THE DISAPPEARING LAKE

WE had an early breakfast in the morning, and set

looking down on the desert, and the weather

was ever so bammy and lovely, although we warn’t

high up. You have to come down lower and lower

after sundown in the desert, because it cools off so

fast; and so, by the time it is getting toward 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 was stirring, and then

down on the shadder again, when all of a sudden

almost right under us we see a lot of men and camels

laying scattered about, perfectly quiet, like they was

asleep.

We shut off the power, and backed up and stood

over them, and then we see that they was all dead. It

give us the cold shivers. And it made us hush down,

too, and talk low, like people at a funeral. We

dropped down slow and stopped, and me and Tom

clumb down and went among them. There was men,

and women, and children. They was dried by the sun

and dark and shriveled and leathery, like the pictures

of mummies you see in books. And yet they looked

just as human, you wouldn’t ‘a’ believed it; just like

they was asleep.

Some of the people and animals was partly covered

with sand, but most of them 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 spider-web. Tom reckoned they had been laying there for

years.

Some of the men had rusty guns by them, some had

swords on and had shawl belts with long, silver-mounted pistols stuck in them. All the camels had

their loads on yet, but the packs had busted or rotted

and spilt the freight out on the ground. We didn’t

reckon the swords was any good to the dead people

any more, so we took one apiece, and some pistols.

We took 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 do it that we could

think of, and nothing to do it with but sand, and that

would blow away again, of course.

Then we mounted high and sailed away, and pretty

soon that black spot on the sand was out of sight, and

we wouldn’t ever see them poor people again in this

world. We wondered, and reasoned, and tried to

guess how they come to be there, and how it all happened to them, but we couldn’t make it out. First we

thought maybe they got lost, and wandered around and

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 we

wouldn’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 fringes made out of curious

gold money that we warn’t acquainted with. We

wondered 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 of robbers, and they

would come and steal it; and then the sin would be on

us for putting the temptation in their way. So we

went on; but I wished we had took all they had, so

there wouldn’t ‘a’ been no temptation at all left.

We had had two hours of that blazing weather down

there, and was dreadful thirsty when we got aboard

again. We went straight for the water, but it was

spoiled and bitter, besides being pretty near hot enough

to scald your mouth. We couldn’t drink it. It was

Mississippi river water, the best in the world, and we

stirred up the mud in it to see if that would help, but

no, the mud wasn’t any better than the water.

Well, we hadn’t been so very, very thirsty before,

while we was interested in the lost people, but we was

now, and as soon as we found we couldn’t have a

drink, we was more than thirty-five times as thirsty as

we was a quarter of a minute before. Why, in a little

while we wanted to hold our mouths open and pant

like a dog.

Tom said to keep a sharp lookout, all around, everywheres, because we’d got to find an oasis or there

warn’t no telling what would happen. So we done it.

We kept the glasses gliding around all the time, till our

arms got so tired we couldn’t hold them any more.

Two hours — three hours — just gazing and gazing,

and nothing but sand, sand, SAND, and you could see

the quivering heat-shimmer playing over it. Dear,

dear, a body don’t know what real misery is till he is

thirsty all the way through and is certain he ain’t ever

going to come to any water any more. At last I

couldn’t stand it to look around on them baking plains;

I laid down on the locker, and give it up.

But by and by Tom raised a whoop, and there she

was! A lake, wide and shiny, with pa’m-trees leaning

over it asleep, and their shadders in the water just as

soft and delicate as ever you see. I never see anything

look so good. It was a long ways off, but that

warn’t anything to us; we just slapped on a hundred-mile gait, and calculated to be there in seven minutes;

but she stayed the same old distance away, all the

time; we couldn’t seem to gain on her; yes, sir, just as

far, and shiny, and like a 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 nothing to be glad about. I says:

“Maybe. I don’t care nothing about its name, the

thing I want to know is, what’s become of it?”

Jim was trembling all over, and so scared he couldn’t

speak, but he wanted 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 a myridge 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 see the 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 of pleading 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 like Anna Nias

en Siffra. De lake WUZ dah — I seen it jis’ as plain

as I sees you 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 dat PROVE it was dah.”

“Proves it! How does it prove it?”

“Same way it does in de courts en everywheres,

Mars Tom. One pusson might be drunk, or dreamy

or suthin’, en he could be mistaken; en two might,

maybe; but I tell you, sah, when three sees a thing,

drunk er sober, it’s SO. Dey ain’t no gittin’ aroun’

dat, en you knows it, Mars Tom.”

“I don’t know nothing of the kind. There used to

be forty thousand million people that seen the sun

move from one side of the sky to the other 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 that ain’t blind can see it don’t

stand still.”

