CHAPTER XII. JIM STANDING SIEGE
THE next few meals was pretty sandy, but that don't make no differencewhen you are hungry; and when you ain't it ain't no satisfaction to eat,anyway, and so a little grit in the meat ain't no particular drawback,as far as I can see.
Then we struck the east end of the Desert at last, sailing on anortheast course. Away off on the edge of the sand, in a soft pinkylight, we see three little sharp roofs like tents, and Tom says:
"It's the pyramids of Egypt."
It made my heart fairly jump. You see, I had seen a many and a many apicture of them, and heard tell about them a hundred times, and yet tocome on them all of a sudden, that way, and find they was REAL, 'steadof imaginations, 'most knocked the breath out of me with surprise. It'sa curious thing, that the more you hear about a grand and big and bullything or person, the more it kind of dreamies out, as you may say, andgets to be a big dim wavery figger made out of moonshine and nothingsolid to it. It's just so with George Washington, and the same with thempyramids.
And moreover, besides, the thing they always said about them seemed tome to be stretchers. There was a feller come to the Sunday-school once,and had a picture of them, and made a speech, and said the biggestpyramid covered thirteen acres, and was most five hundred foot high,just a steep mountain, all built out of hunks of stone as big as abureau, and laid up in perfectly regular layers, like stair-steps.Thirteen acres, you see, for just one building; it's a farm. If ithadn't been in Sunday-school, I would 'a' judged it was a lie; andoutside I was certain of it. And he said there was a hole in thepyramid, and you could go in there with candles, and go ever so far upa long slanting tunnel, and come to a large room in the stomach of thatstone mountain, and there you would find a big stone chest with a kingin it, four thousand years old. I said to myself, then, if that ain'ta lie I will eat that king if they will fetch him, for even Methusalemwarn't that old, and nobody claims it.
As we come a little nearer we see the yaller sand come to an end ina long straight edge like a blanket, and on to it was joined, edgeto edge, a wide country of bright green, with a snaky stripe crookingthrough it, and Tom said it was the Nile. It made my heart jump again,for the Nile was another thing that wasn't real to me. Now I can tellyou one thing which is dead certain: if you will fool along over threethousand miles of yaller sand, all glimmering with heat so that it makesyour eyes water to look at it, and you've been a considerable part ofa week doing it, the green country will look so like home and heaven toyou that it will make your eyes water AGAIN.
It was just so with me, and the same with Jim.
And when Jim got so he could believe it WAS the land of Egypt he waslooking at, he wouldn't enter it standing up, but got down on his kneesand took off his hat, because he said it wasn't fitten' for a humblepoor nigger to come any other way where such men had been as Moses andJoseph and Pharaoh and the other prophets. He was a Presbyterian, andhad a most deep respect for Moses which was a Presbyterian, too, hesaid. He was all stirred up, and says:
"Hit's de lan' of Egypt, de lan' of Egypt, en I's 'lowed to look atit wid my own eyes! En dah's de river dat was turn' to blood, en I'slooking at de very same groun' whah de plagues was, en de lice, en defrogs, en de locus', en de hail, en whah dey marked de door-pos', en deangel o' de Lord come by in de darkness o' de night en slew de fust-bornin 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 betweenhim and Tom there was talk enough, Jim being excited because theland was so full of history--Joseph and his brethren, Moses in thebulrushers, Jacob coming down into Egypt to buy corn, the silver cup inthe 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, aboutNoureddin, and Bedreddin, and such like monstrous giants, that madeJim's wool rise, and a raft of other Arabian Nights folks, which thehalf of them never done the things they let on they done, I don'tbelieve.
Then we struck a disappointment, for one of them early morning fogsstarted up, and it warn't no use to sail over the top of it, because wewould go by Egypt, sure, so we judged it was best to set her by compassstraight for the place where the pyramids was gitting blurred andblotted out, and then drop low and skin along pretty close to the groundand keep a sharp lookout. Tom took the hellum, I stood by to let go theanchor, and Jim he straddled the bow to dig through the fog with hiseyes and watch out for danger ahead. We went along a steady gait, butnot very fast, and the fog got solider and solider, so solid that Jimlooked dim and ragged and smoky through it. It was awful still, and wetalked low and was anxious. Now and then Jim would say:
"Highst her a p'int, Mars Tom, highst her!" and up she would skip, afoot or two, and we would slide right over a flat-roofed mud cabin, withpeople that had been asleep on it just beginning to turn out and gapand stretch; and once when a feller was clear up on his hind legs so hecould gap and stretch better, we took him a blip in the back and knockedhim off. By and by, after about an hour, and everything dead stilland we a-straining our ears for sounds and holding our breath, the fogthinned 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 giantouten de 'Rabian Nights a-comin' for us!" and he went over backwards inthe boat.
