by Mark Twain
“We’ll do it!” they all shouted; “and if we don’t find one or the other of these marks, we’ll lynch the whole gang!”
I was scared now, I tell you, but there warn’t no getting away. They gripped us all and marched us right along, straight for the graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the whole town at our heels, and it was only nine or ten at night.
Well, we swarmed along down the river road, carrying on like wildcats, and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the lightning began to wink and flutter, and the wind to shiver amongst the trees. This was the most trouble I was ever in, and I was kinder stunned; everything was going too different than what I allowed for, and there was nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden death but them there tattoo-marks.
I couldn’t bear to think about it. It got darker and darker and it was a beautiful time to give the whole crowd the slip, but the big husky had me by the wrist, and the way he was dragging me along, I had to run to keep up.
When they got to the graveyard, they poured into it like some mad parade. And when they found the grave they found they had about a hundred times more shovels than what they needed, but only one or two lanterns, and no sharp knife. They sent a few fellas to the nearby houses to see what they could borrow.
So they dug and they dug, and it got awful dark and the rain started, and the wind picked up a bit and the lightning came brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed, and one minute you could see everything and every face in that big crowd, and the shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the next second the dark wiped it all out and you couldn’t see nothing at all.
At least they got at the coffin and prepared to pry off the lid, but the doctor warned everyone close that the dead man had been bound and swaddled, but not decapitated, so they might see some movement. Then there was such crowding and shouldering and shoving, to move up and get a sight, you never seen. The doctor himself finally unscrews the lid, and there’s two lanterns right at the head of the coffin. Then the coffin lid slides off and right then the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare, and somebody sings out:
“By the living jingo, he’s got the bag of gold!”
Peter Wilks had worked himself out of his bindings while under the ground, and now clutched the bag to his chest. He looked deader than he had a few days earlier, and was more agitated than before. One of his hands waved around in the air like he was trying to keep the people away from him, but he always kept the other hand on the bag. He hadn’t worked his legs loose, so he warn’t going to leave his coffin, but he warn’t having anyone else in, neither. The doctor grabbed one of his hands, but was presently shoved back into the crowd. Another man moved forward to snatch that bag of gold, but the dead man raked him across the face and let out a snarl, and the man let out a scream and fell back into the crowd. There was a pause when nobody seemed sure of what to do next when the duke pushed himself forward and says:
“A dozen of you fools all agape and you’re no match for this trussed-up goose!”
It were a surprise to hear him talk, for several reasons – mostly because that was the end to the whole deception as to who was the real set of brothers; but I guessed the duke was beyond caring. He grabbed at the bag of gold and tried to pull it away from the dead man, but the dead man wouldn’t have it. He let out a wet, high-pitched scream and grabbed it back again, flailing away with his free hand. Then the duke pounced forward, almost on top of the coffin, and I think it dawned on everybody at that second what all they’d been missing. The dead man was struggling with the duke over the bag of gold and by and by, the man in the coffin grabbed one of the duke’s hands and pulled it to his face, biting down hard. It didn’t bother the duke at all. You could hear bones snap and muscles crunch, and it was no more to the duke than a mosquito bite. The duke snarled and let go of the bag for a second and began to rain blows on the dead man’s face, again and again and again, until it was all broke open and falling apart. I looked briefly at the king and his whole face was pale and blank, like he hadn’t noticed a few things either.
Then the bag of gold came loose from both of ‘em, and it flew into the air, and everybody surged forward to deal with the situation, or at least to have a look, and I used the opportunity to break free from the husky and fall away from the scene. I lit out the way we came, and I had the road all to myself except the solid dark, and the now-and-then lighting flashes and the rain hissing in the trees; and as sure as you are born, I did clip along!
When I struck the town, there warn’t nobody out, so I never bothered to go down the back streets but humped it right through the middle of town. I ran past Miss Mary Jane’s window, and I felt sorry and disappointed that I’d never see her again; but the next second her house was behind me in the dark and I couldn’t think of her no more then.
The second I was far enough above the town, I began to look for a boat to borrow, and I caught me a canoe that warn’t tethered by nothing but a rope. I didn’t lose no time but paddled to the middle of the river where the current was strongest. When at last I struck the raft I was so fagged I could ‘a’ just laid down to blow and gasp if I could ‘a’. But I didn’t. As I came aboard, I sang out:
“Jim! Jim! Get out here! Come set her loose! Glory be, we’re finally rid of them!”
Jim came out of the wigwam and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he was so full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my heart shot into my mouth and I pitched backwards off the raft. I forgot he was old King Lear and a drownded Zum in a white beard, and it most scared the livers out of me. But Jim fished me out, and began to hug me, he was so glad I was back and we was shut of the king and the duke. But I says:
“Not now, Jim! We’ll have it for breakfast! Cut loose and let her slide.”
