ked de door-pos', en de angel o' de
Lord come by in de darkness o' de night en slew de fust-born in all de
lan' o' Egypt. Ole Jim ain't worthy to see dis day!"

And then he just broke down and cried, he was so thankful. So between him
and Tom there was talk enough, Jim being excited because the land was so
full of history--Joseph and his brethren, Moses in the bulrushers, Jacob
coming down into Egypt to buy corn, the silver cup in the sack, and all
them interesting things; and Tom just as excited too, because the land
was so full of history that was in HIS line, about Noureddin, and
Bedreddin, and such like monstrous giants, that made Jim's wool rise, and
a raft of other Arabian Nights folks, which the half of them never done
the things they let on they done, I don't believe.

Then we struck a disappointment, for one of them early morning fogs
started up, and it warn't no use to sail over the top of it, because we
would go by Egypt, sure, so we judged it was best to set her by compass
straight for the place where the pyramids was gitting blurred and blotted
out, and then drop low and skin along pretty close to the ground and keep
a sharp lookout. Tom took the hellum, I stood by to let go the anchor,
and Jim he straddled the bow to dig through the fog with his eyes and
watch out for danger ahead. We went along a steady gait, but not very
fast, and the fog got solider and solider, so solid that Jim looked dim
and ragged and smoky through it. It was awful still, and we talked low
and was anxious. Now and then Jim would say:

"Highst her a p'int, Mars Tom, highst her!" and up she would skip, a foot
or two, and we would slide right over a flat-roofed mud cabin, with
people that had been asleep on it just beginning to turn out and gap and
stretch; and once when a feller was clear up on his hind legs so he could
gap and stretch better, we took him a blip in the back and knocked him
off. By and by, after about an hour, and everything dead still and we
a-straining our ears for sounds and holding our breath, the fog thinned a
little, very sudden, and Jim sung out in an awful scare:

"Oh, for de lan's sake, set her back, Mars Tom, here's de biggest giant
outen de 'Rabian Nights a-comin' for us!" and he went over backwards in
the boat.

Tom slammed on the back-action, and as we slowed to a standstill a man's
face as big as our house at home looked in over the gunnel, same as a
house looks out of its windows, and I laid down and