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“Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it ain’t no worse; for luck’s against us, and it never rains but it pours, and when I see that truck I thought we’d lost you, for I knowed by the color and all it was just like your brains would be if—Dear, dear, whyd’nt you tell me that was what you’d be... |
I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one, and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn’t hardly get my words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must jump for it now, and not a minute to lose—the house full of men, yonder, with guns! |
His eyes just blazed; and he says: |
“No!—is that so? Ain’t it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till—” |
“Hurry! hurry!” I says. “Where’s Jim?” |
“Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him. He’s dressed, and everything’s ready. Now we’ll slide out and give the sheep-signal.” |
But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man say: |
“I told you we’d be too soon; they haven’t come—the door is locked. Here, I’ll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for ’em in the dark and kill ’em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece, and listen if you can hear ’em coming.” |
So in they come, but couldn’t see us in the dark, and most trod on us whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all right, and out through the hole, swift but soft—Jim first, me next, and Tom last, which was according to Tom’s orders. Now we was in the lean-to, and heard trampings close by outside. ... |
“Who’s that? Answer, or I’ll shoot!” |
But we didn’t answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there was a rush, and a bang, bang, bang! and the bullets fairly whizzed around us! We heard them sing out: |
“Here they are! They’ve broke for the river! After ’em, boys, and turn loose the dogs!” |
So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore boots and yelled, but we didn’t wear no boots and didn’t yell. We was in the path to the mill; and when they got pretty close on to us we dodged into the bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind them. They’d had all the dogs shut up, so they ... |
“Now, old Jim, you’re a free man again, and I bet you won’t ever be a slave no more.” |
“En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It ’uz planned beautiful, en it ’uz done beautiful; en dey ain’t nobody kin git up a plan dat’s mo’ mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz.” |
We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg. |
When me and Jim heard that we didn’t feel so brash as what we did before. It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him in the wigwam and tore up one of the duke’s shirts for to bandage him, but he says: |
“Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don’t stop now; don’t fool around here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!—’deed we did. I wish we’d a had the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn’t a been no ‘Son of Saint Louis, ascend to heaven!’ wrote down in ... |
But me and Jim was consulting—and thinking. And after we’d thought a minute, I says: |
“Say it, Jim.” |
So he says: |
“Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz him dat ’uz bein’ sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, ‘Go on en save me, nemmine ’bout a doctor f’r to save dis one?’ Is dat like Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You bet he wouldn’t! Well, den, is Jim gywne to say it? No, sah—I doan’ bud... |
I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did say—so it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn’t budge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose himself; but we wouldn’t let him. Then he gi... |
So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says: |
“Well, then, if you’re bound to go, I’ll tell you the way to do when you get to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the back alleys and everywheres in the dark, a... |
So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he see the doctor coming till he was gone again. |
CHAPTER XLI. |
The doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I got him up. I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and shot him in the leg, and we wanted... |
“Who is your folks?” he says. |
“The Phelpses, down yonder.” |
“Oh,” he says. And after a minute, he says: |
“How’d you say he got shot?” |
“He had a dream,” I says, “and it shot him.” |
“Singular dream,” he says. |
So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started. But when he sees the canoe he didn’t like the look of her—said she was big enough for one, but didn’t look pretty safe for two. I says: |
“Oh, you needn’t be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy enough.” |
“What three?” |
“Why, me and Sid, and—and—and the guns; that’s what I mean.” |
“Oh,” he says. |
But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head, and said he reckoned he’d look around for a bigger one. But they was all locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better go down home and get them ready for the sur... |
I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos’n he can’t fix that leg just in three shakes of a sheep’s tail, as the saying is? spos’n it takes him three or four days? What are we going to do?—lay around there till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir; I know what I’ll do. I’ll wait, and when he comes back if... |
So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next time I waked up the sun was away up over my head! I shot out and went for the doctor’s house, but they told me he’d gone away in the night some time or other, and warn’t back yet. Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad for Tom, and I’ll dig out for the isl... |
“Why, Tom! Where you been all this time, you rascal?” |
“I hain’t been nowheres,” I says, “only just hunting for the runaway nigger—me and Sid.” |
“Why, where ever did you go?” he says. “Your aunt’s been mighty uneasy.” |
“She needn’t,” I says, “because we was all right. We followed the men and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them; but we thought we heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over, but couldn’t find nothing of them; so we cruised along up-shore till we got kind of tired and b... |
So then we went to the post-office to get “Sid”; but just as I suspicioned, he warn’t there; so the old man he got a letter out of the office, and we waited a while longer, but Sid didn’t come; so the old man said, come along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it, when he got done fooling around—but we would ride. I could... |
When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them lickings of hern that don’t amount to shucks, and said she’d serve Sid the same when he come. |
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