hands and knees crawling, and not four feet from us. My, but his eyes
was terrible! He made a lunge for Tom, and says, "Overboard YOU go!" but
it was already pitch-dark again, and I couldn't see whether he got him
or not, and Tom didn't make a sound.

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

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

Then it was awful still, and I reckon a person could 'a' counted four
thousand before the next flash come. When it come I see Jim on his
knees, with his arms on the locker and his face buried in them, and he
was crying. Before I could look over the edge it was all dark again, and
I 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 on
the 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 what
he 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 let
off an awful scream, and flung his head and his arms back and let off
another one, because there was a white glare just then, and he had
raised up his face just in time to see Tom's, as white as snow, rise
above the gunnel and look him right in the eye. He thought it was Tom's
ghost, you see.

Tom clumb aboard, and when Jim found it WAS him, and not his ghost, he
hugged him, and called him all sorts of loving names, and carried on
like 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't
know who it was in the dark. It could 'a' been you, it could 'a' been
Jim."

That was the way with Tom Sawyer--always sound. H