done it?"
   "Certainly."
   "Who tole him he could?"
   "Nobody. He never asked."
   Jim studied a minute, and says:
   "Well,  dat  do  beat  me.  I  wouldn't 'a' tuck no sich resk. But some
people ain't scared o' nothin'. Dey bangs right ahead; DEY don't care what
happens. So den dey's allays an hour's diff'unce everywhah, Mars Tom?"
   "An  hour?  No!  It's  four  minutes  difference  for  every  degree of
longitude,  you know. Fifteen of 'em's an hour, thirty of 'em's two hours,
and  so  on.  When  it's  one clock Tuesday morning in England, it's eight
o'clock the night before in New York."
   Jim  moved  a  little  way  along  the locker, and you could see he was
insulted.  He  kept shaking his head and muttering, and so I slid along to
him  and  patted  him  on the leg, and petted him up, and got him over the
worst of his feelings, and then he says:
   "Mars  Tom talkin' sich talk as dat! Choosday in one place en Monday in
t'other,  bofe  in  the same day! Huck, dis ain't no place to joke-up here
whah  we  is. Two days in one day! How you gwine to get two days inter one
day?  Can't  git  two hours inter one hour, kin you? Can't git two niggers
inter  one  nigger  skin, kin you? Can't git two gallons of whisky inter a
one-gallon  jug, kin you? No, sir, 'twould strain de jug. Yes, en even den
you  couldn't, I don't believe. Why, looky here, Huck, s'posen de Choosday
was New Year's-now den! is you gwine to tell me it's dis year in one place
en  las'  year  in  t'other,  bofe  in  de  identical same minute? It's de
beatenest  rubbage! I can't stan' it-I can't stan' to hear tell 'bout it."
Then he begun to shiver and turn gray, and Tom says:
   "NOW what's the matter? What's the trouble?"
   Jim could hardly speak, but he says:
   "Mars Tom, you ain't jokin', en it's SO?"
   "No, I'm not, and it is so."
   Jim shivered again, and says:
   "Den dat Monday could be de las' day, en dey wouldn't be no las' day in
England,  en de dead wouldn't be called. We mustn't go over dah, Mars Tom.
Please git him to turn back; I wants to be whah-"
   All  of  a  sudden  we  see  something,  and  all jumped up, and forgot
everything and begun to gaze. Tom says:
   "Ain't that the-" He catched his breath, then says: "It IS, sure as you
live! It's the ocean!"
   That made me and Jim catch our breath, too. Then we all stood petrified
but happy, for none of us had ever seen an ocean, or ever expected to. Tom
kept muttering:
   "Atlantic Ocean-Atlantic. Land, don't it sound great! And that's IT-and
WE are looking at it-we! Why, it's just too splendid to believe!"
   Then we see a big bank of black smoke; and when we got nearer, it was a
city-and  a  monster she was, too, with a thick fringe of ships around one
edge;  and  we  wondered  if it was New York, and begun to jaw and dispute
about  it,  and,  first  we  knowed, it slid from under us and went flying
behind,  and here we was, out over the very ocean itself, and going like a
cyclone. Then we woke up, I tell you!
   We  made  a break aft and raised a wail, and begun to beg the professor
to  turn  back  and  land us, but he jerked out his pistol and motioned us
back, and we went, but nobody will ever know how bad we felt.
   The  land  was gone, all but a little streak, like a snake, away off on
the  edge  of  the  water,  and  down  under  us  was  just  ocean, ocean,
ocean-millions  of  miles  of  it, heaving and pitching and squirming, and
white  sprays  blowing  from the wave-tops, and only a few ships in sight,
wallowing  around  and laying over, first on one side and then on t'other,
and sticking their bows under and then their sterns; and before long there
warn't  no  ships  at  all,  and we had the sky and the whole ocean all to
ourselves, and the roomiest place I ever see and the lonesomest.


        Chapter IV. STORM

   AND  it  got  lonesomer  and lonesomer. There was the big sky up there,
empty  and  awful deep; and the ocean down there without a thing on it but
just the waves. All around us was a ring, where the sky and the water come
together;  yes,  a  monstrous  big  ring  it was, and we right in the dead
center of it-plumb in the center. We was racing along like a prairie fire,
but it never made any difference, we couldn't seem to git past that center
no way. I couldn't see that we ever gained an inch on that ring. It made a
body feel creepy, it was so curious and unaccountable.
   Well,  everything  was  so awful still that we got to talking in a very
low  voice,  and  kept on getting creepier and lonesomer and less and less
talky, till at last the talk ran dry altogether, and we just set there and
"thunk," as Jim calls it, and never said a word the longest time.