So in a second or two away we slid down the river, and it was good to be free again and on the big river, and nobody to bother us. We floated down for only a little bit, but after a time I noticed a noise I knowed mighty well. I held my breath and listened, and sure enough, when the next flash of lightning busted out, here they come! Two men, laying on their oars and making their skiff hum! It was the king and the duke.
So I wilted down next to the planks then, and gave up. It was all I could do to keep from crying, but I was well beyond that. It might ‘a’ made sense for me to try and slow the raft down, as there was no way we could out-run ‘em, but I didn’t have it in me. It seemed like all the good things in the world were spinning away from me, and all the bad and the evil ready to descend.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
They are Back in Our Lives
When they got aboard the raft, the king went for me, and shook me by the collar, and says:
“Tryin’ to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company, hey?”
I says:
“No, your majesty, we warn’t – please don’t, your majesty!”
The king was just beside himself in anger, but the duke didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He was looking through the supplies to find a sewing needle or a fishhook to put his ruined hand back together, and even that didn’t seem particularly urgent. He muttered: “Toss them off the raft, if that’s what you’re on about,” and the king slows and swallers his anger.
“Honest,” says I, “I’ll tell you everything just as it happened, your majesty. The man who had a-holt of me kept saying he had a son about as big as me that died last year, and that it was his only son, and they never really had a proper send-off, as they burnt his body on a pyre out on a low island in the river, and he did it just as soon as he died, because he thought the Zum would ruin the memory of his son forever. So he said he was sorry to see a boy like me in such a dangerous fix; and when they all got took by surprise by the dead man not wanting to give up his gold and everyone made a rush for the coffin, he let a-go of me and whispers ‘Run for it, or they’ll hang you, sure.’ So I lit out. It wouldn’t do for me to stay; I couldn’t do nothing, and I d
idn’t want to get hung if I could get away. So I never stopped running till I found a canoe, and I took it, and when I got here I told Jim to hurry and get us downriver. I said I was afeared you and the duke warn’t alive anymore, and I was awful sorry – but I was awful glad when I seen you coming.”
Jim said it were so, and the king told him to shut up, and said, “Oh yes, mighty likely! Mighty likely!” and shook me again. But the duke stops putting his hand back together a moment and mutters:
“Either pitch him over the side or let him go, you old fool! Would you ‘a’ done any different? Did you ask around for the boy when you got loose? I don’t seem to remember this.”
So the king let go of me, and began to cuss the whole town, and everyone in it; but the duke he interrupts him and says:
“You better give yourself a good cussin’ too, for you’re the one entitled to it most. You ain’t done a thing right from the start, except coming up with that imaginary tattoo hokum. That was bright – down-right bully. If it hadn’t ‘a’ been for that, they’d ‘a’ tried to jail us, and I wouldn’t ‘a’ had to show myself – if you get my drift.” And his face went from blank to horrible smile and back again.
But right away, the king comes back and he says to me:
“Quick, then, and tell us what your idea was, or I’ll shake the insides out of you!”
The duke shakes his head and chuckles in a low voice, and I ain’t sure if he plans on goin’ off on me, or the king. He pulls out some loose, broken bone fragment from his hand and flings it overboard. Then he continues sewing his hand back together.
The duke says:
“Own up, first, that you hid that money there, and I won’t kill you, eh, king? Perhaps I should anyway – your antics make you tedious. Your fear is pathetic.”
“I never done it, duke! And that’s me being honest. I won’t say I didn’t think about it, because I did; but you – I mean someone else – got there ahead of me.”
“Lies!” the duke spat out. “You done it, and you got to say so, or – “ He grabbed the king around the neck by his bad hand, and now it seemed to work good as new, even though it didn’t look it. The king began to gurgle, and begins to turn a little purple, and then he gasps out:
“Enough! – I own up! If it’s so important to you, fine, I took it!”
The duke let go of the king’s throat and stood looking down on him. He says:
“If you ever deny it again, I’ll strangle you. I’ll bring you back, too, and have you dance around like a little hollowed-out puppet without no strings. I think it would do you a world of good – if for no other reason, I’d tend to trust you more. You ought to be ashamed of yourself blaming it on the servants. It makes me feel a fool that I ever got taken in by your rubbish. I’m much clearer-headed now. You won’t trick me again.”
“What do you mean?” says the king.
Then the duke’s smile falls away completely, and what’s left is nothing pleasant. “Save yer wide-eyed innocence for the boy, or anyone who’ll buy it. I’m done with that, now and forever more. If I wanted out of that crowd, do you reckon it would have been that much of a chore? It’s not like I was feeling over-matched. I was out to retrieve the gold, you fool! So do me the courtesy of plain-speaking in the future. Otherwise, I won’t abide you.”
The king bristles up as much as he thinks he is able, and says:
“Let me say this in the most respectful way I can - you stole the money, didn’t you, and just made a show when we laid it on the servants?”