“Well,” he says, “I’m lost in the sky with no

company but a passel of low-down animals that don’t

know no more than the head boss of a university 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!” yelled Jim, 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, en you’s so thirsty, dat you ain’t in

yo’ right mine, Mars Tom. Oh, but don’t she look

good! ‘clah I doan’ know how I’s gwine to wait tell

we gits dah, I’s SO thirsty.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait; and it won’t do you no

good, either, because there 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 like nothing, but never gaining an inch on it

— and all of a sudden it was gone again! Jim staggered, and ‘most fell down. When he got his breath

he says, gasping like a fish:

“Mars Tom, hit’s a GHOS’, dat’s what it is, en I

hopes to goodness we ain’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’s proof. De desert’s ha’nted, it’s ha’nted, sho;

oh, Mars Tom, le”s git outen it; I’d ruther die den

have de night ketch us in it ag’in en de ghos’ er dat

lake come a-mournin’ aroun’ us en we asleep en doan’

know de danger we’s in.”

“Ghost, you gander! It ain’t anything but air and

heat and thirstiness pasted 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, and they’re making a bee-line across

our track for somewheres. They mean business —

maybe they’re going for food or water, or both. Let

her go to starboard! — Port your hellum! Hard down!

There — ease up — steady, as you go.”

We shut down some of the power, so as not to out-speed them, and took out after 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 pretty discouraged, and was thirsty clean to

unendurableness, Tom says:

“Take the glass, one of you, and see what that is,

away ahead of the birds.”

Jim got the first glimpse, and slumped down on the

locker sick. He was most crying, and says:

“She’s dah ag’in, Mars Tom, she’s dah ag’in, en I

knows I’s gwine to die, ‘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, because I knowed it was true, for that

has always been the way with ghosts; so then I

wouldn’t look any more, either. Both of us begged

Tom to turn off and go some other way, but he

wouldn’t, and said we was ignorant superstitious

blatherskites. Yes, and he’ll git come up with, one

of these days, I says to myself, insulting ghosts that

way. They’ll stand it for a while, maybe, but they

won’t stand it always, for anybody that knows about

ghosts knows how easy they are hurt, and how revenge-ful they are.

So we was all quiet and still, Jim and me being

scared, and Tom busy. By and 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 loveliest sight that ever

was. And all about it was grassy banks, and flowers,

and shady groves of big trees, looped together with

vines, and all looking so peaceful and comfortable —

enough to make a body cry, it was so beautiful.

Jim DID cry, and rip and dance and carry on, he was

so thankful and out of his mind for joy. It was my

watch, so I had to stay by the works, but Tom and

Jim clumb down and drunk a barrel apiece, and

fetched me up a lot, and I’ve tasted a many a good

thing in my life, but nothing that ever 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 had a

foot-race and a boxing-mill, and I don’t reckon I ever

had such a good time in my life. It warn’t so very

hot, because it was close on to evening, and we hadn’t

any clothes on, anyway. Clothes is well enough in

school, and in towns, and at balls, too, but there ain’t

no sense in them when there ain’t no civilization nor

other kinds of bothers and fussiness 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 the ladder just so. Jim lost his head

straight off — he always done it whenever he got excited and scared; and so now, ‘stead of just easing the

ladder up from the ground a little, so the animals

couldn’t reach it, he turned on a raft of power, and we

went whizzing up and was dangling in the sky before

he got his wits together and seen what a foolish thing

he was doing. Then he stopped her, but he had clean

forgot what to do next; so there we was, so high that

the lions looked like pups, and we was drifting off on

the wind.

But Tom he shinned up and went for the works and

begun to slant her down, and back toward the lake,

where the animals was gathering like a camp-meeting,

and I judged he had lost HIS head, too; for he knowed

I was too scared to climb, and did he want to dump

me among the tigers and things?

But no, his head was level, he knowed what he was

about. He swooped down to within thirty or forty

feet of the lake, and stopped right over the center, and

sung out:

“Leggo, and drop!”

I done it, and shot down, feet first, and seemed to

go about a mile toward the bottom; and when I come

up, he says:

“Now lay on your back and float till you’re rested

and got your pluck back, 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 started off 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 got tuckered out and fell.

And all this time the lions and tigers was sorting out

the clothes, and trying to divide them up so there

would be some for all, but there was a misunderstand-ing about it somewheres, on account of some of them

trying to hog more than their share; so there was

another insurrection, and you never see anything like

it in the world. There must ‘a’ been fifty of them, all

mixed up together, snorting and roaring and snapping

and biting and tearing, legs and tails in the air, and

you couldn’t tell which was which, and the sand and

fur a-flying. And when they got done, some was

dead. and some was limping off crippled, and the rest

was setting around on the battlefield, some of them

licking their sore places and the others looking up at

us and seemed to be kind of inviting us 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 them was inside of the animals; and

not agreeing with them very well, I don’t reckon, for

there was considerable many brass buttons on them,

and there was knives in the pockets, too, and smoking

tobacco, and nails and chalk and marbles and fish-hooks and things. But I wasn’t caring. All that was

bothering me was, that all we had now was the professor’s clothes, a big enough assortment, but not suit-able to go into company with, if we came across any,

because the britches was as long as tunnels, and the

coats and things according. Still, there was everything

a tailor needed, and Jim was a kind of jack legged

tailor, and he allowed he could soon trim a suit or two

down for us that would answer.

CHAPTER IX.