   The professor never stirred till the sun was overhead, then he stood up
and  put  a kind of triangle to his eye, and Tom said it was a sextant and
he was taking the sun to see whereabouts the balloon was. Then he ciphered
a  little  and  looked  in a book, and then he begun to carry on again. He
said lots of wild things, and, among others, he said he would keep up this
hundred-mile  gait  till  the middle of to-morrow afternoon, and then he'd
land in London.
   We said we would be humbly thankful.
   He  was turning away, but he whirled around when we said that, and give
us  a  long  look  of  his  blackest  kind-one  of  the  maliciousest  and
suspiciousest looks I ever see. Then he says:
   "You want to leave me. Don't try to deny it."
   We didn't know what to say, so we held in and didn't say nothing at all.
   He went aft and set down, but he couldn't seem to git that thing out of
his  mind. Every now and then he would rip out something about it, and try
to make us answer him, but we dasn't.
   It  got  lonesomer  and  lonesomer right along, and it did seem to me I
couldn't  stand it. It was still worse when night begun to come on. By and
by Tom pinched me and whispers:
   "Look!"
   I  took  a  glance  aft,  and  see the professor taking a whet out of a
bottle.  I didn't like the looks of that. By and by he took another drink,
and  pretty  soon he begun to sing. It was dark now, and getting black and
stormy.  He  went  on singing, wilder and wilder, and the thunder begun to
mutter, and the wind to wheeze and moan among the ropes, and altogether it
was  awful.  It  got  so black we couldn't see him any more, and wished we
couldn't  hear  him,  but we could. Then he got still; but he warn't still
ten minutes till we got suspicious, and wished he would start up his noise
again,  so  we  could  tell  where  he was. By and by there was a flash of
lightning, and we see him start to get up, but he staggered and fell down.
We heard him scream out in the dark:
   "They  don't  want to go to England. All right, I'll change the course.
They want to leave me. I know they do. Well, they shall-and NOW!"
   I 'most died when he said that. Then he was still again-still so long I
couldn't  bear  it, and it did seem to me the lightning wouldn't EVER come
again.  But  at  last  there was a blessed flash, and there he was, on his
hands  and knees crawling, and not four feet from us. My, but his eyes was
terrible!  He  made  a lunge for Tom, and says, "Overboard YOU go!" but it
was  already  pitch-dark  again,  and I couldn't see whether he got him or
not, and Tom didn't make a sound.
   There  was  another  long, horrible wait; then there was a flash, and I
see  Tom's  head  sink  down outside the boat and disappear. He was on the
rope-ladder  that  dangled  down in the air from the gunnel. The professor
let  off  a  shout  and jumped for him, and straight off it was pitch-dark
again,  and Jim groaned out, "Po' Mars Tom, he's a goner!" and made a jump
for the professor, but the professor warn't there.
   Then  we  heard  a  couple of terrible screams, and then another not so
loud,  and  then another that was 'way below, and you could only JUST hear
it; and I heard Jim say, "Po' Mars Tom!"
   Then  it  was awful still, and I reckon a person could 'a' counted four
thousand  before the next flash come. When it come I see Jim on his knees,
with  his  arms  on  the  locker  and  his face buried in them, and he was
crying. Before I could look over the edge it was all dark again, and I was
glad,  because  I  didn't want to see. But when the next flash come, I was
watching,  and  down  there  I  see somebody a-swinging in the wind on the
ladder, and it was Tom!
   "Come up!" I shouts; "come up, Tom!"
   His voice was so weak, and the wind roared so, I couldn't make out what
he said, but I thought he asked was the professor up there. I shouts:
   "No, he's down in the ocean! Come up! Can we help you?"
   Of course, all this in the dark.
   "Huck, who is you hollerin' at?"
   "I'm hollerin' at Tom."
   "Oh, Huck, how kin you act so, when you know po' Mars Tom-" Then he let
off  an  awful  scream,  and  flung his head and his arms back and let off
another  one, because there was a white glare just then, and he had raised
up  his  face  just in time to see Tom's, as white as snow, rise above the
gunnel  and  look him right in the eye. He thought it was Tom's ghost, you
see.
   Tom  clumb aboard, and when Jim found it WAS him, and not his ghost, he
hugged  him, and called him all sorts of loving names, and carried on like
he was gone crazy, he was so glad. Says I:
   "What did you wait for, Tom? Why didn't you come up at first?"
   "I  dasn't,  Huck. I knowed somebody plunged down past me, but I didn't
know  who  it  was  in  the dark. It could 'a' been you, it could 'a' been
Jim."
   That was the way with Tom Sawyer-always sound. He warn't coming up till
he knowed where the professor was.
   The  storm  let  go  about  this  time  with  all its might; and it was
dreadful  the  way  the  thunder boomed and tore, and the lightning glared
out,  and  the  wind  sung  and screamed in the rigging, and the rain come
down.  One  second you couldn't see your hand before you, and the next you
could count the threads in your coatsleeve, and see a whole wide desert of
waves  pitching  and  tossing through a kind of veil of rain. A storm like
that  is  the  loveliest thing there is, but it ain't at its best when you
are  up  in  the sky and lost, and it's wet and lonesome, and there's just
been a death in the family.