“You still take me for a fool, and really, it won’t do – I know who hid the money in that coffin.”
“Yes sir!” says the king. “I know you do, because you done it yourself!”
So the duke went for him again, knocking him back and putting his hands on the king’s throat. The king sings out: “All right! Take your hands off! – leggo my throat – I take it all back! I won’t dispute it no more!” And he begins to sob.
“Dry up! I don’t want to hear no more out of you!” says the duke. “And now you see what your plan got by it - genius!”
So the king slinked back into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, and before long the duke was in there with him, making sure the king stayed properly terrorized. Then they quieted down, the king passed out from the whiskey, the duke asleep or whatever else it was he did. It was then Jim and I finally got to relax a bit and put our feet over the side to cool off, and I told him everything.
Chapter Thirty
You Can’t Pray a Lie
We dasn’t stop at any town for days and days, but kept right along the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty long ways from home. The birds was different and their calls was different, and the fish we caught and ate for breakfast seemed different. Even the smell in the air was different, and we floated by trees perched out over the river with a gray moss flowing down from them, hanging off the branches like long gray beards. It was the first time I ever seen it growing, and it made the woods seem solemn and dismal. Then we started seeing big, dark trees where the roots was high up out of the water, like spiders tiptoe’n through the water, and there warn’t no such thing as this back home.
So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they began to work the villages. The king was more correct around the duke now, and was more or less always in fear around him. And the duke never paid much heed now to anything dangerous, and seemed to delight in his present circumstances. But I guess his miserable old habits was hard ones to kill, and it seemed he was content working the same angles. As long as he didn’t start going rank and having chunks of meat fall off him, it appeared he’d last a nice long time, and aside from his wounded, useless hand, the rest of him stayed remarkably whole.
First they went into a town and done a lecture on temperance, but they didn’t make enough money for the king to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a dancing school; but they didn’t know how to dance no more than a kangaroo does; so the first prance they made, the general public jumped in and pranced them right out of there. Another time they tried the patent medicine business, but they came into town on the heels of another flim-flam man who had just narrowly escaped, so they figured none of that. They king had an idea for selling a pain-killer medicine, wherein the duke would be invited onstage and take a belt, and the king would stick him with pins and pinch him, and burn him with a lamp, and of course nothing would happen. It might ‘a’ worked, but they argued about it so much that it came to nothing. Also, there were a powerful lot of Zum stories floating about, and the king especially didn’t want to call this kind of attention to themselves. We even floated by areas where there’d be signs on the river, painted in big letters: ZUM-FREE ZONE. TAKE HEED. The signs didn’t make a lot of sense, because it warn’t like a Zum would steer clear of an area because there was a sign posted; but the impression we got was that people had had it up to their eyeballs with all the misery and misfortune the Zum laid at their feet, and this was their way of telling other people. The duke directed horrible comments to whoever put up these signs, but we floated right on by and did nothing.
They tackled missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little bit of everything; but they couldn’t seem to have no luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, hours at a time, dreadful blue and desperate.
At last they took a change and began to put their heads together in the wigwam and talk low, and Jim and I got most uneasy. We didn’t like the look of it, and come to the idea that they are about to go on a different career path, breaking into people’s houses, or stores, or kidnapping, or going into the counterfeit money business, or something worse – of which there’s only one or two things. So we made an agreement that we wouldn’t have nothing to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the shake and clear out, leaving them behind to fend
for themselves. Well, early one morning, we hid the raft about two miles below a little shabby village named Bealsville, and the king went ashore and told us to stay hid while he went into town and seen what’s up.
Says I to myself – he’s gonn’a walk around and take note of all the open windows, then come back late in the afternoon when everything’s quiet, and sneak in and rob it; and if he’s the least successful at it, he and the duke will have a whole new line.
Lastly, the king says if he warn’t back by midday, the duke and I would know it was all right, and we was to come along.
So we stayed where we was and did nothing. The duke kept his eye on us and found fault with every little thing, and we couldn’t seem to do nothing right. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was glad when midday came and there was no king; we could use a change, anyway – and maybe a chance for me and Jim to skip out on top of it. So me and the duke went to the village and hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the back room of a little tavern, so tight he couldn’t walk. The duke picked him up like it was no problem at all, and called him an old fool, and the king began to sass back as cordial as he was able; and the moment they was at it, I lit out the door and spun down the river road like a deer, for I see this was our chance. I get down to the raft all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sang out:
“Set her loose, Jim; we’re all right now!”
But there warn’t no answer, and nobody came out of the wigwam. Jim was gone! I sent out a shout, and run this way and that in the woods, but it warn’t no use – he was gone. Then I sat down and cried; I couldn’t help it. But I couldn’t sit still long. Pretty soon I went out along the road and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he’d seen a strange black man dressed so-and-so, with white hair and whiskers, and he says: