



Produced by David Widger





                    THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
                                BY
                            MARK TWAIN
                     (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

                              Part 8



CHAPTER XXXII

TUESDAY afternoon came, and waned to the twilight. The village of St.
Petersburg still mourned. The lost children had not been found. Public
prayers had been offered up for them, and many and many a private
prayer that had the petitioner's whole heart in it; but still no good
news came from the cave. The majority of the searchers had given up the
quest and gone back to their daily avocations, saying that it was plain
the children could never be found. Mrs. Thatcher was very ill, and a
great part of the time delirious. People said it was heartbreaking to
hear her call her child, and raise her head and listen a whole minute
at a time, then lay it wearily down again with a moan. Aunt Polly had
drooped into a settled melancholy, and her gray hair had grown almost
white. The village went to its rest on Tuesday night, sad and forlorn.

Away in the middle of the night a wild peal burst from the village
bells, and in a moment the streets were swarming with frantic half-clad
people, who shouted, "Turn out! turn out! they're found! they're
found!" Tin pans and horns were added to the din, the population massed
itself and moved toward the river, met the children coming in an open
carriage drawn by shouting citizens, thronged around it, joined its
homeward march, and swept magnificently up the main street roaring
huzzah after huzzah!

The village was illuminated; nobody went to bed again; it was the
greatest night the little town had ever seen. During the first half-hour
a procession of villagers filed through Judge Thatcher's house, seized
the saved ones and kissed them, squeezed Mrs. Thatcher's hand, tried to
speak but couldn't--and drifted out raining tears all over the place.

Aunt Polly's happiness was complete, and Mrs. Thatcher's nearly so. It
would be complete, however, as soon as the messenger dispatched with
the great news to the cave should get the word to her husband. Tom lay
upon a sofa with an eager auditory about him and told the history of
the wonderful adventure, putting in many striking additions to adorn it
withal; and closed with a description of how he left Becky and went on
an exploring expedition; how he followed two avenues as far as his
kite-line would reach; how he followed a third to the fullest stretch of
the kite-line, and was about to turn back when he glimpsed a far-off
speck that looked like daylight; dropped the line and groped toward it,
pushed his head and shoulders through a small hole, and saw the broad
Mississippi rolling by! And if it had only happened to be night he would
not have seen that speck of daylight and would not have explored that
passage any more! He told how he went back for Becky and broke the good
news and she told him not to fret her with such stuff, for she was
tired, and knew she was going to die, and wanted to. He described how he
labored with her and convinced her; and how she almost died for joy when
she had groped to where she actually saw the blue speck of daylight; how
he pushed his way out at the hole and then helped her out; how they sat
there and cried for gladness; how some men came along in a skiff and Tom
hailed them and told them their situation and their famished condition;
how the men didn't believe the wild tale at first, "because," said they,
"you are five miles down the river below the valley the cave is in"
--then took them aboard, rowed to a house, gave them supper, made them
rest till two or three hours after dark and then brought them home.

Before day-dawn, Judge Thatcher and the handful of searchers with him
were tracked out, in the cave, by the twine clews they had strung
behind them, and informed of the great news.

Three days and nights of toil and hunger in the cave were not to be
shaken off at once, as Tom and Becky soon discovered. They were
bedridden all of Wednesday and Thursday, and seemed to grow more and
more tired and worn, all the time. Tom got about, a little, on
Thursday, was down-town Friday, and nearly as whole as ever Saturday;
but Becky did not leave her room until Sunday, and then she looked as
if she had passed through a wasting illness.

Tom learned of Huck's sickness and went to see him on Friday, but
could not be admitted to the bedroom; neither could he on Saturday or
Sunday. He was admitted daily after that, but was warned to keep still
about his adventure and introduce no exciting topic. The Widow Douglas
stayed by to see that he obeyed. At home Tom learned of the Cardiff
Hill event; also that the "ragged man's" body had eventually been found
in the river near the ferry-landing; he had been drowned while trying
to escape, perhaps.

About a fortnight after Tom's rescue from the cave, he started off to
visit Huck, who had grown plenty strong enough, now, to hear exciting
talk, and Tom had some that would interest him, he thought. Judge
Thatcher's house was on Tom's way, and he stopped to see Becky. The
Judge and some friends set Tom to talking, and some one asked him
ironically if he wouldn't like to go to the cave again. Tom said he
thought he wouldn't mind it. The Judge said:

"Well, there are others just like you, Tom, I've not the least doubt.
But we have taken care of that. Nobody will get lost in that cave any
more."

"Why?"

"Because I had its big door sheathed with boiler iron two weeks ago,
and triple-locked--and I've got the keys."

Tom turned as white as a sheet.

"What's the matter, boy! Here, run, somebody! Fetch a glass of water!"

The water was brought and thrown into Tom's face.

"Ah, now you're all right. What was the matter with you, Tom?"

"Oh, Judge, Injun Joe's in the cave!"



CHAPTER XXXIII

WITHIN a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of
men were on their way to McDougal's cave, and the ferryboat, well
filled with passengers, soon followed. Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that
bore Judge Thatcher.