   We  set  there  huddled  up  in  the bow, and talked low about the poor
professor;  and  everybody was sorry for him, and sorry the world had made
fun  of him and treated him so harsh, when he was doing the best he could,
and hadn't a friend nor nobody to encourage him and keep him from brooding
his mind away and going deranged. There was plenty of clothes and blankets
and  everything at the other end, but we thought we'd ruther take the rain
than go meddling back there.


        Chapter V. LAND

   WE  tried  to make some plans, but we couldn't come to no agreement. Me
and  Jim  was for turning around and going back home, but Tom allowed that
by  the  time  daylight  come, so we could see our way, we would be so far
toward  England  that  we might as well go there, and come back in a ship,
and have the glory of saying we done it.
   About  midnight  the  storm  quit  and the moon come out and lit up the
ocean, and we begun to feel comfortable and drowsy; so we stretched out on
the  lockers  and  went to sleep, and never woke up again till sun-up. The
sea  was sparkling like di'monds, and it was nice weather, and pretty soon
our things was all dry again.
   We  went aft to find some breakfast, and the first thing we noticed was
that  there  was a dim light burning in a compass back there under a hood.
Then Tom was disturbed. He says:
   "You  know what that means, easy enough. It means that somebody has got
to  stay  on  watch  and  steer this thing the same as he would a ship, or
she'll wander around and go wherever the wind wants her to."
   "Well,"  I  says,  "what's  she  been  doing  since-er-since we had the
accident?"
   "Wandering,"  he  says, kinder troubled-" wandering, without any doubt.
She's  in  a  wind now that's blowing her south of east. We don't know how
long that's been going on, either."
   So  then  he p'inted her east, and said he would hold her there till we
rousted  out  the  breakfast.  The professor had laid in everything a body
could  want;  he  couldn't 'a' been better fixed. There wasn't no milk for
the coffee, but there was water, and everything else you could want, and a
charcoal  stove  and the fixings for it, and pipes and cigars and matches;
and  wine  and  liquor, which warn't in our line; and books, and maps, and
charts,  and  an accordion; and furs, and blankets, and no end of rubbish,
like brass beads and brass jewelry, which Tom said was a sure sign that he
had  an  idea  of  visiting  among savages. There was money, too. Yes, the
professor was well enough fixed.
   After breakfast Tom learned me and Jim how to steer, and divided us all
up into four-hour watches, turn and turn about; and when his watch was out
I took his place, and he got out the professor's papers and pens and wrote
a  letter home to his aunt Polly, telling her everything that had happened
to  us,  and  dated it "IN THE WELKIN, APPROACHING ENGLAND," and folded it
together  and  stuck  it fast with a red wafer, and directed it, and wrote
above  the direction, in big writing, "FROM TOM SAWYER, THE ERRONORT," and
said it would stump old Nat Parsons, the postmaster, when it come along in
the mail. I says:
   "Tom Sawyer, this ain't no welkin, it's a balloon."
   "Well, now, who SAID it was a welkin, smarty?"
   "You've wrote it on the letter, anyway."
   "What of it? That don't mean that the balloon's the welkin."
   "Oh, I thought it did. Well, then, what is a welkin?"
   I  see  in  a  minute  he was stuck. He raked and scraped around in his
mind, but he couldn't find nothing, so he had to say:
   "I  don't  know,  and  nobody  don't know. It's just a word, and it's a
mighty good word, too. There ain't many that lays over it. I don't believe
there's ANY that does."
   "Shucks!" I says. "But what does it MEAN?-that's the p'int. "
   "I  don't  know what it means, I tell you. It's a word that people uses
for-for-well, it's ornamental. They don't put ruffles on a shirt to keep a
person warm, do they?"
   "Course they don't."
   "But they put them ON, don't they?"
   "Yes."
   "All  right, then; that letter I wrote is a shirt, and the welkin's the
ruffle on it."
   I judged that that would gravel Jim, and it did.
   "Now,  Mars  Tom,  it ain't no use to talk like dat; en, moreover, it's
sinful.  You knows a letter ain't no shirt, en dey ain't no ruffles on it,
nuther.  Dey  ain't  no  place to put 'em on; you can't put em on, and dey
wouldn't stay ef you did."
   "Oh  DO  shut  up,  and  wait  till  something's  started that you know
something about."
   "Why,  Mars Tom, sholy you can't mean to say I don't know about shirts,
when, goodness knows, I's toted home de washin' ever sence-"
   "I tell you, this hasn't got anything to do with shirts. I only-"
   "Why, Mars Tom, you said yo'self dat a letter-"
   "Do  you  want  to  drive  me  crazy?  Keep  still. I only used it as a
metaphor."
