Tom Sawyer Abroad

  CHAPTER VIII. THE DISAPPEARING LAKE

  WE had an early breakfast in the morning, and set looking down on thedesert, and the weather was ever so bammy and lovely, although we warn'thigh up. You have to come down lower and lower after sundown in thedesert, because it cools off so fast; and so, by the time it is gettingtoward dawn, you are skimming along only a little ways above the sand.

  We was watching the shadder of the balloon slide along the ground,and now and then gazing off across the desert to see if anything wasstirring, and then down on the shadder again, when all of a suddenalmost right under us we see a lot of men and camels laying scatteredabout, perfectly quiet, like they was asleep.

  We shut off the power, and backed up and stood over them, and then wesee that they was all dead. It give us the cold shivers. And it made ushush down, too, and talk low, like people at a funeral. We dropped downslow and stopped, and me and Tom clumb down and went among them. Therewas men, and women, and children. They was dried by the sun and dark andshriveled and leathery, like the pictures of mummies you see in books.And yet they looked just as human, you wouldn't 'a' believed it; justlike they was asleep.

  Some of the people and animals was partly covered with sand, but most ofthem not, for the sand was thin there, and the bed was gravel and hard.Most of the clothes had rotted away; and when you took hold of a rag,it tore with a touch, like spiderweb. Tom reckoned they had been layingthere for years.

  Some of the men had rusty guns by them, some had swords on and had shawlbelts with long, silver-mounted pistols stuck in them. All the camelshad their loads on yet, but the packs had busted or rotted and spilt thefreight out on the ground. We didn't reckon the swords was any good tothe dead people any more, so we took one apiece, and some pistols. Wetook a small box, too, because it was so handsome and inlaid so fine;and then we wanted to bury the people; but there warn't no way to doit that we could think of, and nothing to do it with but sand, and thatwould blow away again, of course.

  Then we mounted high and sailed away, and pretty soon that black spoton the sand was out of sight, and we wouldn't ever see them poor peopleagain in this world. We wondered, and reasoned, and tried to guess howthey come to be there, and how it all happened to them, but we couldn'tmake it out. First we thought maybe they got lost, and wandered aroundand about till their food and water give out and they starved to death;but Tom said no wild animals nor vultures hadn't meddled with them,and so that guess wouldn't do. So at last we give it up, and judged wewouldn't think about it no more, because it made us low-spirited.

  Then we opened the box, and it had gems and jewels in it, quite a pile,and some little veils of the kind the dead women had on, with fringesmade out of curious gold money that we warn't acquainted with. Wewondered if we better go and try to find them again and give it back;but Tom thought it over and said no, it was a country that was full ofrobbers, and they would come and steal it; and then the sin would be onus for putting the temptation in their way. So we went on; but I wishedwe had took all they had, so there wouldn't 'a' been no temptation atall left.

  We had had two hours of that blazing weather down there, and wasdreadful thirsty when we got aboard again. We went straight for thewater, but it was spoiled and bitter, besides being pretty near hotenough to scald your mouth. We couldn't drink it. It was Mississippiriver water, the best in the world, and we stirred up the mud in itto see if that would help, but no, the mud wasn't any better than thewater. Well, we hadn't been so very, very thirsty before, while we wasinterested in the lost people, but we was now, and as soon as we foundwe couldn't have a drink, we was more than thirty-five times as thirstyas we was a quarter of a minute before. Why, in a little while we wantedto hold our mouths open and pant like a dog.

  Tom said to keep a sharp lookout, all around, everywheres, because we'dgot to find an oasis or there warn't no telling what would happen. So wedone it. We kept the glasses gliding around all the time, till ourarms got so tired we couldn't hold them any more. Two hours--threehours--just gazing and gazing, and nothing but sand, sand, SAND, and youcould see the quivering heat-shimmer playing over it. Dear, dear, a bodydon't know what real misery is till he is thirsty all the way throughand is certain he ain't ever going to come to any water any more. Atlast I couldn't stand it to look around on them baking plains; I laiddown on the locker, and give it up.

  But by and by Tom raised a whoop, and there she was! A lake, wide andshiny, with pa'm-trees leaning over it asleep, and their shadders in thewater just as soft and delicate as ever you see. I never see anythinglook so good. It was a long ways off, but that warn't anything to us; wejust slapped on a hundred-mile gait, and calculated to be there in sevenminutes; but she stayed the same old distance away, all the time; wecouldn't seem to gain on her; yes, sir, just as far, and shiny, and likea dream; but we couldn't get no nearer; and at last, all of a sudden,she was gone!

  Tom's eyes took a spread, and he says:

  "Boys, it was a MYridge!" Said it like he was glad. I didn't see nothingto be glad about. I says:

  "Maybe. I don't care nothing about its name, the thing I want to knowis, what's become of it?"

  Jim was trembling all over, and so scared he couldn't speak, but hewanted to ask that question himself if he could 'a' done it. Tom says:

  "What's BECOME of it? Why, you see yourself it's gone."

  "Yes, I know; but where's it gone TO?"

  He looked me over and says:

  "Well, now, Huck Finn, where WOULD it go to! Don't you know what amyridge is?"

  "No, I don't. What is it?"

  "It ain't anything but imagination. There ain't anything TO it."

  It warmed me up a little to hear him talk like that, and I says:

  "What's the use you talking that kind of stuff, Tom Sawyer? Didn't I seethe lake?"

  "Yes--you think you did."

  "I don't think nothing about it, I DID see it."

  "I tell you you DIDN'T see it either--because it warn't there to see."

  It astonished Jim to hear him talk so, and he broke in and says, kind ofpleading and distressed:

  "Mars Tom, PLEASE don't say sich things in sich an awful time as dis.You ain't only reskin' yo' own self, but you's reskin' us--same way likeAnna Nias en Siffra. De lake WUZ dah--I seen it jis' as plain as I seesyou en Huck dis minute."

  I says:

  "Why, he seen it himself! He was the very one that seen it first. NOW,then!"

  "Yes, Mars Tom, hit's so--you can't deny it. We all seen it, en datPROVE it was dah."

  "Proves it! How does it prove it?"

  "Same way it does in de courts en everywheres, Mars Tom. One pussonmight be drunk, or dreamy or suthin', en he could be mistaken; en twomight, maybe; but I tell you, sah, when three sees a thing, drunk ersober, it's SO. Dey ain't no gittin' aroun' dat, en you knows it, MarsTom."

  "I don't know nothing of the kind. There used to be forty thousandmillion people that seen the sun move from one side of the sky to theother every day. Did that prove that the sun DONE it?"

  "Course it did. En besides, dey warn't no 'casion to prove it. A body'at's got any sense ain't gwine to doubt it. Dah she is now--a sailin'thoo de sky, like she allays done."

  Tom turned on me, then, and says:

  "What do YOU say--is the sun standing still?"

  "Tom Sawyer, what's the use to ask such a jackass question? Anybody thatain't blind can see it don't stand still."

  "Well," he says, "I'm lost in the sky with no company but a passelof low-down animals that don't know no more than the head boss of auniversity did three or four hundred years ago."

  It warn't fair play, and I let him know it. I says:

  "Throwin' mud ain't arguin', Tom Sawyer."

  "Oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness gracious, dah's de lake agi'n!" yelledJim, just then. "NOW, Mars Tom, what you gwine to say?"

  Yes, sir, there was the lake again, away yonder across the desert,perfectly plain, trees and all, just the same as it was before. I says:

  "I reckon you're
satisfied now, Tom Sawyer."

  But he says, perfectly ca'm:

  "Yes, satisfied there ain't no lake there."

  Jim says:

  "DON'T talk so, Mars Tom--it sk'yers me to hear you. It's so hot, enyou's so thirsty, dat you ain't in yo' right mine, Mars Tom. Oh, butdon't she look good! 'clah I doan' know how I's gwine to wait tell wegits dah, I's SO thirsty."

  "Well, you'll have to wait; and it won't do you no good, either, becausethere ain't no lake there, I tell you."

  I says:

  "Jim, don't you take your eye off of it, and I won't, either."

  "'Deed I won't; en bless you, honey, I couldn't ef I wanted to."

  We went a-tearing along toward it, piling the miles behind us likenothing, but never gaining an inch on it--and all of a sudden it wasgone again! Jim staggered, and 'most fell down. When he got his breathhe says, gasping like a fish:

  "Mars Tom, hit's a GHOS', dat's what it is, en I hopes to goodness weain't gwine to see it no mo'. Dey's BEEN a lake, en suthin's happened,en de lake's dead, en we's seen its ghos'; we's seen it twiste, en dat'sproof. De desert's ha'nted, it's ha'nted, sho; oh, Mars Tom, le''s gitouten it; I'd ruther die den have de night ketch us in it ag'in en deghos' er dat lake come a-mournin' aroun' us en we asleep en doan' knowde danger we's in."

  "Ghost, you gander! It ain't anything but air and heat and thirstinesspasted together by a person's imagination. If I--gimme the glass!"

  He grabbed it and begun to gaze off to the right.

  "It's a flock of birds," he says. "It's getting toward sundown, andthey're making a bee-line across our track for somewheres. They meanbusiness--maybe they're going for food or water, or both. Let her go tostarboard!--Port your hellum! Hard down! There--ease up--steady, as yougo."

  We shut down some of the power, so as not to outspeed them, and took outafter them. We went skimming along a quarter of a mile behind them,and when we had followed them an hour and a half and was getting prettydiscouraged, and was thirsty clean to unendurableness, Tom says:

  "Take the glass, one of you, and see what that is, away ahead of thebirds."

  Jim got the first glimpse, and slumped down on the locker sick. He wasmost crying, and says:

  "She's dah ag'in, Mars Tom, she's dah ag'in, en I knows I's gwine todie, 'case when a body sees a ghos' de third time, dat's what it means.I wisht I'd never come in dis balloon, dat I does."

  He wouldn't look no more, and what he said made me afraid, too, becauseI knowed it was true, for that has always been the way with ghosts; sothen I wouldn't look any more, either. Both of us begged Tom to turnoff and go some other way, but he wouldn't, and said we was ignorantsuperstitious blatherskites. Yes, and he'll git come up with, one ofthese days, I says to myself, insulting ghosts that way. They'll standit for a while, maybe, but they won't stand it always, for anybody thatknows about ghosts knows how easy they are hurt, and how revengeful theyare.

  So we was all quiet and still, Jim and me being scared, and Tom busy. Byand by Tom fetched the balloon to a standstill, and says:

  "NOW get up and look, you sapheads."

  We done it, and there was the sure-enough water right under us!--clear,and blue, and cool, and deep, and wavy with the breeze, the loveliestsight that ever was. And all about it was grassy banks, and flowers, andshady groves of big trees, looped together with vines, and all lookingso peaceful and comfortable--enough to make a body cry, it was sobeautiful.

  Jim DID cry, and rip and dance and carry on, he was so thankful and outof his mind for joy. It was my watch, so I had to stay by the works, butTom and Jim clumb down and drunk a barrel apiece, and fetched me up alot, and I've tasted a many a good thing in my life, but nothing thatever begun with that water.

  Then we went down and had a swim, and then Tom came up and spelled me,and me and Jim had a swim, and then Jim spelled Tom, and me and Tom hada foot-race and a boxing-mill, and I don't reckon I ever had such agood time in my life. It warn't so very hot, because it was close on toevening, and we hadn't any clothes on, anyway. Clothes is well enoughin school, and in towns, and at balls, too, but there ain't no sensein them when there ain't no civilization nor other kinds of bothers andfussiness around.

  "Lions a-comin'!--lions! Quick, Mars Tom! Jump for yo' life, Huck!"

  Oh, and didn't we! We never stopped for clothes, but waltzed up theladder just so. Jim lost his head straight off--he always done itwhenever he got excited and scared; and so now, 'stead of just easingthe ladder up from the ground a little, so the animals couldn't reachit, he turned on a raft of power, and we went whizzing up and wasdangling in the sky before he got his wits together and seen what afoolish thing he was doing. Then he stopped her, but he had clean forgotwhat to do next; so there we was, so high that the lions looked likepups, and we was drifting off on the wind.

  But Tom he shinned up and went for the works and begun to slant herdown, and back toward the lake, where the animals was gathering like acamp-meeting, and I judged he had lost HIS head, too; for he knowed Iwas too scared to climb, and did he want to dump me among the tigers andthings?

  But no, his head was level, he knowed what he was about. He swooped downto within thirty or forty feet of the lake, and stopped right over thecenter, and sung out:

  "Leggo, and drop!"

  I done it, and shot down, feet first, and seemed to go about a miletoward the bottom; and when I come up, he says:

  "Now lay on your back and float till you're rested and got your pluckback, then I'll dip the ladder in the water and you can climb aboard."

  I done it. Now that was ever so smart in Tom, because if he had startedoff somewheres else to drop down on the sand, the menagerie would 'a'come along, too, and might 'a' kept us hunting a safe place till I gottuckered out and fell.

  And all this time the lions and tigers was sorting out the clothes, andtrying to divide them up so there would be some for all, but there was amisunderstanding about it somewheres, on account of some of them tryingto hog more than their share; so there was another insurrection, and younever see anything like it in the world. There must 'a' been fiftyof them, all mixed up together, snorting and roaring and snapping andbiting and tearing, legs and tails in the air, and you couldn't tellwhich was which, and the sand and fur a-flying. And when they gotdone, some was dead and some was limping off crippled, and the restwas setting around on the battlefield, some of them licking their soreplaces and the others looking up at us and seemed to be kind of invitingus to come down and have some fun, but which we didn't want any.

  As for the clothes, they warn't any, any more. Every last rag of themwas inside of the animals; and not agreeing with them very well, I don'treckon, for there was considerable many brass buttons on them, and therewas knives in the pockets, too, and smoking tobacco, and nails and chalkand marbles and fishhooks and things. But I wasn't caring. All that wasbothering me was, that all we had now was the professor's clothes, a bigenough assortment, but not suitable to go into company with, if we cameacross any, because the britches was as long as tunnels, and the coatsand things according. Still, there was everything a tailor needed, andJim was a kind of jack legged tailor, and he allowed he could soon trima suit or two down for us that would answer.