islands looking dusty through the rain,
and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum!
bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumbling
and grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash and
another sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes,
but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble
about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant
that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or
that and miss them.
I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time,
so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was always
mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam, but the king
and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show for
me; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, and
the waves warn't running so high now. About two they come up again,
though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind, because he
reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm; but he was mistaken
about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular ripper
and washed me overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing. He was the
easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.
I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by the
storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that showed I
rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the day.
The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him and
the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. Then they got tired
of it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as they called it.
The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot of little
printed bills and read them out loud. One bill said, "The celebrated Dr.
Armand de Montalban, of Paris," would "lecture on the Science of
Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank day of blank, at ten
cents admission, and "furnish charts of character at twenty-five cents
apiece." The duke said that was HIM. In another bill he was the
"world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury
Lane, London." In other bills he had a lot of other names and done other
wonderful things, like finding water and gold with a "divining-rod,"
"dissipating witch spells," and so on. By and by he says:
"Bu
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