   That  word  kinder  bricked  us  up  for a minute. Then Jim says-rather
timid, because he see Tom was getting pretty tetchy:
   "Mars Tom, what is a metaphor?"
   "A  metaphor's  a-well,  it's a-a-a metaphor's an illustration." He see
THAT  didn't  git  home, so he tried again. "When I say birds of a feather
flocks together, it's a metaphorical way of saying-"
   "But  dey  DON'T,  Mars  Tom.  No,  sir,  'deed dey don't. Dey ain't no
feathers  dat's  more  alike den a bluebird en a jaybird, but ef you waits
till you catches dem birds together, you'll-"
   "Oh,  give  us  a rest! You can't get the simplest little thing through
your thick skull. Now don't bother me any more."
   Jim  was  satisfied  to  stop. He was dreadful pleased with himself for
catching Tom out. The minute Tom begun to talk about birds I judged he was
a goner, because Jim knowed more about birds than both of us put together.
You  see,  he had killed hundreds and hundreds of them, and that's the way
to  find  out  about  birds.  That's the way people does that writes books
about  birds,  and loves them so that they'll go hungry and tired and take
any  amount  of  trouble  to  find  a  new bird and kill it. Their name is
ornithologers,  and  I  could  have been an ornithologer myself, because I
always  loved  birds  and  creatures; and I started out to learn how to be
one,  and  I see a bird setting on a limb of a high tree, singing with its
head tilted back and its mouth open, and before I thought I fired, and his
song stopped and he fell straight down from the limb, all limp like a rag,
and  I  run and picked him up and he was dead, and his body was warm in my
hand,  and  his  head  rolled  about  this way and that, like his neck was
broke,  and  there  was  a little white skin over his eyes, and one little
drop  of  blood on the side of his head; and, laws! I couldn't see nothing
more  for  the  tears;  and I hain't never murdered no creature since that
warn't doing me no harm, and I ain't going to.
   But  I  was  aggravated  about that welkin. I wanted to know. I got the
subject  up again, and then Tom explained, the best he could. He said when
a  person  made  a big speech the newspapers said the shouts of the people
made the welkin ring. He said they always said that, but none of them ever
told  what it was, so he allowed it just meant outdoors and up high. Well,
that seemed sensible enough, so I was satisfied, and said so. That pleased
Tom and put him in a good humor again, and he says:
   "Well,  it's all right, then; and we'll let bygones be bygones. I don't
know  for  certain what a welkin is, but when we land in London we'll make
it ring, anyway, and don't you forget it."
   He  said  an  erronort  was a person who sailed around in balloons; and
said  it was a mighty sight finer to be Tom Sawyer the Erronort than to be
Tom  Sawyer the Traveler, and we would be heard of all round the world, if
we  pulled  through  all  right,  and  so  he wouldn't give shucks to be a
traveler now.
   Toward the middle of the afternoon we got everything ready to land, and
we  felt  pretty  good,  too,  and  proud;  and  we kept watching with the
glasses,  like  Columbus  discovering America. But we couldn't see nothing
but ocean. The afternoon wasted out and the sun shut down, and still there
warn't no land anywheres. We wondered what was the matter, but reckoned it
would  come  out  all right, so we went on steering east, but went up on a
higher level so we wouldn't hit any steeples or mountains in the dark.
   It  was  my  watch till midnight, and then it was Jim's; but Tom stayed
up, because he said ship captains done that when they was making the land,
and didn't stand no regular watch.
   Well, when daylight come, Jim give a shout, and we jumped up and looked
over,  and  there  was the land sure enough-land all around, as far as you
could  see,  and  perfectly level and yaller. We didn't know how long we'd
been  over it. There warn't no trees, nor hills, nor rocks, nor towns, and
Tom  and  Jim  had took it for the sea. They took it for the sea in a dead
ca'm;  but  we  was  so  high  up, anyway, that if it had been the sea and
rough, it would 'a' looked smooth, all the same, in the night, that way.
   We  was  all  in a powerful excitement now, and grabbed the glasses and
hunted  everywheres for London, but couldn't find hair nor hide of it, nor
any  other  settlement-nor  any sign of a lake or a river, either. Tom was
clean  beat.  He  said it warn't his notion of England; he thought England
looked  like  America, and always had that idea. So he said we better have
breakfast,  and  then drop down and inquire the quickest way to London. We
cut  the  breakfast pretty short, we was so impatient. As we slanted along
down, the weather began to moderate, and pretty soon we shed our furs. But
it  kept  ON  moderating,  and in a precious little while it was 'most too
moderate. We was close down now, and just blistering!
