湯姆歷險記Chapter 30 湯姆和貝基山洞被困

Chapter 30
      
      
        
            
      
   
    AS the earliest suspicion of dawn appeared on Sunday morning, Huck came groping
    up the hill and rapped gently at the old Welshman's door. The inmates were asleep, but it
    was a sleep that was set on a hair-trigger, on account of the exciting episode of the
    night. A call came from a window:

    "Who's there!"

    Huck's scared voice answered in a low tone:

    "Please let me in! It's only Huck Finn!"

    "It's a name that can open this door night or day, lad! -- and welcome!"

    These were strange words to the vagabond boy's ears, and the pleasantest he had ever
    heard. He could not recollect that the closing word had ever been applied in his case
    before. The door was quickly unlocked, and he entered. Huck was given a seat and the old
    man and his brace of tall sons speedily dressed themselves.

    "Now, my boy, I hope you're good and hungry, because breakfast will be ready as
    soon as the sun's up, and we'll have a piping hot one, too -- make yourself easy about
    that! I and the boys hoped you'd turn up and stop here last night."

    "I was awful scared," said Huck, "and I run. I took out when the pistols
    went off, and I didn't stop for three mile. I've come now becuz I wanted to know about it,
    you know; and I come before daylight becuz I didn't want to run across them devils, even
    if they was dead."

    "Well, poor chap, you do look as if you'd had a hard night of it -- but there's a
    bed here for you when you've had your breakfast. No, they ain't dead, lad -- we are sorry
    enough for that. You see we knew right where to put our hands on them, by your
    description; so we crept along on tiptoe till we got within fifteen feet of them -- dark
    as a cellar that sumach path was -- and just then I found I was going to sneeze. It was
    the meanest kind of luck! I tried to keep it back, but no use -- 'twas bound to come, and
    it did come! I was in the lead with my pistol raised, and when the sneeze started those
    scoundrels a-rustling to get out of the path, I sung out, 'Fire boys!' and blazed away at
    the place where the rustling was. So did the boys. But they were off in a jiffy, those
    villains, and we after them, down through the woods. I judge we never touched them. They
    fired a shot apiece as they started, but their bullets whizzed by and didn't do us any
    harm. As soon as we lost the sound of their feet we quit chasing, and went down and
    stirred up the constables. They got a posse together, and went off to guard the river
    bank, and as soon as it is light the sheriff and a gang are going to beat up the woods. My
    boys will be with them presently. I wish we had some sort of description of those rascals
    -- 'twould help a good deal. But you couldn't see what they were like, in the dark, lad, I
    suppose?"

    "Oh yes; I saw them down-town and follered them."

    "Splendid! Describe them -- describe them, my boy!"

    "One's the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that's ben around here once or twice, and
    t'other's a mean-looking, ragged --"

    "That's enough, lad, we know the men! Happened on them in the woods back of the
    widow's one day, and they slunk away. Off with you, boys, and tell the sheriff -- get your
    breakfast to-morrow morning!"

    The Welshman's sons departed at once. As they were leaving the room Huck sprang up and
    exclaimed:

    "Oh, please don't tell ANYbody it was me that blowed on them! Oh, please!"

    "All right if you say it, Huck, but you ought to have the credit of what you
    did."

    "Oh no, no! Please don't tell!"

    When the young men were gone, the old Welshman said:

    "They won't tell -- and I won't. But why don't you want it known?"

    Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew too much about one of
    those men and would not have the man know that he knew anything against him for the whole
    world -- he would be killed for knowing it, sure.

    The old man promised secrecy once more, and said:

    "How did you come to follow these fellows, lad? Were they looking
    suspicious?"

    Huck was silent while he framed a duly cautious reply. Then he said:

    "Well, you see, I'm a kind of a hard lot, -- least everybody says so, and I don't
    see nothing agin it -- and sometimes I can't sleep much, on account of thinking about it
    and sort of trying to strike out a new way of doing. That was the way of it last night. I
    couldn't sleep, and so I come along up-street 'bout midnight, a-turning it all over, and
    when I got to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I backed up agin the
    wall to have another think. Well, just then along comes these two chaps slipping along
    close by me, with something under their arm, and I reckoned they'd stole it. One was
    a-smoking, and t'other one wanted a light; so they stopped right before me and the cigars
    lit up their faces and I see that the big one was the deaf and dumb Spaniard, by his white
    whiskers and the patch on his eye, and t'other one was a rusty, ragged-looking
    devil."

    "Could you see the rags by the light of the cigars?"

    This staggered Huck for a moment. Then he said:

    "Well, I don't know -- but somehow it seems as if I did."

    "Then they went on, and you --"

    "Follered 'em -- yes. That was it. I wanted to see what was up -- they sneaked
    along so. I dogged 'em to the widder's stile, and stood in the dark and heard the ragged
    one beg for the widder, and the Spaniard swear he'd spile her looks just as I told you and
    your two --"

    "What! The DEAF AND DUMB man said all that!"