Tom slammed on the back-action, and as we slowed to a standstill a man'sface as big as our house at home looked in over the gunnel, same as ahouse looks out of its windows, and I laid down and died. I must 'a'been clear dead and gone for as much as a minute or more; then I cometo, and Tom had hitched a boat-hook on to the lower lip of the giant andwas holding the balloon steady with it whilst he canted his head backand got a good long look up at that awful face.
Jim was on his knees with his hands clasped, gazing up at the thing in abegging way, and working his lips, but not getting anything out. I tookonly just a glimpse, and was fading out again, but Tom says:
"He ain't alive, you fools; it's the Sphinx!"
I never see Tom look so little and like a fly; but that was becausethe giant's head was so big and awful. Awful, yes, so it was, but notdreadful any more, because you could see it was a noble face, and kindof sad, and not thinking about you, but about other things and larger.It was stone, reddish stone, and its nose and ears battered, and thatgive it an abused look, and you felt sorrier for it for that.
We stood off a piece, and sailed around it and over it, and it was justgrand. It was a man's head, or maybe a woman's, on a tiger's body ahundred and twenty-five foot long, and there was a dear little templebetween its front paws. All but the head used to be under the sand, forhundreds of years, maybe thousands, but they had just lately dug thesand away and found that little temple. It took a power of sand to burythat cretur; most as much as it would to bury a steamboat, I reckon.
We landed Jim on top of the head, with an American flag to protect him,it being a foreign land; then we sailed off to this and that andt'other distance, to git what Tom called effects and perspectivesand proportions, and Jim he done the best he could, striking all thedifferent kinds of attitudes and positions he could study up, butstanding on his head and working his legs the way a frog does was thebest. The further we got away, the littler Jim got, and the granderthe Sphinx got, till at last it was only a clothespin on a dome, asyou might say. That's the way perspective brings out the correctproportions, Tom said; he said Julus Cesar's niggers didn't know how bighe was, they was too close to him.
Then we sailed off further and further, till we couldn't see Jim at allany more, and then that great figger was at its noblest, a-gazing outover the Nile Valley so still and solemn and lonesome, and all thelittle shabby huts and things that was scattered about it cleandisappeared and gone, and nothing around it now but a soft wide spreadof yaller velvet, which was the sand.
That was the right place to stop, and we done it. We set there a-lookingand a-thinking for a half an hour, nobody a-saying anything, for it madeus feel quiet and kind of solemn to remem
ber it had been looking overthat valley just that same way, and thinking its awful thoughts all toitself for thousands of years, and nobody can't find out what they areto this day.
At last I took up the glass and see some little black things a-caperingaround on that velvet carpet, and some more a-climbing up the cretur'sback, and then I see two or three wee puffs of white smoke, and told Tomto look. He done it, and says:
"They're bugs. No--hold on; they--why, I believe they're men. Yes, it'smen--men and horses both. They're hauling a long ladder up onto theSphinx's back--now ain't that odd? And now they're trying to lean itup a--there's some more puffs of smoke--it's guns! Huck, they're afterJim."
We clapped on the power, and went for them a-biling. We was there inno time, and come a-whizzing down amongst them, and they broke andscattered every which way, and some that was climbing the ladder afterJim let go all holts and fell. We soared up and found him laying on topof the head panting and most tuckered out, partly from howling for helpand partly from scare. He had been standing a siege a long time--a week,HE said, but it warn't so, it only just seemed so to him because theywas crowding him so. They had shot at him, and rained the bullets allaround him, but he warn't hit, and when they found he wouldn't stand upand the bullets couldn't git at him when he was laying down, they wentfor the ladder, and then he knowed it was all up with him if we didn'tcome pretty quick. Tom was very indignant, and asked him why he didn'tshow the flag and command them to GIT, in the name of the United States.Jim said he done it, but they never paid no attention. Tom said he wouldhave this thing looked into at Washington, and says:
"You'll see that they'll have to apologize for insulting the flag, andpay an indemnity, too, on top of it even if they git off THAT easy."
Jim says:
"What's an indemnity, Mars Tom?"
"It's cash, that's what it is."
"Who gits it, Mars Tom?"
"Why, WE do."
"En who gits de apology?"
"The United States. Or, we can take whichever we please. We can take theapology, if we want to, and let the gov'ment take the money."
"How much money will it be, Mars Tom?"
"Well, in an aggravated case like this one, it will be at least threedollars apiece, and I don't know but more."
"Well, den, we'll take de money, Mars Tom, blame de 'pology. Hain't datyo' notion, too? En hain't it yourn, Huck?"
We talked it over a little and allowed that that was as good a way asany, so we agreed to take the money. It was a new business to me, and Iasked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, andhe says:
"Yes; the little ones does."