   We  settled down to within thirty foot of the land-that is, it was land
if  sand is land; for this wasn't anything but pure sand. Tom and me clumb
down  the  ladder  and took a run to stretch our legs, and it felt amazing
good-that  is, the stretching did, but the sand scorched our feet like hot
embers.  Next,  we  see  somebody  coming, and started to meet him; but we
heard  Jim  shout, and looked around and he was fairly dancing, and making
signs,  and  yelling. We couldn't make out what he said, but we was scared
anyway,  and  begun  to  heel  it  back  to the balloon. When we got close
enough, we understood the words, and they made me sick:
   "Run! Run fo' yo' life! Hit's a lion; I kin see him thoo de glass! Run,
boys;  do please heel it de bes' you kin. He's bu'sted outen de menagerie,
en dey ain't nobody to stop him!"
   It made Tom fly, but it took the stiffening all out of my legs. I could
only  just  gasp  along  the  way  you  do in a dream when there's a ghost
gaining on you.
   Tom  got to the ladder and shinned up it a piece and waited for me; and
as  soon as I got a foothold on it he shouted to Jim to soar away. But Jim
had  clean lost his head, and said he had forgot how. So Tom shinned along
up  and  told  me  to  follow;  but the lion was arriving, fetching a most
ghastly  roar  with  every lope, and my legs shook so I dasn't try to take
one  of them out of the rounds for fear the other one would give way under
me.
   But  Tom  was  aboard  by  this  time,  and he started the balloon up a
little,  and  stopped it again as soon as the end of the ladder was ten or
twelve  feet  above ground. And there was the lion, a-ripping around under
me,  and  roaring  and  springing  up  in  the air at the ladder, and only
missing  it  about a quarter of an inch, it seemed to me. It was delicious
to  be  out  of  his reach, perfectly delicious, and made me feel good and
thankful  all  up  one side; but I was hanging there helpless and couldn't
climb, and that made me feel perfectly wretched and miserable all down the
other. It is most seldom that a person feels so mixed like that; and it is
not to be recommended, either.
   Tom  asked  me what he'd better do, but I didn't know. He asked me if I
could  hold  on  whilst  he  sailed away to a safe place and left the lion
behind.  I  said I could if he didn't go no higher than he was now; but if
he  went  higher  I would lose my head and fall, sure. So he said, "Take a
good grip," and he started.
   "Don't go so fast," I shouted. "It makes my head swim."
   He  had started like a lightning express. He slowed down, and we glided
over  the  sand  slower,  but  still in a kind of sickening way; for it IS
uncomfortable  to  see things sliding and gliding under you like that, and
not a sound.
   But  pretty  soon  there was plenty of sound, for the lion was catching
up.  His  noise fetched others. You could see them coming on the lope from
every direction, and pretty soon there was a couple of dozen of them under
me,  jumping up at the ladder and snarling and snapping at each other; and
so we went skimming along over the sand, and these fellers doing what they
could  to  help  us to not forgit the occasion; and then some other beasts
come,  without  an  invite, and they started a regular riot down there. We
see  this  plan was a mistake. We couldn't ever git away from them at this
gait,  and  I  couldn't  hold  on forever. So Tom took a think, and struck
another  idea.  That was, to kill a lion with the pepper-box revolver, and
then  sail  away while the others stopped to fight over the carcass. So he
stopped  the  balloon still, and done it, and then we sailed off while the
fuss  was going on, and come down a quarter of a mile off, and they helped
me  aboard;  but  by  the time we was out of reach again, that gang was on
hand once more. And when they see we was really gone and they couldn't get
us,  they  sat  down  on  their  hams  and  looked  up  at  us  so kind of
disappointed  that  it  was  as much as a person could do not to see THEIR
side of the matter.


        Chapter VI. IT'S A CARAVAN

   I WAS so weak that the only thing I wanted was a chance to lay down, so
I  made straight for my locker-bunk, and stretched myself out there. But a
body  couldn't  get back his strength in no such oven as that, so Tom give
the command to soar, and Jim started her aloft.
   We  had  to  go up a mile before we struck comfortable weather where it
was breezy and pleasant and just right, and pretty soon I was all straight
again.  Tom  had  been setting quiet and thinking; but now he jumps up and
says:
   "I  bet  you  a thousand to one I know where we are. We're in the Great
Sahara, as sure as guns!"
   He was so excited he couldn't hold still; but I wasn't. I says:
   "Well, then, where's the Great Sahara? In England or in Scotland?"
   "'Tain't in either; it's in Africa."
   Jim's  eyes  bugged  out,  and  he  begun  to stare down with no end of
interest,  because  that  was  where his originals come from; but I didn't
more  than  half believe it. I couldn't, you know; it seemed too awful far
away for us to have traveled.
