The adventures of tom sawyer

actually saw the blue speck of daylight; how he pushed his way out at the hole and then helped her out; how they sat there and cried for gladness; how some men came along in a skiff and Tom hailed them and told them their situation and their famished condition; how the men didn`t believe the wild tale at first, “because,” said they, “you are five miles down the river below the valley the cave is in” then took them aboard, rowed to a house, gave them supper, made them rest till two or three hours after dark and then brought them home.
Before day-dawn, Judge Thatcher and the handful of searchers with him were tracked out, in the cave, by the twine clews they had strung behind them, and informed of the great news.
Three days and nights of toil and hunger in the cave were not to be shaken off at once, as Tom and Becky soon discovered. They were bedridden all of Wednesday and Thursday, and seemed to grow more and more tired and worn, all the time. Tom got about, a little, on Thursday, was down-town Friday, and nearly as whole as ever Saturday; but Becky did not leave her room until Sunday, and then she looked as if she had passed through a wasting illness.
Tom learned of Huck`s sickness and went to see him on Friday, but could not be admitted to the bedroom; neither could he on Saturday or Sunday. He was admitted daily after that, but was warned to keep still about his adventure and introduce no exciting topic. The Widow Douglas stayed by to see that he obeyed. At home Tom learned of the Cardiff Hill event; also that the “ragged man`s” body had eventually been found in the river near the ferry-landing; he had been drowned while trying to escape, perhaps.
About a fortnight after Tom`s rescue from the cave, he started off to visit Huck, who had grown plenty strong enough, now, to hear exciting talk, and Tom had some that would interest him, he thought. Judge Thatcher`s house was on Tom`s way, and he stopped to see Becky. The Judge and some friends set Tom to talking, and some one asked him ironically if he wouldn`t like to go to the cave again. Tom said he thought he wouldn`t mind it. The Judge said:
“Well, there are others just like you, Tom, I`ve not the least doubt. But we have taken care of that. Nobody will get lost in that cave any more.”
“Why?”
“Because I had its big door sheathed with boiler iron two weeks ago, and triple-lockedand I`ve got the keys.”
Tom turned as white as a sheet.
“What`s the matter, boy! Here, run, somebody! Fetch a glass of water!”
The water was brought and thrown into Tom`s face.
“Ah, now you`re all right. What was the matter with you, Tom?”
“Oh, Judge, Injun Joe`s in the cave!”

Chapter 33.

