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. He warn't coming up till
he knowed where the professor was.
The storm let go about this time with all its might; and it was dreadful
the way the thunder boomed and tore, and the lightning glared out, and
the wind sung and screamed in the rigging, and the rain come down. One
second you couldn't see your hand before you, and the next you could
count the threads in your coat-sleeve, and see a whole wide desert of
waves pitching and tossing through a kind of veil of rain. A storm like
that is the loveliest thing there is, but it ain't at its best when you
are up in the sky and lost, and it's wet and lonesome, and there's just
been a death in the family.
We set there huddled up in the bow, and talked low about the poor
professor; and everybody was sorry for him, and sorry the world had made
fun of him and treated him so harsh, when he was doing the best he could,
and hadn't a friend nor nobody to encourage him and keep him from
brooding his mind away and going deranged. There was plenty of clothes
and blankets and everything at the other end, but we thought we'd ruther
take the rain than go meddling back there.
CHAPTER V. LAND
WE tried to make some plans, but we couldn't come to no agreement. Me and
Jim was
|