   But  Tom was full of his discovery, as he called it, and said the lions
and the sand meant the Great Desert, sure. He said he could 'a' found out,
before  we  sighted  land, that we was crowding the land somewheres, if he
had thought of one thing; and when we asked him what, he said:
   "These  clocks. They're chronometers. You always read about them in sea
voyages.  One  of  them is keeping Grinnage time, and the other is keeping
St.  Louis  time, like my watch. When we left St. Louis it was four in the
afternoon  by  my  watch  and  this clock, and it was ten at night by this
Grinnage clock. Well, at this time of the year the sun sets at about seven
o'clock.  Now I noticed the time yesterday evening when the sun went down,
and  it was half-past five o'clock by the Grinnage clock, and half past 11
A.M.  by my watch and the other clock. You see, the sun rose and set by my
watch  in  St. Louis, and the Grinnage clock was six hours fast; but we've
come so far east that it comes within less than half an hour of setting by
the  Grinnage  clock now, and I'm away out-more than four hours and a half
out.  You  see,  that  meant  that  we  was closing up on the longitude of
Ireland,  and would strike it before long if we was p'inted right-which we
wasn't. No, sir, we've been a-wandering-wandering 'way down south of east,
and  it's  my  opinion we are in Africa. Look at this map. You see how the
shoulder  of Africa sticks out to the west. Think how fast we've traveled;
if  we  had gone straight east we would be long past England by this time.
You watch for noon, all of you, and we'll stand up, and when we can't cast
a  shadow  we'll  find  that this Grinnage clock is coming mighty close to
marking twelve. Yes, sir, I think we're in Africa; and it's just bully."
   Jim was gazing down with the glass. He shook his head and says:
   "Mars  Tom,  I  reckon dey's a mistake som'er's. hain't seen no niggers
yit."
   "That's  nothing; they don't live in the desert. What is that, 'way off
yonder? Gimme a glass."
   He  took  a  long  look,  and said it was like a black string stretched
across the sand, but he couldn't guess what it was.
   "Well,"  I  says,  "I  reckon maybe you've got a chance now to find out
whereabouts  this  balloon is, because as like as not that is one of these
lines  here,  that's on the map, that you call meridians of longitude, and
we can drop down and look at its number, and-"
   "Oh,  shucks,  Huck  Finn,  I never see such a lunkhead as you. Did you
s'pose there's meridians of longitude on the EARTH?"
   "Tom  Sawyer,  they're  set  down on the map, and you know it perfectly
well, and here they are, and you can see for yourself."
   "Of  course  they're on the map, but that's nothing; there ain't any on
the GROUND."
   "Tom, do you know that to be so?"
   "Certainly I do."
   "Well,  then,  that map's a liar again. I never see such a liar as that
map."
   He  fired  up at that, and I was ready for him, and Jim was warming his
opinion, too, and next minute we'd 'a' broke loose on another argument, if
Tom hadn't dropped the glass and begun to clap his hands like a maniac and
sing out:
   "Camels!-Camels!"
   So  I  grabbed  a  glass  and  Jim,  too,  and  took  a look, but I was
disappointed, and says:
   "Camels your granny; they're spiders."
   "Spiders  in  a  desert, you shad? Spiders walking in a procession? You
don't  ever  reflect,  Huck  Finn,  and  I  reckon  you really haven't got
anything to reflect WITH. Don't you know we're as much as a mile up in the
air, and that that string of crawlers is two or three miles away? Spiders,
good land! Spiders as big as a cow? Perhaps you'd like to go down and milk
one of 'em. But they're camels, just the same. It's a caravan, that's what
it is, and it's a mile long."
   "Well,  then,  let's go down and look at it. I don't believe in it, and
ain't going to till I see it and know it."
   "All right," he says, and give the command:
   "Lower away."
   As we come slanting down into the hot weather, we could see that it was
camels,  sure  enough, plodding along, an everlasting string of them, with
bales strapped to them, and several hundred men in long white robes, and a
thing  like  a  shawl bound over their heads and hanging down with tassels
and  fringes;  and some of the men had long guns and some hadn't, and some
was  riding  and  some  was  walking.  And  the weatherJ-well, it was just
roasting. And how slow they did creep along! We swooped down now, all of a
sudden, and stopped about a hundred yards over their heads.
   The  men  all  set  up  a  yell,  and  some  of them fell flat on their
stomachs,  some  begun  to  fire  their guns at us, and the rest broke and
scampered every which way, and so did the camels.
   We see that we was making trouble, so we went up again about a mile, to
the cool weather, and watched them from there. It took them an hour to get
together  and  form  the procession again; then they started along, but we
could  see  by  the  glasses  that  they  wasn't  paying much attention to
anything  but  us.  We poked along, looking down at them with the glasses,
and by and by we see a big sand mound, and something like people the other
side  of it, and there was something like a man laying on top of the mound
that  raised his head up every now and then, and seemed to be watching the
caravan or us, we didn't know which. As the caravan got nearer, he sneaked
down  on the other side and rushed to the other men and horses-for that is
what  they was-and we see them mount in a hurry; and next, here they come,
like  a  house afire, some with lances and some with long guns, and all of
them yelling the best they could.
