"Well, to cut the tale short, we never left there till plumb noon; and long before that I was hid in this stateroom; for before breakfast I see a man coming, away off, that had a gait like Hal Clayton"s, and it made me just sick. I says to myself, if he finds out I"m aboard this boat, he"s got me like a rat in a trap. All he"s got to do is to have me watched, and wait--wait till I slip ash.o.r.e, thinking he is a thousand miles away, then slip after me and dog me to a good place and make me give up the di"monds, and then he"ll--oh, I know what he"ll do! Ain"t it awful--awful! And now to think the OTHER one"s aboard, too! Oh, ain"t it hard luck, boys--ain"t it hard! But you"ll help save me, WON"T you?--oh, boys, be good to a poor devil that"s being hunted to death, and save me--I"ll worship the very ground you walk on!"
We turned in and soothed him down and told him we would plan for him and help him, and he needn"t be so afeard; and so by and by he got to feeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and held up his di"monds this way and that, admiring them and loving them; and when the light struck into them they WAS beautiful, sure; why, they seemed to kind of bust, and snap fire out all around. But all the same I judged he was a fool. If I had been him I would a handed the di"monds to them pals and got them to go ash.o.r.e and leave me alone. But he was made different. He said it was a whole fortune and he couldn"t bear the idea.
Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and laid a good while, once in the night; but it wasn"t dark enough, and he was afeard to skip. But the third time we had to fix it there was a better chance. We laid up at a country woodyard about forty mile above Uncle Silas"s place a little after one at night, and it was thickening up and going to storm. So Jake he laid for a chance to slide. We begun to take in wood. Pretty soon the rain come a-drenching down, and the wind blowed hard. Of course every boat-hand fixed a gunny sack and put it on like a bonnet, the way they do when they are toting wood, and we got one for Jake, and he slipped down aft with his hand-bag and come tramping forrard just like the rest, and walked ash.o.r.e with them, and when we see him pa.s.s out of the light of the torch-basket and get swallowed up in the dark, we got our breath again and just felt grateful and splendid. But it wasn"t for long.
Somebody told, I reckon; for in about eight or ten minutes them two pals come tearing forrard as tight as they could jump and darted ash.o.r.e and was gone. We waited plumb till dawn for them to come back, and kept hoping they would, but they never did. We was awful sorry and low-spirited. All the hope we had was that Jake had got such a start that they couldn"t get on his track, and he would get to his brother"s and hide there and be safe.
He was going to take the river road, and told us to find out if Brace and Jubiter was to home and no strangers there, and then slip out about sundown and tell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of sycamores right back of Tom"s uncle Silas"s tobacker field on the river road, a lonesome place.
We set and talked a long time about his chances, and Tom said he was all right if the pals struck up the river instead of down, but it wasn"t likely, because maybe they knowed where he was from; more likely they would go right, and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and kill him when it come dark, and take the boots. So we was pretty sorrowful.
CHAPTER V. A TRAGEDY IN THE WOODS
WE didn"t get done tinkering the machinery till away late in the afternoon, and so it was so close to sundown when we got home that we never stopped on our road, but made a break for the sycamores as tight as we could go, to tell Jake what the delay was, and have him wait till we could go to Brace"s and find out how things was there. It was getting pretty dim by the time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating and panting with that long run, and see the sycamores thirty yards ahead of us; and just then we see a couple of men run into the bunch and heard two or three terrible screams for help. "Poor Jake is killed, sure,"
we says. We was scared through and through, and broke for the tobacker field and hid there, trembling so our clothes would hardly stay on; and just as we skipped in there, a couple of men went tearing by, and into the bunch they went, and in a second out jumps four men and took out up the road as tight as they could go, two chasing two.
We laid down, kind of weak and sick, and listened for more sounds, but didn"t hear none for a good while but just our hearts. We was thinking of that awful thing laying yonder in the sycamores, and it seemed like being that close to a ghost, and it give me the cold shudders. The moon come a-swelling up out of the ground, now, powerful big and round and bright, behind a comb of trees, like a face looking through prison bars, and the black shadders and white places begun to creep around, and it was miserable quiet and still and night-breezy and graveyardy and scary.
All of a sudden Tom whispers:
"Look!--what"s that?"
"Don"t!" I says. "Don"t take a person by surprise that way. I"m "most ready to die, anyway, without you doing that."
"Look, I tell you. It"s something coming out of the sycamores."
"Don"t, Tom!"
"It"s terrible tall!"
"Oh, lordy-lordy! let"s--"
"Keep still--it"s a-coming this way."
He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I had to look. I couldn"t help it. So now we was both on our knees with our chins on a fence rail and gazing--yes, and gasping too. It was coming down the road--coming in the shadder of the trees, and you couldn"t see it good; not till it was pretty close to us; then it stepped into a bright splotch of moonlight and we sunk right down in our tracks--it was Jake Dunlap"s ghost! That was what we said to ourselves.
We couldn"t stir for a minute or two; then it was gone. We talked about it in low voices. Tom says:
"They"re mostly dim and smoky, or like they"re made out of fog, but this one wasn"t."
"No," I says; "I seen the goggles and the whiskers perfectly plain."
"Yes, and the very colors in them loud countrified Sunday clothes--plaid breeches, green and black--"
"Cotton velvet westcot, fire-red and yaller squares--"
"Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs and one of them hanging unbottoned--"
"Yes, and that hat--"
"What a hat for a ghost to wear!"
You see it was the first season anybody wore that kind--a black stiff-brim stove-pipe, very high, and not smooth, with a round top--just like a sugar-loaf.
"Did you notice if its hair was the same, Huck?"
"No--seems to me I did, then again it seems to me I didn"t."
"I didn"t either; but it had its bag along, I noticed that."
"So did I. How can there be a ghost-bag, Tom?"
"Sho! I wouldn"t be as ignorant as that if I was you, Huck Finn.
Whatever a ghost has, turns to ghost-stuff. They"ve got to have their things, like anybody else. You see, yourself, that its clothes was turned to ghost-stuff. Well, then, what"s to hender its bag from turning, too? Of course it done it."
That was reasonable. I couldn"t find no fault with it. Bill Withers and his brother Jack come along by, talking, and Jack says:
"What do you reckon he was toting?"
"I dunno; but it was pretty heavy."
"Yes, all he could lug. n.i.g.g.e.r stealing corn from old Parson Silas, I judged."
"So did I. And so I allowed I wouldn"t let on to see him."
"That"s me, too."
Then they both laughed, and went on out of hearing. It showed how unpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be now. They wouldn"t "a" let a n.i.g.g.e.r steal anybody else"s corn and never done anything to him.
We heard some more voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder, and sometimes a cackle of a laugh. It was Lem Beebe and Jim Lane. Jim Lane says:
"Who?--Jubiter Dunlap?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I don"t know. I reckon so. I seen him spading up some ground along about an hour ago, just before sundown--him and the parson. Said he guessed he wouldn"t go to-night, but we could have his dog if we wanted him."
"Too tired, I reckon."
"Yes--works so hard!"
"Oh, you bet!"
They cackled at that, and went on by. Tom said we better jump out and tag along after them, because they was going our way and it wouldn"t be comfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we done it, and got home all right.
That night was the second of September--a Sat.u.r.day. I sha"n"t ever forget it. You"ll see why, pretty soon.