Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to come along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft; but just then I heard a voice wail out and say:
“Oh, please don’t, boys; I swear I won’t ever tell!”
Another voice said, pretty loud:
“It’s a lie, Jim Turner. You’ve acted this way before. You always want more’n your share of the truck, and you’ve always got it, too, because you’ve swore ’t if you didn’t you’d tell. But this time you’ve said it jest one time too many[112]. You’re the meanest, treacherousest hound in this country.”
By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn’t back out now, and so I won’t either; I’m a-going to see what’s going on here. So I dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in the dark till there warn’t but one stateroom betwixt me and the cross-hall of the texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol. This one kept pointing the pistol at the man’s head on the floor, and saying:
“I’d LIKE to! And I orter, too – a mean skunk!”
The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, “Oh, please don’t, Bill; I hain’t ever goin’ to tell.”
And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say:
“’Deed you AIN’T! You never said no truer thing ’n that, you bet you.” And once he said: “Hear him beg![113] and yit if we hadn’t got the best of him and tied him he’d a killed us both. And what FOR? Jist for noth’n. Jist because we stood on our RIGHTS – that’s what for. But I lay you ain’t a-goin’ to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put UP that pistol, Bill.”
Bill says:
“I don’t want to, Jake Packard. I’m for killin’ him – and didn’t he kill old Hatfield jist the same way – and don’t he deserve it?”
“But I don’t WANT him killed, and I’ve got my reasons for it.”
“Bless yo’ heart for them words, Jake Packard! I’ll never forgit you long’s I live!” says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didn’t take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn’t make very good time; so to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. The man came a-pawing along in the dark[114], and when Packard got to my stateroom, he says:
“Here – come in here.”
And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there, with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn’t see them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky they’d been having. I was glad I didn’t drink whisky; but it wouldn’t made much difference anyway, because most of the time they couldn’t a treed me because I didn’t breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body COULDN’T breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:
“He’s said he’ll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares to him NOW it wouldn’t make no difference after the row and the way we’ve served him. Shore’s you’re born, he’ll turn State’s evidence[115]; now you hear ME. I’m for putting him out of his troubles.”
“So’m I,” says Packard, very quiet.
“Blame it, I’d sorter begun to think you wasn’t. Well, then, that’s all right. Le’s go and do it.”
“Hold on a minute; I hain’t had my say yit. You listen to me. Shooting’s good, but there’s quieter ways if the thing’s GOT to be done. But what I say is this: it ain’t good sense to go court’n around after a halter if you can git at what you’re up to in some way that’s jist as good and at the same time don’t bring you into no resks. Ain’t that so?”
“You bet it is. But how you goin’ to manage it this time?”
“Well, my idea is this: we’ll rustle around and gather up whatever pickins we’ve overlooked in the staterooms[116], and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then we’ll wait. Now I say it ain’t a-goin’ to be more’n two hours befo’ this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? He’ll be drownded, and won’t have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that’s a considerble sight better ’n killin’ of him. I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’ it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals. Ain’t I right?”
“Yes, I reck’n you are. But s’pose she DON’T break up and wash off?”
“Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can’t we?”
“All right, then; come along.”
So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there[117]; but I said, in a kind of a coarse whisper, “Jim!” and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says:
“Quick, Jim, it ain’t no time for fooling around and moaning; there’s a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don’t hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can’t get away from the wreck there’s one of ’em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat we can put ALL of ’em in a bad fix – for the sheriff ’ll get ’em. Quick – hurry! I’ll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and —”
“Oh, my lordy, lordy! RAF’? Dey ain’ no raf’ no mo’; she done broke loose en gone – en here we is!”
Chapter XIII
Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warn’t no time to be sentimentering. We’d GOT to find that boat now – had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too – seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn’t believe he could go any further – so scared he hadn’t hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone[118]; but he jerked it in again, and says:
“Heave that blame lantern out o’ sight, Bill!”
He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and set down. It was Packard. Then Bill HE come out and got in. Packard says, in a low voice:
“All ready – shove off[119]!”
I couldn’t hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:
“Hold on – ’d you go through him?”
“No.