When the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in
the dim twilight of the place. Injun Joe lay stretched upon the ground,
dead, with his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing
eyes had been fixed, to the latest moment, upon the light and the cheer
of the free world outside. Tom was touched, for he knew by his own
experience how this wretch had suffered. His pity was moved, but
nevertheless he felt an abounding sense of relief and security, now,
which revealed to him in a degree which he had not fully appreciated
before how vast a weight of dread had been lying upon him since the day
he lifted his voice against this bloody-minded outcast.

Injun Joe's bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two. The
great foundation-beam of the door had been chipped and hacked through,
with tedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock
formed a sill outside it, and upon that stubborn material the knife had
wrought no effect; the only damage done was to the knife itself. But if
there had been no stony obstruction there the labor would have been
useless still, for if the beam had been wholly cut away Injun Joe could
not have squeezed his body under the door, and he knew it. So he had
only hacked that place in order to be doing something--in order to pass
the weary time--in order to employ his tortured faculties. Ordinarily
one could find half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the crevices
of this vestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now. The
prisoner had searched them out and eaten them. He had also contrived to
catch a few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their
claws. The poor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at
hand, a stalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages,
builded by the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had
broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone,
wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop
that fell once in every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a
clock-tick--a dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. That drop
was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the
foundations of Rome were laid when Christ was crucified; when the
Conqueror created the British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the
massacre at Lexington was "news." It is falling now; it will still be
falling when all these things shall have sunk down the afternoon of
history, and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the
thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and a mission? Did
this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for
this flitting human insect's need? and has it another important object
to accomplish ten thousand years to come? No matter. It is many and
many a year since the hapless half-breed scooped out the stone to catch
the priceless drops, but to this day the tourist stares longest at that
pathetic stone and that slow-dropping water when he comes to see the
wonders of McDougal's cave. Injun Joe's cup stands first in the list of
the cavern's marvels; even "Aladdin's Palace" cannot rival it.

Injun Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave; and people flocked
there in boats and wagons from the towns and from all the farms and
hamlets for seven miles around; they brought their children, and all
sorts of provisions, and confessed that they had had almost as
satisfactory a time at the funeral as they could have had at the
hanging.

This funeral stopped the further growth of one thing--the petition to
the governor for Injun Joe's pardon. The petition had been largely
signed; many tearful and eloquent meetings had been held, and a
committee of sappy women been appointed to go in deep mourning and wail
around the governor, and implore him to be a merciful ass and trample
his duty under foot. Injun Joe was believed to have killed five
citizens of the village, but what of that? If he had been Satan himself
there would have been plenty of weaklings ready to scribble their names
to a pardon-petition, and drip a tear on it from their permanently
impaired and leaky water-works.

The morning after the funeral Tom took Huck to a private place to have
an important talk. Huck had learned all about Tom's adventure from the
Welshman and the Widow Douglas, by this time, but Tom said he reckoned
there was one thing they had not told him; that thing was what he
wanted to talk about now. Huck's face saddened. He said:

"I know what it is. You got into No. 2 and never found anything but
whiskey. Nobody told me it was you; but I just knowed it must 'a' ben
you, soon as I heard 'bout that whiskey business; and I knowed you
hadn't got the money becuz you'd 'a' got at me some way or other and
told me even if you was mum to everybody else. Tom, something's always
told me we'd never get holt of that swag."

"Why, Huck, I never told on that tavern-keeper. YOU know his tavern
was all right the Saturday I went to the picnic. Don't you remember you
was to watch there that night?"

"Oh yes! Why, it seems 'bout a year ago. It was that very night that I
follered Injun Joe to the widder's."

"YOU followed him?"

"Yes--but you keep mum. I reckon Injun Joe's left friends behind him,
and I don't want 'em souring on me and doing me mean tricks. If it
hadn't ben for me he'd be down in Texas now, all right."

Then Huck told his entire adventure in confidence to Tom, who had only
heard of the Welshman's part of it before.

"Well," said Huck, presently, coming back to the main question,
"whoever nipped the whiskey in No. 2, nipped the money, too, I reckon
--anyways it's a goner for us, Tom."

"Huck, that money wasn't ever in No. 2!"

"What!" Huck searched his comrade's face keenly. "Tom, have you got on
the track of that money again?"

"Huck, it's in the cave!"

Huck's eyes blazed.

"Say it again, Tom."

"The money's in the cave!"

"Tom--honest injun, now--is it fun, or earnest?"

"Earnest, Huck--just as earnest as ever I was in my life. Will you go
in there with me and help get it out?"

"I bet I will! I will if it's where we can blaze our way to it and not
get lost."

"Huck, we can do that without the least little bit of trouble in the
world."

"Good as wheat! What makes you think the money's--"

"Huck, you just wait till we get in there. If we don't find it I'll
agree to give you my drum and every thing I've got in the world. I
will, by jings."

"All right--it's a whiz. When do you say?"

"Right now, if you say it. Are you strong enough?"

"Is it far in the cave? I ben on my pins a little, three or four days,
now, but I can't walk more'n a mile, Tom--least I don't think I could."

"It's about five mile into there the way anybody but me would go,
Huck, but there's a mighty short cut that they don't anybody but me
know about. Huck, I'll take you right to it in a skiff. I'll float the
skiff down there, and I'll pull it back again all by myself. You
needn't ever turn your hand over."

"Less start right off, Tom."

"All right. We want some bread and meat, and our pipes, and a little
bag or two,