   They  come  a-tearing  down on to the caravan, and the next minute both
sides  crashed  together  and was all mixed up, and there was such another
popping  of  guns as you never heard, and the air got so full of smoke you
could only catch glimpses of them struggling together. There must 'a' been
six  hundred  men  in  that  battle, and it was terrible to see. Then they
broke up into gangs and groups, fighting tooth and nail, and scurrying and
scampering  around,  and  laying  into  each  other  like  everything; and
whenever  the smoke cleared a little you could see dead and wounded people
and  camels scattered far and wide and all about, and camels racing off in
every direction.
   At  last  the  robbers  see they couldn't win, so their chief sounded a
signal,  and  all  that  was  left  of them broke away and went scampering
across  the  plain.  The last man to go snatched up a child and carried it
off  in  front  of him on his horse, and a woman run screaming and begging
after  him,  and  followed  him  away  off  across  the plain till she was
separated  a  long ways from her people; but it warn't no use, and she had
to  give  it  up,  and we see her sink down on the sand and cover her face
with  her hands. Then Tom took the hellum, and started for that yahoo, and
we  come  a-whizzing  down  and  made  a swoop, and knocked him out of the
saddle,  child  and  all;  and  he  was jarred considerable, but the child
wasn't  hurt,  but laid there working its hands and legs in the air like a
tumble-bug that's on its back and can't turn over. The man went staggering
off  to  overtake  his horse, and didn't know what had hit him, for we was
three or four hundred yards up in the air by this time.
   We  judged the woman would go and get the child now; but she didn't. We
could see her, through the glass, still setting there, with her head bowed
down  on  her  knees;  so  of  course she hadn't seen the performance, and
thought  her  child  was  clean gone with the man. She was nearly a half a
mile  from  her people, so we thought we might go down to the child, which
was  about  a quarter of a mile beyond her, and snake it to her before the
caravan people could git to us to do us any harm; and besides, we reckoned
they  had  enough  business on their hands for one while, anyway, with the
wounded.  We  thought  we'd  chance  it,  and  we did. We swooped down and
stopped, and Jim shinned down the ladder and fetched up the kid, which was
a  nice  fat  little thing, and in a noble good humor, too, considering it
was  just  out  of  a  battle and been tumbled off of a horse; and then we
started for the mother, and stopped back of her and tolerable near by, and
Jim  slipped down and crept up easy, and when he was close back of her the
child  goo-goo'd,  the way a child does, and she heard it, and whirled and
fetched  a  shriek of joy, and made a jump for the kid and snatched it and
hugged  it,  and  dropped  it and hugged Jim, and then snatched off a gold
chain  and  hung it around Jim's neck, and hugged him again, and jerked up
the  child again, a-sobbing and glorifying all the time; and Jim he shoved
for  the  ladder  and up it, and in a minute we was back up in the sky and
the  woman was staring up, with the back of her head between her shoulders
and  the  child with its arms locked around her neck. And there she stood,
as long as we was in sight a-sailing away in the sky.


        Chapter VII. TOM RESPECTS THE FLEA

   "NOON!" says Tom, and so it was. His shadder was just a blot around his
feet.  We  looked,  and  the  Grinnage  clock  was  so close to twelve the
difference didn't amount to nothing. So Tom said London was right north of
us  or  right  south of us, one or t'other, and he reckoned by the weather
and  the  sand  and  the camels it was north; and a good many miles north,
too; as many as from New York to the city of Mexico, he guessed.
   Jim said he reckoned a balloon was a good deal the fastest thing in the
world,  unless  it might be some kinds of birds-a wild pigeon, maybe, or a
railroad.
   But  Tom  said  he  had  read about railroads in England going nearly a
hundred miles an hour for a little ways, and there never was a bird in the
world that could do that-except one, and that was a flea.
   "A  flea?  Why,  Mars  Tom,  in de fust place he ain't a bird, strickly
speakin'-"
   "He ain't a bird, eh? Well, then, what is he?"
   "I  don't rightly know, Mars Tom, but I speck he's only jist a' animal.
No,  I  reckon dat won't do, nuther, he ain't big enough for a' animal. He
mus' be a bug. Yassir, dat's what he is, he's a bug."
   "I bet he ain't, but let it go. What's your second place?"
   "Well, in de second place, birds is creturs dat goes a long ways, but a
flea don't."
   "He don't, don't he? Come, now, what IS a long distance, if you know?"
   "Why, it's miles, and lots of 'em-anybody knows dat."
