Early in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the village,but the strongest of the citizens continued searching.All the news that could be gained was that remotenesses of the cavern were being ransacked that had never been visited before; that every corner and crevice was going to be thoroughly searched; that wherever one wandered through the maze of passages, lights were to be seen flitting hither and thither in the distance, and shoutings and pistol-shots sent their hollow reverberations to the ear down the sombre aisles. In one place, far from the section usually traversed by tourists, the names “BECKY & TOM” had been found traced upon the rocky wall with candle-smoke, and near at hand a grease-soiled bit of ribbon. Mrs. Thatcher recognized the ribbon and cried over it. She said it was the last relic she should ever have of her child; and that no other memorial of her could ever be so precious, because this one parted latest from the living body before the awful death came. Some said that now and then, in the cave, a far-away speck of light would glimmer, and then a glorious shout would burst forth and a score of men go trooping down the echoing aisle—and then a sickening disappointment always followed; the children were not there; it was only a searcher’s light.
Three dreadful days and nights dragged their tedious hours along,and the village sank into a hopeless stupor.No one had heart for anything.The accidental discovery, just made,that the proprietor of the Temperance Tavern kept liquor on his premises,scarcely fluttered the public pulse,tremendous as the fact was. In a lucid interval,Huck feebly led up to the subject of taverns,and finally asked—dimly dreading the worst—if anything had been discovered at the Temperance Tavern since he had been ill.
“Yes,” said the widow.
Huck started up in bed, wild-eyed:
“What?What was it?”
“Liquor!—and the place has been shut up. Lie down,child—what a turn you did give me!”
“Only tell me just one thing—only just one—please!Was it Tom Sawyer that found it?”
The widow burst into tears. “Hush, hush, child, hush!I’ve told you before, you must _not_ talk. You are very, very sick!”
Then nothing but liquor had been found;there would have been a great powwow if it had been the gold.So the treasure was gone forever—gone forever!But what could she be crying about?Curious that she should cry.
These thoughts worked their dim way through Huck’s mind,and under the weariness they gave him he fell asleep.The widow said to herself:
“There—he’s asleep, poor wreck. Tom Sawyer find it!Pity but somebody could find Tom Sawyer!Ah, there ain’t many left, now, that’s got hope enough,or strength enough, either, to go on searching.”
CHAPTER XXXI
Now to return to Tom and Becky’s share in the picnic.They tripped along the murky aisles with the rest of the company,visiting the familiar wonders of the cave—wonders dubbed with rather over-descriptive names, such as “The Drawing-Room,” “The Cathedral,” “Aladdin’s Palace,” and so on. Presently the hide-and-seek frolicking began, and Tom and Becky engaged in it with zeal until the exertion began to grow a trifle wearisome; then they wandered down a sinuous avenue holding their candles aloft and reading the tangled webwork of names, dates, postoffice addresses, and mottoes with which the rocky walls had been frescoed (in candle-smoke). Still drifting along and talking, they scarcely noticed that they were now in a part of the cave whose walls were not frescoed. They smoked their own names under an overhanging shelf and moved on. Presently they came to a place where a little stream of water, trickling over a ledge and carrying a limestone sediment with it, had, in the slow-dragging ages, formed a laced and ruffled Niagara in gleaming and imperishable stone. Tom squeezed his small body behind it in order to illuminate it for Becky’s gratification. He found that it curtained a sort of steep natural stairway which was enclosed between narrow walls, and at once the ambition to be a discoverer seized him.
Becky responded to his call,and they made a smoke-mark for future guidance,and started upon their quest.They wound this way and that,far down into the secret depths of the cave,made another mark, and branched off in search of novelties to tell the upper world about. In one place they found a spacious cavern, from whose ceiling depended a multitude of shining stalactites of the length and circumference of a man’s leg; they walked all about it, wondering and admiring, and presently left it by one of the numerous passages that opened into it. This shortly brought them to a bewitching spring, whose basin was incrusted with a frostwork of glittering crystals; it was in the midst of a cavern whose walls were supported by many fantastic pillars which had been formed by the joining of great stalactites and stalagmites together, the result of the ceaseless water-drip of centuries. Under the roof vast knots of bats had packed themselves together, thousands in a bunch; the lights disturbed the creatures and they came flocking down by hundreds, squeaking and darting furiously at the candles. Tom knew their ways and the danger of this sort of conduct. He seized Becky’s hand and hurried her into the first corridor that offered; and none too soon, for a bat struck Becky’s light out with its wing while she was passing out of the cavern. The bats chased the children a good distance; but the fugitives plunged into every new passage that offered, and at last got rid of the perilous things. Tom found a subterranean lake, shortly, which stretched its dim length away until its shape was lost in the shadows. He wanted to explore its borders, but concluded that it would be best to sit down and rest awhile, first. Now, for the first time, the deep stillness of the place laid a clammy hand upon the spirits of the children. Becky said:
“Why, I didn’t notice,but it seems ever so long since I heard any of the others. ”
“Come to think, Becky,we are away down below them—and I don’t know how far away north,or south, or east, or whichever it is.We couldn’t hear them here.”
Becky grew apprehensive.
“I wonder how long we’ve been down here, Tom?We better start back.”
“Yes, I reckon we better. P’raps we better.”
“Can you find the way, Tom?It’s all a mixed-up crookedness to me.”
“I reckon I could find it—but then the bats.If they put our candles out it will be an awful fix.Let’s try some other way,so as not to go through there.”
“Well. But I hope we won’t get lost.It would be so awful!” and the girl shuddered at the thought of the dreadful possibilities.
They started through a corridor,and traversed it in silence a long way,glancing at each new opening,to see if there was anything familiar about the look of it;but they were all strange.Every time Tom made an examination,Becky would watch his face for an encouraging sign,and he would say cheerily:
“Oh, it’s all right. This ain’t the one,but we’ll come to it right away!”
But he felt less and less hopeful with each failure,and presently began to turn off into diverging avenues at sheer random,in desperate hope of finding the one that was wanted.He still said it was “all right,” but there was such a leaden dread at his heart that the words had lost their ring and sounded just as if he had said, “All is lost!” Becky clung to his side in an anguish of fear,and tried hard to keep back the tears,but they would come. At last she said:
“Oh, Tom, never mind the bats, let’s go back that way!We seem to get worse and worse off all the time.”
“Listen!” said he.
Profound silence; silence so deep that even their breathings were conspicuous in the hush. Tom shouted. The call went echoing down the empty aisles and died out in the distance in a faint sound that resembled a ripple of mocking laughter.
“Oh, don’t do it again, Tom, it is too horrid, ” said Becky.