
I sung out, ‘Fire boys!’ and blazed away at the place where the rustling
was. So did the boys. But they were off in a jiffy, those villains, and
we after them, down through the woods. I judge we never touched them.
They fired a shot apiece as they started, but their bullets whizzed by
and didn’t do us any harm. As soon as we lost the sound of their feet
we quit chasing, and went down and stirred up the constables. They got a
posse together, and went off to guard the river bank, and as soon as it
is light the sheriff and a gang are going to beat up the woods. My boys
will be with them presently. I wish we had some sort of description of
those rascals—’twould help a good deal. But you couldn’t see what they
were like, in the dark, lad, I suppose?”
“Oh yes; I saw them downtown and follered them.”
“Splendid! Describe them—describe them, my boy!”
“One’s the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that’s ben around here once or
twice, and t’other’s a mean-looking, ragged—”
“That’s enough, lad, we know the men! Happened on them in the woods back
of the widow’s one day, and they slunk away. Off with you, boys, and
tell the sheriff—get your breakfast tomorrow morning!”
The Welshman’s sons departed at once. As they were leaving the room Huck
sprang up and exclaimed:
“Oh, please don’t tell _any_body it was me that blowed on them! Oh,
please!”
“All right if you say it, Huck, but you ought to have the credit of what
you did.”
“Oh no, no! Please don’t tell!”
When the young men were gone, the old Welshman said:
“They won’t tell—and I won’t. But why don’t you want it known?”
Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew too
much about one of those men and would not have the man know that he knew
anything against him for the whole world—he would be killed for knowing
it, sure.
The old man promised secrecy once more, and said:
“How did you come to follow these fellows, lad? Were they looking
suspicious?”
Huck was silent while he framed a duly cautious reply. Then he said:
“Well, you see, I’m a kind of a hard lot,—least everybody says so, and
I don’t see nothing agin it—and sometimes I can’t sleep much, on account
of thinking about it and sort of trying to strike out a new way of
doing. That was the way of it last night. I couldn’t sleep, and so I
come along upstreet ’bout midnight, a-turning it all over, and when I
got to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I backed
up agin the wall to have another think. Well, just then along comes
these two chaps slipping along close by me, with something under their
arm, and I reckoned they’d stole it. One was a-smoking, and t’other one
wanted a light; so they stopped right before me and the cigars lit up
their faces and I see that the big one was the deaf and dumb Spaniard,
by his white whiskers and the patch on his eye, and t’other one was a
rusty, ragged-looking devil.”
“Could you see the rags by the light of the cigars?”
This staggered Huck for a moment. Then he said:
“Well, I don’t know—but somehow it seems as if I did.”
“Then they went on, and you—”
“Follered ’em—yes. That was it. I wanted to see what was up—they sneaked
along so. I dogged ’em to the widder’s stile, and stood in the dark and
heard the ragged one beg for the widder, and the Spaniard swear he’d
spile her looks just as I told you and your two—”
“What! The _deaf and dumb_ man said all that!”
Huck had made another terrible mistake! He was trying his best to keep
the old man from getting the faintest hint of who the Spaniard might be,
and yet his tongue seemed determined to get him into trouble in spite of
all he could do. He made several efforts to creep out of his scrape,
but the old man’s eye was upon him and he made blunder after blunder.
Presently the Welshman said:
“My boy, don’t be afraid of me. I wouldn’t hurt a hair of your head for
all the world. No—I’d protect you—I’d protect you. This Spaniard is
not deaf and dumb; you’ve let that slip without intending it; you can’t
cover that up now. You know something about that Spaniard that you want
to keep dark. Now trust me—tell me what it is, and trust me—I won’t
betray you.”
Huck looked into the old man’s honest eyes a moment, then bent over and
whispered in his ear:
“’Tain’t a Spaniard—it’s Injun Joe!”
The Welshman almost jumped out of his chair. In a moment he said:
“It’s all plain enough, now. When you talked about notching ears and
slitting noses I judged that that was your own embellishment, because
white men don’t take that sort of revenge. But an Injun! That’s a
different matter altogether.”