    Huck had made another terrible mistake! He was trying his best to keep the old man from
    getting the faintest hint of who the Spaniard might be, and yet his tongue seemed
    determined to get him into trouble in spite of all he could do. He made several efforts to
    creep out of his scrape, but the old man's eye was upon him and he made blunder after
    blunder. Presently the Welshman said:

    "My boy, don't be afraid of me. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head for all the
    world. No -- I'd protect you -- I'd protect you. This Spaniard is not deaf and dumb;
    you've let that slip without intending it; you can't cover that up now. You know something
    about that Spaniard that you want to keep dark. Now trust me -- tell me what it is, and
    trust me -- I won't betray you."

    Huck looked into the old man's honest eyes a moment, then bent over and whispered in
    his ear:

    "'Tain't a Spaniard -- it's Injun Joe!"

    The Welshman almost jumped out of his chair. In a moment he said:

    "It's all plain enough, now. When you talked about notching ears and slitting
    noses I judged that that was your own embellishment, because white men don't take that
    sort of revenge. But an Injun! That's a different matter altogether."

    During breakfast the talk went on, and in the course of it the old man said that the
    last thing which he and his sons had done, before going to bed, was to get a lantern and
    examine the stile and its vicinity for marks of blood. They found none, but captured a
    bulky bundle of --

    "Of WHAT?"

    If the words had been lightning they could not have leaped with a more stunning
    suddenness from Huck's blanched lips. His eyes were staring wide, now, and his breath
    suspended -- waiting for the answer. The Welshman started -- stared in return 每 three seconds -- five seconds -- ten -- then replied:

    "Of burglar's tools. Why, what's the MATTER with you?"

    Huck sank back, panting gently, but deeply, unutterably grateful. The Welshman eyed him
    gravely, curiously -- and presently said:

    "Yes, burglar's tools. That appears to relieve you a good deal. But what did give
    you that turn? What were YOU expecting we'd found?"

    Huck was in a close place -- the inquiring eye was upon him -- he would have given
    anything for material for a plausible answer -- nothing suggested itself -- the inquiring
    eye was boring deeper and deeper -- a senseless reply offered -- there was no time to
    weigh it, so at a venture he uttered it -- feebly:

    "Sunday-school books, maybe."

    Poor Huck was too distressed to smile, but the old man laughed loud and joyously, shook
    up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying that such a laugh was
    money in a-man's pocket, because it cut down the doctor's bill like everything. Then he
    added:

    "Poor old chap, you're white and jaded -- you ain't well a bit -- no wonder you're
    a little flighty and off your balance. But you'll come out of it. Rest and sleep will
    fetch you out all right, I hope."

    Huck was irritated to think he had been such a goose and betrayed such a suspicious
    excitement, for he had dropped the idea that the parcel brought from the tavern was the
    treasure, as soon as he had heard the talk at the widow's stile. He had only thought it
    was not the treasure, however -- he had not known that it wasn't -- and so the suggestion
    of a captured bundle was too much for his self-possession. But on the whole he felt glad
    the little episode had happened, for now he knew beyond all question that that bundle was
    not THE bundle, and so his mind was at rest and exceedingly comfortable. In fact,
    everything seemed to be drifting just in the right direction, now; the treasure must be
    still in No. 2, the men would be captured and jailed that day, and he and Tom could seize
    the gold that night without any trouble or any fear of interruption.

    Just as breakfast was completed there was a knock at the door. Huck jumped for a
    hiding-place, for he had no mind to be connected even remotely with the late event. The
    Welshman admitted several ladies and gentlemen, among them the Widow Douglas, and noticed
    that groups of citizens were climbing up the hill -- to stare at the stile. So the news
    had spread. The Welshman had to tell the story of the night to the visitors. The widow's
    gratitude for her preservation was outspoken.

    "Don't say a word about it, madam. There's another that you're more beholden to
    than you are to me and my boys, maybe, but he don't allow me to tell his name. We wouldn't
    have been there but for him."

    Of course this excited a curiosity so vast that it almost belittled the main matter --
    but the Welshman allowed it to eat into the vitals of his visitors, and through them be
    transmitted to the whole town, for he refused to part with his secret. When all else had
    been learned, the widow said:

    "I went to sleep reading in bed and slept straight through all that noise. Why
    didn't you come and wake me?"

    "We judged it warn't worth while. Those fellows warn't likely to come again --
    they hadn't any tools left to work with, and what was the use of waking you up and scaring
    you to death? My three negro men stood guard at your house all the rest of the night.
    They've just come back."

    More visitors came, and the story had to be told and retold for a couple of hours more.

    There was no Sabbath-school during day-school vacation, but everybody was early at
    church. The stirring event was well canvassed. News came that not a sign of the two
    villains had been yet discovered. When the sermon was finished, Judge Thatcher's wife
    dropped alongside of Mrs. Harper as she moved down the aisle with the crowd and said:

    "Is my Becky going to sleep all day? I just expected she would be tired to
    death."

