CHAPTER XIII
Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck withsuch a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd_got_ to find that boat now--had to have it for ourselves. So we wenta-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was,too--seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jimsaid he didn't believe he could go any farther--so scared he hadn'thardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get lefton this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struckfor the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled alongforwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for theedge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to thecross-hall door there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barelysee her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would 'a' beenaboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck hishead out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I wasgone; but he jerked it in again, and says:
"Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!" He flung a bag ofsomething into the boat, and then got in himself and set down. It wasPackard. Then Bill _he_ come out and got in. Packard says, in a lowvoice:
"All ready--shove off!"
I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Billsays:
"Hold on--'d you go through him?"
"No. Didn't you?"
"No. So he's got his share o' the cash yet."
"Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money."
"Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?"
"Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along."
So they got out and went in.
The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a halfsecond I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out withmy knife and cut the rope, and away we went!
We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardlyeven breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tipof the paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more wewas a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up,every last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.
When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lanternshow like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowedby that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning tounderstand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turnerwas.
Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was thefirst time that I begun to worry about the men--I reckon I hadn't hadtime to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even formurderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't notelling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then howwould I like it? So says I to Jim:
"The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or aboveit, in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff,and then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody togo for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hungwhen their time comes."
But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again,and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a lightshowed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river,watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time therain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering,and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and wemade for it.
It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. Weseen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I wouldgo for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang hadstole there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, andI told Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he hadgone about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned myoars and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it three or fourmore showed--up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above theshore light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by I see itwas a lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat. Iskimmed around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; andby and by I found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his headdown between his knees. I gave his shoulder two or three littleshoves, and begun to cry.
He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it wasonly me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:
"Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?"
I says:
"Pap, and mam, and sis, and--"
Then I broke down. He says:
"Oh, dang it now, _don't_ take on so; we all has to have our troubles,and this 'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?"
"They're--they're--are you the watchman of the boat?"
"Yes," he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. "I'm the captainand the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and headdeck-hand; and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't asrich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and goodto Tom, Dick, and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the wayhe does; but I've told him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade placeswith him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'mderned if _I'd_ live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothingever goin' on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top ofit. Says I--"
I broke in and says:
"They're in an awful peck of trouble, and--"
"_Who_ is?"
"Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take yourferryboat and go up there--"
"Up where? Where are they?"
"On the wreck."
"What wreck?"
"Why, there ain't but one."
"What, you don't mean the _Walter Scott?"_
"Yes."
"Good land! what are they doin' _there_, for gracious sakes?"
"Well, they didn't go there a-purpose."
"I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'emif they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did theyever git into such a scrape?"
"Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town--"
"Yes, Booth's Landing--go on."
"She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge ofthe evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferryto stay all night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her--Idisremember her name--and they lost their steering-oar, and swungaround and went a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, andsaddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman andthe horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and gotaboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down inour trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn't notice the wreck tillwe was right on it; and so _we_ saddle-baggsed; but all of us wassaved but Bill Whipple--and oh, he _was_ the best cretur!--I most wish't it had been me, I do."
"My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And _then_ whatdid you all do?"
"Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn'tmake nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get helpsomehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it,and Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here andhunt up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I made the land about amile below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people todo something, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such acurrent? There ain't no sense in it; go for the steam-ferry.' Now ifyou'll go and--"
"By Jackson, I'd _like_ to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will;but who in the dingnation's a-going to _pay_ for it? Do you reckonyour pap--"
"Why _that's_ all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, _particular_, thather uncle Hornback--"
"Great guns! is _he_ her uncle? Looky here, you break for that lightover yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about aquarter of a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart youout to Jim Hornback's, and he'll foot the
bill. And don't you foolaround any, because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll havehis niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'ma-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer."
I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I wentback and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled upshore in the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself inamong some wood-boats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see theferryboat start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruthercomfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, fornot many would 'a' done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. Ijudged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions,because rapscallions and dead-beats is the kind the widow and goodpeople takes the most interest in.
Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding alongdown! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out forher. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chancefor anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered alittle, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still. I felt a littlebit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if theycould stand it I could.
Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the riveron a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reachI laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around thewreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know heruncle Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferryboatgive it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and wenta-booming down the river.
It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; andwhen it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By thetime I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in theeast; so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk theskiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.