Part 37 (1/2)

CHAPTER xxxII

TUESDAY afternoon cae of St

Petersburg still mourned The lost children had not been found Public prayers had been offered up for them, and many and many a private prayer that had the petitioner's whole heart in it; but still no good news caiven up the quest and gone back to their daily avocations, saying that it was plain the children could never be found Mrs Thatcher was very ill, and a great part of the ti to hear her call her child, and raise her head and listen a whole ain with a moan Aunt Polly had drooped into a settled rown alht, sad and forlorn

Away in the e bells, and in awith frantic half-clad people, who shouted, ”Turn out! turn out! they're found! they're found!”

Tin pans and horns were added to the din, the population massed itself andin an open carriage drawn by shouting citizens, thronged around it, joined its honificently up the e was illuht the little town had ever seen During the first half-hour a procession of villagers filed through Judge Thatcher's house, seized the saved ones and kissed them, squeezed Mrs Thatcher's hand, tried to speak but couldn't--and drifted out raining tears all over the place

Aunt Polly's happiness was complete, and Mrs Thatcher's nearly so It would be coer dispatched with the great news to the cave should get the word to her husband Toer auditory about hi inadditions to adorn it withal; and closed with a description of how he left Becky and went on an exploring expedition; how he folloo avenues as far as his kite-line would reach; how he followed a third to the fullest stretch of the kite-line, and was about to turn back when he gliht; dropped the line and groped toward it, pushed his head and shoulders through a s by!

And if it had only happened to be night he would not have seen that speck of daylight and would not have explored that passage any ood news and she told him not to fret her with such stuff, for she was tired, and knew she was going to die, and wanted to He described how he labored with her and convinced her; and how she alroped to where she 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 so 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 theave them supper, made theht thee Thatcher and the handful of searchers with him were tracked out, in the cave, by the twine clews they had strung behind thehts 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 seeot about, a little, on Thursday, was don 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 arned to keep still about his adventure and introduce no exciting topic The Widow Douglas stayed by to see that he obeyed At hoed man's” body had eventually been found in the river near the ferry-landing; he had been drohile trying to escape, perhaps

About a fortnight after Tom's rescue frorown plenty strong enough, now, to hear exciting talk, and Toe Thatcher's house was on Toe and so, and soo to the cave again Toe 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 anydoor sheathed with boiler iron teeks ago, and triple-locked--and I've got the keys”

Tom turned as white as a sheet

”What's the lass of water!”

The water was brought and thrown into Toht What was the e, Injun Joe's in the cave!”

CHAPTER xxxIII

WITHIN a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of al's cave, and the ferryboat, well filled with passengers, soon followed Toe Thatcher

When the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in the diround, dead, with his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing eyes had been fixed, to the latest ht 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 wassense of relief and security, nohich revealed to hiree which he had not fully appreciated before how vast a weight of dread had been lying upon hiainst this bloody-minded outcast

Injun Joe's bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two The great foundation-beah, with tedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock formed a sill outside it, and upon that stubborn e 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 so--in order to pass the weary time--in 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 stalages, 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 ularity of a clock-tick--a dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours That drop was falling when the Pyramids were nehen Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome were laid; when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British eton 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 sed up in the thick night of oblivion Has everything a purpose and afive 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 coal's cave Injun Joe's cup stands first in the list of the cavern's marvels; even ”Aladdin's Palace”

cannot rival it