WITHIN a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of men were on their way to McDougal`s cave, and the ferryboat, well filled with passengers, soon followed. Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that bore Judge Thatcher.
When the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in the dim twilight of the place. Injun Joe lay stretched upon the ground, dead, with his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing eyes had been fixed, to the latest moment, upon the light and the cheer of the free world outside. Tom was touched, for he knew by his own experience how this wretch had suffered. His pity was moved, but nevertheless he felt an abounding sense of relief and security, now, which revealed to him in a degree which he had not fully appreciated before how vast a weight of dread had been lying upon him since the day he lifted his voice against this bloody-minded outcast.
Injun Joe`s bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two. The great foundation-beam of the door had been chipped and hacked through, with tedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock formed a sill outside it, and upon that stubborn material the knife had wrought no effect; the only damage done was to the knife itself. But if there had been no stony obstruction there the labor would have been useless still, for if the beam had been wholly cut away Injun Joe could not have squeezed his body under the door, and he knew it. So he had only hacked that place in order to be doing somethingin order to pass the weary timein order to employ his tortured faculties. Ordinarily one could find half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the crevices of this vestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now. The prisoner had searched them out and eaten them. He had also contrived to catch a few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their claws. The poor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at hand, a stalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages, builded by the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone, wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once in every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock-ticka dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome were laid when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was “news.” It is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things shall have sunk down the afternoon of history, and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and a mission? Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for this flitting human insect`s need? and has it another important object to accomplish ten thousand years to come? No matter. It is many and many a year since the hapless half-breed scooped out the stone to catch the priceless drops, but to this day the tourist stares longest at that pathetic stone and that slow-dropping water when he comes to see the wonders of McDougal`s cave. Injun Joe`s cup stands first in the list of the cavern`s marvels; even “Aladdin`s Palace” cannot rival it.
Injun Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave; and people flocked there in boats and wagons from the towns and from all the farms and hamlets for seven miles around; they brought their children, and all sorts of provisions, and confessed that they had had almost as satisfactory a time at the funeral as they could have had at the hanging.
This funeral stopped the further growth of one thingthe petition to the governor for Injun Joe`s pardon. The petition had been largely signed; many tearful and eloquent meetings had been held, and a committee of sappy women been appointed to go in deep mourning and wail around the governor, and implore him to be a merciful ass and trample his duty under foot. Injun Joe was believed to have killed five citizens of the village, but what of that? If he had been Satan himself there would have been plenty of weaklings ready to scribble their names to a pardon-petition, and drip a tear on it from their permanently impaired and leaky water-works.
The morning after the funeral Tom took Huck to a private place to have an important talk. Huck had learned all about Tom`s adventure from the Welshman and the Widow Douglas, by this time, but Tom said he reckoned there was one thing they had not told him; that thing was what he wanted to talk about now. Huck`s face saddened. He said:
“I know what it is. You got into No. 2 and never found anything but whiskey. Nobody told me it was you; but I just knowed it must `a` ben you, soon as I heard `bout that whiskey business; and I knowed you hadn`t got the money becuz you`d `a` got at me some way or other and told me even if you was mum to everybody else. Tom, something`s always told me we`d never get holt of that swag.”
“Why, Huck, I never told on that tavern-keeper. YOU know his tavern was all right the Saturday I went to the picnic. Don`t you remember you was to watch there that night?”
“Oh yes! Why, it seems `bout a year ago. It was that very night that I follered Injun Joe to the widder`s.”
“YOU followed him?”
“Yesbut you keep mum. I reckon Injun Joe`s left friends behind him, and I don`t want `em souring on me and doing me mean tricks. If it hadn`t ben for me he`d be down in Texas now, all right.”
Then Huck told his entire adventure in confidence to Tom, who had only heard of the Welshman`s part of it before.
“Well,” said Huck, presently, coming back to the main question, “whoever nipped the whiskey in No. 2, nipped the money, too, I reckon anyways it`s a goner for us, Tom.”
“Huck, that money wasn`t ever in No. 2!”
“What!” Huck searched his comrade`s face keenly. “Tom, have you got on the track of that money again?”
“Huck, it`s in the cave!”
Huck`s eyes blazed.
“Say it again, Tom.”
“The money`s in the cave!”
“Tomhonest injun, nowis it fun, or earnest?”
“Earnest, Huckjust as earnest as ever I was in my life. Will you go in there with me and help get it out?”
“I bet I will! I will if it`s where we can blaze our way to it and not get lost.”
“Huck, we can do that without the least little bit of trouble in the world.”
“Good as wheat! What makes you think the money`s”
“Huck, you just wait till we get in there. If we don`t find it I`ll agree to give you my drum and every thing I`ve got in the world. I will, by jings.”
“All rightit`s a whiz. When do you say?”
“Right now, if you say it. Are you strong enough?”
“Is it far in the cave? I ben on my pins a little, three or four days, now, but I can`t walk more`n a mile, Tomleast I don`t think I could.”
“It`s about five mile into there the way anybody but me would go, Huck, but there`s a mighty short cut that they don`t anybody but me know about. Huck, I`ll take you right to it in a skiff. I`ll float the skiff down there, and I`ll pull it back again all by myself. You needn`t ever turn your hand over.”
“Less start right off, Tom.”
“All right. We want some bread and meat, and our pipes, and a little bag or…