by Mark Twain
CHAPTER XIII.
WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with sucha gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd GOT tofind that boat now--had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quakingand shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too--seemed aweek before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn'tbelieve he could go any further--so scared he hadn't hardly any strengthleft, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we arein a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of thetexas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight,hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was inthe water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there was theskiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever sothankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just thenthe door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a coupleof foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again, andsays:
"Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!"
He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself andset down. It was Packard. Then Bill HE come out and got in. Packardsays, in a low voice:
"All ready--shove off!"
I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:
"Hold on--'d you go through him?"
"No. Didn't you?"
"No. So he's got his share o' the cash yet."
"Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money."
"Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?"
"Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along."
So they got out and went in.
The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a halfsecond I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with myknife and cut the rope, and away we went!
We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly evenbreathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of thepaddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was ahundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every lastsign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.
When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lanternshow like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed bythat that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning tounderstand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was.
Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was thefirst time that I begun to worry about the men--I reckon I hadn't hadtime to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even formurderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no tellingbut I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I likeit? So says I to Jim:
"The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above it,in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and thenI'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for thatgang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when theirtime comes."
But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, andthis time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a lightshowed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river,watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time therain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering,and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and wemade for it.
It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. Weseen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would gofor it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stolethere on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I toldJim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had goneabout two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oarsand shoved for the light. As I got down towards it three or four moreshowed--up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shorelight, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by I see it was alantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat. I skimmedaround for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by and byI found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his head down between hisknees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.
He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was onlyme he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:
"Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?"
I says:
"Pap, and mam, and sis, and--"
Then I broke down. He says:
"Oh, dang it now, DON'T take on so; we all has to have our troubles, andthis 'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?"
"They're--they're--are you the watchman of the boat?"
"Yes," he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. "I'm the captain andthe owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck-hand; andsometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich as old JimHornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good to Tom, Dick, andHarry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but I've toldhim a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with him; for, says I, asailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if I'D live two mile outo' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' on, not for all hisspondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I--"
I broke in and says:
"They're in an awful peck of trouble, and--"
"WHO is?"
"Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take yourferryboat and go up there--"
"Up where? Where are they?"
"On the wreck."
"What wreck?"
"Why, there ain't but one."
"What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?"
"Yes."
"Good land! what are they doin' THERE, for gracious sakes?"
"Well, they didn't go there a-purpose."
"I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'emif they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they evergit into such a scrape?"
"Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town--"
"Yes, Booth's Landing--go on."
"She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of theevening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry to stayall night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I disrememberher name--and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and wenta-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on thewreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost,but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about anhour after dark we come along down in our trading-scow, and it was sodark we didn't notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so WEsaddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple--and oh, he WASthe best cretur !--I most wish 't it had been me, I do."
"My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And THEN what didyou all do?"
"Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn't makenobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get helpsomehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, andMiss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and huntup her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I made the land about a milebelow, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to dosomething, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such a current?There ain't no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.' Now if you'll goand--"
"By Jackson, I'd LIKE to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will; but whoin the dingnation's a-going' to PAY for it? Do you reckon your pap--"
"Why THAT'S all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, PARTICULAR, that heruncle Hornback--"
"Great guns! is HE her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light overyonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter ofa mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em
to dart you out to JimHornback's, and he'll foot the bill. And don't you fool around any,because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll have his niece allsafe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'm a-going uparound the corner here to roust out my engineer."
I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went backand got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in theeasy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among somewoodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferryboat start.But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts oftaking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. Iwished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me forhelping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is thekind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.
Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding alongdown! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out forher. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chancefor anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered alittle, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still. I felt a little bitheavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they couldstand it I could.
Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the river ona long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach I laidon my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck forMiss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncleHornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferryboat give it upand went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming downthe river.
It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and whenit did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I gotthere the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so westruck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned inand slept like dead people.