We was sailing around examining the pyramids, you know, and now wesoared up and roosted on the flat top of the biggest one, and found itwas just like what the man said in the Sunday-school. It was like fourpairs of stairs that starts broad at the bottom and slants up and comestogether in a point at the top, only these stair-steps couldn't be clumbthe way you climb other stairs; no, for each step was as high as yourchin, and you have to be boosted up from behind. The two other pyramidswarn't far away, and the people moving about on the sand between lookedlike bugs crawling, we was so high above them.
Tom he couldn't hold himself he was so worked up with gladness andastonishment to be in such a celebrated place, and he just drippedhistory from every pore, seemed to me. He said he couldn't scarcelybelieve he was standing on the very identical spot the prince flewfrom on the Bronze Horse. It was in the Arabian Night times, he said.Somebody give the prince a bronze horse with a peg in its shoulder, andhe could git on him and fly through the air like a bird, and go all overthe world, and steer it by turning the peg, and fly high or low and landwherever he wanted to.
When he got done telling it there was one of them uncomfortable silencesthat comes, you know, when a person has been telling a whopper and youfeel sorry for him and wish you could think of some way to change thesubject and let him down easy, but git stuck and don't see no way, andbefore you can pull your mind together and DO something, that silencehas got in and spread itself and done the business. I was embarrassed,Jim he was embarrassed, and neither of us couldn't say a word. Well, Tomhe glowered at me a minute, and says:
"Come, out with it. What do you think?"
I says:
"Tom Sawyer, YOU don't believe that, yourself."
"What's the reason I don't? What's to hender me?"
"There's one thing to hender you: it couldn't happen, that's all."
"What's the reason it couldn't happen?"
"You tell me the reason it COULD happen."
"This balloon is a good enough reason it could happen, I should reckon."
"WHY is it?"
"WHY is it? I never saw such an idiot. Ain't this balloon and the bronzehorse the same thing under different names?"
"No, they're not. One is a balloon and the other's a horse. It's verydifferent. Next you'll be saying a house and a cow is the same thing."
"By Jackson, Huck's got him ag'in! Dey ain't no wigglin' outer dat!"
"Shut your head, Jim; you don't know what you're talking about. AndHuck don't. Look here, Huck, I'll make it plain to you, so you canunderstand. You see, it ain't the mere FORM that's got anything to dowith their being similar or unsimilar, it's the PRINCIPLE involved; andthe principle is the same in both. Don't you see, now?"
I turned it over in my mind, and says:
"Tom, it ain't no use. Principles is all very well, but they don't gitaround that one big fact, that the thing that a balloon can do ain't nosort of proof of what a horse can do."
"Shucks, Huck, you don't get the idea at all. Now look here aminute--it's perfectly plain. Don't we fly through the air?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Don't we fly high or fly low, just as we please?"
"Yes."
"Don't we steer whichever way we want to?"
"Yes."
"And don't we land when and where we please?"
"Yes."
"How do we move the balloon and steer it?"
"By touching the buttons."
"NOW I reckon the thing is clear to you at last. In the other case themoving and steering was done by turning a peg. We touch a button, theprince turned a peg. There ain't an atom of difference, you see. Iknowed I could git it through your head if I stuck to it long enough."
He felt so happy he begun to whistle. But me and Jim was silent, so hebroke off surprised, and says:
"Looky here, Huck Finn, don't you see it YET?"
I says:
"Tom Sawyer, I want to ask you some questions."
"Go ahead," he says, and I see Jim chirk up to listen.
"As I understand it, the whole thing is in the buttons and the peg--therest ain't of no consequence. A button is one shape, a peg is anothershape, but that ain't any matter?"
"No, that ain't any matter, as long as they've both got the same power."
"All right, then. What is the power that's in a candle and in a match?"
"It's the fire."
"It's the same in both, then?"
"Yes, just the same in both."
"All right. Suppose I set fire to a carpenter shop with a match, whatwill happen to that carpenter shop?"
"She'll burn up."
"And suppose I set fire to this pyramid with a candle--will she burnup?"
"Of course she won't."
"All right. Now the fire's the same, both times. WHY does the shop burn,and the pyramid don't?"
"Because the pyramid CAN'T burn."
"Aha! and A HORSE CAN'T FLY!"
"My lan', ef Huck ain't got him ag'in! Huck's landed him high en drydis time, I tell you! Hit's de smartes' trap I ever see a body walkinter--en ef I--"
But Jim was so full of laugh he got to strangling and couldn't go on,and Tom was that mad to see how neat I had floored him, and turned hisown argument ag'in him and knocked him all to rags and flinders with it,that all he could manage to say was that whenever he heard me andJim try to argue it
made him ashamed of the human race. I never saidnothing; I was feeling pretty well satisfied. When I have got the bestof a person that way, it ain't my way to go around crowing about itthe way some people does, for I consider that if I was in his place Iwouldn't wish him to crow over me. It's better to be generous, that'swhat I think.