Tom Sawyer Abroad Page 4

  CHAPTER IV. STORM

  AND it got lonesomer and lonesomer. There was the big sky up there,empty and awful deep; and the ocean down there without a thing on it butjust the waves. All around us was a ring, where the sky and the watercome together; yes, a monstrous big ring it was, and we right in thedead center of it--plumb in the center. We was racing along like aprairie fire, but it never made any difference, we couldn't seem to gitpast that center no way. I couldn't see that we ever gained an inchon that ring. It made a body feel creepy, it was so curious andunaccountable.

  Well, everything was so awful still that we got to talking in a verylow voice, and kept on getting creepier and lonesomer and less and lesstalky, till at last the talk ran dry altogether, and we just set thereand "thunk," as Jim calls it, and never said a word the longest time.

  The professor never stirred till the sun was overhead, then he stood upand put a kind of triangle to his eye, and Tom said it was a sextantand he was taking the sun to see whereabouts the balloon was. Then heciphered a little and looked in a book, and then he begun to carry onagain. He said lots of wild things, and, among others, he said he wouldkeep up this hundred-mile gait till the middle of to-morrow afternoon,and then he'd land in London.

  We said we would be humbly thankful.

  He was turning away, but he whirled around when we said that, andgive us a long look of his blackest kind--one of the maliciousest andsuspiciousest looks I ever see. Then he says:

  "You want to leave me. Don't try to deny it."

  We didn't know what to say, so we held in and didn't say nothing at all.

  He went aft and set down, but he couldn't seem to git that thing out ofhis mind. Every now and then he would rip out something about it, andtry to make us answer him, but we dasn't.

  It got lonesomer and lonesomer right along, and it did seem to me Icouldn't stand it. It was still worse when night begun to come on. Byand by Tom pinched me and whispers:

  "Look!"

  I took a glance aft, and see the professor taking a whet out of abottle. I didn't like the looks of that. By and by he took anotherdrink, and pretty soon he begun to sing. It was dark now, and gettingblack and stormy. He went on singing, wilder and wilder, and the thunderbegun to mutter, and the wind to wheeze and moan among the ropes, andaltogether it was awful. It got so black we couldn't see him any more,and wished we couldn't hear him, but we could. Then he got still; buthe warn't still ten minutes till we got suspicious, and wished he wouldstart up his noise again, so we could tell where he was. By and bythere was a flash of lightning, and we see him start to get up, but hestaggered and fell down. We heard him scream out in the dark:

  "They don't want to go to England. All right, I'll change the course.They want to leave me. I know they do. Well, they shall--and NOW!"

  I 'most died when he said that. Then he was still again--still so long Icouldn't bear it, and it did seem to me the lightning wouldn't EVER comeagain. But at last there was a blessed flash, and there he was, on hishands and knees crawling, and not four feet from us. My, but his eyeswas terrible! He made a lunge for Tom, and says, "Overboard YOU go!" butit was already pitch-dark again, and I couldn't see whether he got himor not, and Tom didn't make a sound.

  There was another long, horrible wait; then there was a flash, and Isee Tom's head sink down outside the boat and disappear. He was on therope-ladder that dangled down in the air from the gunnel. The professorlet off a shout and jumped for him, and straight off it was pitch-darkagain, and Jim groaned out, "Po' Mars Tom, he's a goner!" and made ajump for the professor, but the professor warn't there.

  Then we heard a couple of terrible screams, and then another not soloud, and then another that was 'way below, and you could only JUST hearit; and I heard Jim say, "Po' Mars Tom!"

  Then it was awful still, and I reckon a person could 'a' counted fourthousand before the next flash come. When it come I see Jim on hisknees, with his arms on the locker and his face buried in them, and hewas crying. Before I could look over the edge it was all dark again, andI was glad, because I didn't want to see. But when the next flash come,I was watching, and down there I see somebody a-swinging in the wind onthe ladder, and it was Tom!

  "Come up!" I shouts; "come up, Tom!"

  His voice was so weak, and the wind roared so, I couldn't make out whathe said, but I thought he asked was the professor up there. I shouts:

  "No, he's down in the ocean! Come up! Can we help you?"

  Of course, all this in the dark.

  "Huck, who is you hollerin' at?"

  "I'm hollerin' at Tom."

  "Oh, Huck, how kin you act so, when you know po' Mars Tom--" Then he letoff an awful scream, and flung his head and his arms back and let offanother one, because there was a white glare just then, and he hadraised up his face just in time to see Tom's, as white as snow, riseabove the gunnel and look him right in the eye. He thought it was Tom'sghost, you see.

  Tom clumb aboard, and when Jim found it WAS him, and not his ghost, hehugged him, and called him all sorts of loving names, and carried onlike he was gone crazy, he was so glad. Says I:

  "What did you wait for, Tom? Why didn't you come up at first?"

  "I dasn't, Huck. I knowed somebody plunged down past me, but I didn'tknow who it was in the dark. It could 'a' been you, it could 'a' beenJim."

  That was the way with Tom Sawyer--always sound. He warn't coming up tillhe knowed where the professor was.

  The storm let go about this time with all its might; and it was dreadfulthe way the thunder boomed and tore, and the lightning glared out, andthe wind sung and screamed in the rigging, and the rain come down. Onesecond you couldn't see your hand before you, and the next you couldcount the threads in your coat-sleeve, and see a whole wide desert ofwaves pitching and tossing through a kind of veil of rain. A storm likethat is the loveliest thing there is, but it ain't at its best when youare up in the sky and lost, and it's wet and lonesome, and there's justbeen a death in the family.

  We set there huddled up in the bow, and talked low about the poorprofessor; and everybody was sorry for him, and sorry the world hadmade fun of him and treated him so harsh, when he was doing the best hecould, and hadn't a friend nor nobody to encourage him and keep him frombrooding his mind away and going deranged. There was plenty of clothesand blankets and everything at the other end, but we thought we'd ruthertake the rain than go meddling back there.