    "Your Becky?"

    "Yes," with a startled look -- "didn't she stay with you last
    night?"

    "Why, no."

    Mrs. Thatcher turned pale, and sank into a pew, just as Aunt Polly, talking briskly
    with a friend, passed by. Aunt Polly said:

    "Good-morning, Mrs. Thatcher. Good-morning, Mrs. Harper. I've got a boy that's
    turned up missing. I reckon my Tom stayed at your house last night -- one of you. And now
    he's afraid to come to church. I've got to settle with him."

    Mrs. Thatcher shook her head feebly and turned paler than ever.

    "He didn't stay with us," said Mrs. Harper, beginning to look uneasy. A
    marked anxiety came into Aunt Polly's face.

    "Joe Harper, have you seen my Tom this morning?"

    "No'm."

    "When did you see him last?"

    Joe tried to remember, but was not sure he could say. The people had stopped moving out
    of church. Whispers passed along, and a boding uneasiness took possession of every
    countenance. Children were anxiously questioned, and young teachers. They all said they
    had not noticed whether Tom and Becky were on board the ferryboat on the homeward trip; it
    was dark; no one thought of inquiring if any one was missing. One young man finally
    blurted out his fear that they were still in the cave! Mrs. Thatcher swooned away. Aunt
    Polly fell to crying and wringing her hands.

    The alarm swept from lip to lip, from group to group, from street to street, and within
    five minutes the bells were wildly clanging and the whole town was up! The Cardiff Hill
    episode sank into instant insignificance, the burglars were forgotten, horses were
    saddled, skiffs were manned, the ferryboat ordered out, and before the horror was half an
    hour old, two hundred men were pouring down highroad and river toward the cave.

    All the long afternoon the village seemed empty and dead. Many women visited Aunt Polly
    and Mrs. Thatcher and tried to comfort them. They cried with them, too, and that was still
    better than words. All the tedious night the town waited for news; but when the morning
    dawned at last, all the word that came was, "Send more candles -- and send
    food." Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also. Judge Thatcher sent
    messages of hope and encouragement from the cave, but they conveyed no real cheer.

    The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease, smeared with
    clay, and almost worn out. He found Huck still in the bed that had been provided for him,
    and delirious with fever. The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came
    and took charge of the patient. She said she would do her best by him, because, whether he
    was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord's, and nothing that was the Lord's was a
    thing to be neglected. The Welshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said:

    "You can depend on it. That's the Lord's mark. He don't leave it off. He never
    does. Puts it somewhere on every creature that comes from his hands."

    Early in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the village, but the
    strongest of the citizens continued searching. All the news that could be gained was that
    remotenesses of the cavern were being ransacked that had never been visited before; that
    every corner and crevice was going to be thoroughly searched; that wherever one wandered
    through the maze of passages, lights were to be seen flitting hither and thither in the
    distance, and shoutings and pistol-shots sent their hollow reverberations to the ear down
    the sombre aisles. In one place, far from the section usually traversed by tourists, the
    names "BECKY & TOM" had been found traced upon the rocky wall with
    candle-smoke, and near at hand a grease-soiled bit of ribbon. Mrs. Thatcher recognized the
    ribbon and cried over it. She said it was the last relic she should ever have of her
    child; and that no other memorial of her could ever be so precious, because this one
    parted latest from the living body before the awful death came. Some said that now and
    then, in the cave, a far-away speck of light would glimmer, and then a glorious shout
    would burst forth and a score of men go trooping down the echoing aisle -- and then a
    sickening disappointment always followed; the children were not there; it was only a
    searcher's light.

    Three dreadful days and nights dragged their tedious hours along, and the village sank
    into a hopeless stupor. No one had heart for anything. The accidental discovery, just
    made, that the proprietor of the Temperance Tavern kept liquor on his premises, scarcely
    fluttered the public pulse, tremendous as the fact was. In a lucid interval, Huck feebly
    led up to the subject of taverns, and finally asked -- dimly dreading the worst -- if
    anything had been discovered at the Temperance Tavern since he had been ill.

    "Yes," said the widow.

    Huck started up in bed, wild-eyed:

    "What? What was it?"

    "Liquor! -- and the place has been shut up. Lie down, child -- what a turn you did
    give me!"

    "Only tell me just one thing -- only just one -- please! Was it Tom Sawyer that
    found it?"

    The widow burst into tears. "Hush, hush, child, hush! I've told you before, you
    must not talk. You are very, very sick!"

    Then nothing but liquor had been found; there would have been a great powwow if it had
    been the gold. So the treasure was gone forever -- gone forever! But what could she be
    crying about? Curious that she should cry.

    These thoughts worked their dim way through Huck's mind, and under the weariness they
    gave him he fell asleep. The widow said to herself:

    "There -- he's asleep, poor wreck. Tom Sawyer find it! Pity but somebody could
    find Tom Sawyer! Ah, there ain't many left, now, that's got hope enough, or strength
    enough, either, to go on searching."