   "Can't a man walk miles?"
   "Yassir, he kin."
   "As many as a railroad?"
   "Yassir, if you give him time."
   "Can't a flea?"
   "Well-I s'pose so-ef you gives him heaps of time."
   "Now  you  begin  to  see,  don't you, that DISTANCE ain't the thing to
judge  by,  at  all;  it's  the  time  it takes to go the distance IN that
COUNTS, ain't it?"
   "Well, hit do look sorter so, but I wouldn't 'a' b'lieved it, Mars Tom."
   "It's  a  matter of PROPORTION, that's what it is; and when you come to
gauge a thing's speed by its size, where's your bird and your man and your
railroad,  alongside  of a flea? The fastest man can't run more than about
ten  miles in an hour-not much over ten thousand times his own length. But
all the books says any common ordinary third-class flea can jump a hundred
and  fifty  times his own length; yes, and he can make five jumps a second
too-seven hundred and fifty times his own length, in one little second-for
he don't fool away any time stopping and starting-he does them both at the
same  time; you'll see, if you try to put your finger on him. Now that's a
common,  ordinary,  third-class  flea's  gait;  but  you take an Eyetalian
FIRST-class,  that's been the pet of the nobility all his life, and hasn't
ever  knowed  what  want or sickness or exposure was, and he can jump more
than three hundred times his own length, and keep it up all day, five such
jumps  every  second, which is fifteen hundred times his own length. Well,
suppose  a  man  could  go  fifteen  hundred  times  his  own  length in a
second-say,  a  mile  and  a  half.  It's  ninety  miles  a  minute;  it's
considerable  more  than  five  thousand  miles  an hour. Where's your man
NOW?-yes,  and  your bird, and your railroad, and your balloon? Laws, they
don't  amount to shucks 'longside of a flea. A flea is just a comet b'iled
down small."
   Jim was a good deal astonished, and so was I. Jim said:
   "Is dem figgers jist edjackly true, en no jokin' en no lies, Mars Tom?"
   "Yes, they are; they're perfectly true."
   "Well,  den,  honey,  a  body's  got  to respec' a flea. I ain't had no
respec'  for um befo', sca'sely, but dey ain't no gittin' roun' it, dey do
deserve it, dat's certain."
   "Well,  I bet they do. They've got ever so much more sense, and brains,
and  brightness, in proportion to their size, than any other cretur in the
world.  A  person can learn them 'most anything; and they learn it quicker
than  any  other cretur, too. They've been learnt to haul little carriages
in  harness,  and  go  this  way and that way and t'other way according to
their  orders;  yes,  and  to  march  and drill like soldiers, doing it as
exact, according to orders, as soldiers does it. They've been learnt to do
all  sorts  of  hard  and troublesome things. S'pose you could cultivate a
flea up to the size of a man, and keep his natural smartness a-growing and
a-growing right along up, bigger and bigger, and keener and keener, in the
same  proportion-where'd the human race be, do you reckon? That flea would
be  President  of  the United States, and you couldn't any more prevent it
than you can prevent lightning."
   "My  lan',  Mars  Tom,  I never knowed dey was so much TO de beas'. No,
sir, I never had no idea of it, and dat's de fac'."
   "There's  more  to  him,  by  a  long sight, than there is to any other
cretur,  man  or  beast, in proportion to size. He's the interestingest of
them  all.  People  have  so  much  to say about an ant's strength, and an
elephant's,  and  a locomotive's. Shucks, they don't begin with a flea. He
can  lift  two or three hundred times his own weight. And none of them can
come  anywhere  near it. And, moreover, he has got notions of his own, and
is very particular, and you can't fool him; his instinct, or his judgment,
or  whatever  it  is,  is perfectly sound and clear, and don't ever make a
mistake. People think all humans are alike to a flea. It ain't so. There's
folks  that  he  won't go near, hungry or not hungry, and I'm one of them.
I've never had one of them on me in my life."
   "Mars Tom!"
   "It's so; I ain't joking."
   "Well,  sah,  I  hain't ever heard de likes o' dat befo'." Jim couldn't
believe  it,  and I couldn't; so we had to drop down to the sand and git a
supply  and  see. Tom was right. They went for me and Jim by the thousand,
but not a one of them lit on Tom. There warn't no explaining it, but there
it  was  and there warn't no getting around it. He said it had always been
just  so,  and  he'd  just as soon be where there was a million of them as
not; they'd never touch him nor bother him.
   We  went  up to the cold weather to freeze 'em out, and stayed a little
spell,  and  then  come  back  to the comfortable weather and went lazying
along twenty or twenty-five miles an hour, the way we'd been doing for the
last  few  hours.  The  reason was, that the longer we was in that solemn,
peaceful  desert,  the more the hurry and fuss got kind of soothed down in
us,  and  the  more happier and contented and sat