湯姆歷險記Chapter 9 墳地慘案，波特受過

 Chapter 9
   

    AT half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual. They said
    their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and waited, in restless impatience.
    When it seemed to him that it must be nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This
    was despair. He would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid
    he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark. Everything was dismally
    still. By and by, out of the stillness, little, scarcely preceptible noises began to
    emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old
    beams began to crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were
    abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And now the tiresome
    chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly
    ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom shudder -- it meant that
    somebody's days were numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air, and
    was answered by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last he
    was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to doze, in spite of
    himself; the clock chimed eleven, but he did not hear it. And then there came, mingling
    with his half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a neighboring
    window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the crash of an empty
    bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed brought him wide awake, and a single minute
    later he was dressed and out of the window and creeping along the roof of the
    "ell" on all fours. He "meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he
    went; then jumped to the roof of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn
    was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end
    of half an hour they were wading through the tall grass of the graveyard.

    It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill, about a mile
    and a half from the village. It had a crazy board fence around it, which leaned inward in
    places, and outward the rest of the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew
    rank over the whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a tombstone
    on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over the graves, leaning for
    support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory of" So-and-So had been painted
    on them once, but it could no longer have been read, on the most of them, now, even if
    there had been light.

    A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the spirits of the
    dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked little, and only under their breath,
    for the time and the place and the pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their
    spirits. They found the sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within
    the protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of the grave.

    Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of a distant owl
    was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom's reflections grew oppressive. He
    must force some talk. So he said in a whisper:

    "Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?"

    Huckleberry whispered:

    "I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, AIN'T it?"

    "I bet it is."

    There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter inwardly. Then Tom
    whispered:

    "Say, Hucky -- do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"

    "O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."

    Tom, after a pause:

    "I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody calls him
    Hoss."

    "A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead people,
    Tom."

    This was a damper, and conversation died again.

    Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said:

    "Sh!"

    "What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts.

    ""sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?"

    "I --"

    "There! Now you hear it."

    "Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we do?"

    "I dono. Think they'll see us?"

    "Oh, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn't come."

    "Oh, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll bother us. We ain't doing any harm.
    If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won't notice us at all."

    "I'll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I'm all of a shiver."

    "Listen!"

    The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled sound of voices
    floated up from the far end of the graveyard.

    "Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is it?"

    "It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful."

    Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an old-fashioned tin lantern
    that freckled the ground with innumerable little spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry
    whispered with a shudder:

    "It's the devils sure enough. Three of 'em! Lordy, Tom, we're goners! Can you
    pray?"

    "I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't going to hurt us. 'Now I lay me
    down to sleep, I --'"

    "Sh!"

    "What is it, Huck?"

    "They're humans! One of 'em is, anyway. One of 'em's old Muff Potter's
    voice."

    "No -- 'tain't so, is it?"

    "I bet I know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He ain't sharp enough to notice us.
    Drunk, the same as usual, likely -- blamed old rip!"

    "All right, I'll keep still. Now they're stuck. Can't find it. Here they come
    again. Now they're hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot! They're p'inted right, this time.
    Say, Huck, I know another o' them voices; it's Injun Joe."

    "That's so -- that murderin' half-breed! I'd druther they was devils a dern sight.
    What kin they be up to?"

    The whisper died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the grave and stood
    within a few feet of the boys' hiding-place.

    "Here it is," said the third voice; and the owner of it held the lantern up
    and revealed the face of young Doctor Robinson.

    Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a couple of shovels on
    it. They cast down their load and began to open the grave. The doctor put the lantern at
    the head of the grave and came and sat down with his back against one of the elm trees. He
    was so close the boys could have touched him.

    "Hurry, men!" he said, in a low voice; "the moon might come out at any
    moment."

    They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was no noise but the
    grating sound of the spades discharging their freight of mould and gravel. It was very
    monotonous. Finally a spade struck upon the coffin with a dull woody accent, and within
    another minute or two the men had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid
    with their shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the ground. The moon drifted
    from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face. The barrow was got ready and the
    corpse placed on it, covered with a blanket, and bound to its place with the rope. Potter
    took out a large spring-knife and cut off the dangling end of the rope and then said:

    "Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and you'll just out with another five, or
    here she stays."

    "That's the talk!" said Injun Joe.

    "Look here, what does this mean?" said the doctor. "You required your
    pay in advance, and I've paid you."

    "Yes, and you done more than that," said Injun Joe, approaching the doctor,
    who was now standing. "Five years ago you drove me away from your father's kitchen
    one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and you said I warn't there for any
    good; and when I swore I'd get even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had
    me jailed for a vagrant. Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't in me for
    nothing. And now I've GOT you, and you got to settle, you know!"

    He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time. The doctor
    struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground. Potter dropped his knife, and
    exclaimed:

    "Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had grappled with
    the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, trampling the grass and
    tearing the ground with their heels. Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with
    passion, snatched up Potter's knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping, round and
    round about the combatants, seeking an opportunity. All at once the doctor flung himself
    free, seized the heavy headboard of Williams' grave and felled Potter to the earth with it
    每 and in the same instant the half-breed saw his chance and drove the
    knife to the hilt in the young man's breast. He reeled and fell partly upon Potter,
    flooding him with his blood, and in the same moment the clouds blotted out the dreadful
    spectacle and the two frightened boys went speeding away in the dark.

    Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over the two forms,
    contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately, gave a long gasp or two and was
    still. The half-breed muttered:

    "That score is settled -- damn you."

    Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in Potter's open right
    hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin. Three -- four -- five minutes passed, and
    then Potter began to stir and moan. His hand closed upon the knife; he raised it, glanced
    at it, and let it fall, with a shudder. Then he sat up, pushing the body from him, and
    gazed at it, and then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe's.

    "Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.

    "It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving.

    "What did you do it for?"

    "I! I never done it!"

    "Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."

    Potter trembled and grew white.

    "I thought I'd got sober. I'd no business to drink to-night. But it's in my head
    yet -- worse'n when we started here. I'm all in a muddle; can't recollect anything of it,
    hardly. Tell me, Joe -- honest, now, old feller -- did I do it? Joe, I never meant to --
    'pon my soul and honor, I never meant to, Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe. Oh, it's awful --
    and him so young and promising."

    "Why, you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the headboard and you
    fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and staggering like, and snatched the knife
    and jammed it into him, just as he fetched you another awful clip -- and here you've laid,
    as dead as a wedge til now."

    "Oh, I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish I may die this minute if I did. It
    was all on account of the whiskey and the excitement, I reckon. I never used a weepon in
    my life before, Joe. I've fought, but never with weepons. They'll all say that. Joe, don't
    tell! Say you won't tell, Joe -- that's a good feller. I always liked you, Joe, and stood
    up for you, too. Don't you remember? You won't tell, will you, Joe?" And the poor
    creature dropped on his knees before the stolid murderer, and clasped his appealing hands.

    "No, you've always been fair and square with me, Muff Potter, and I won't go back
    on you. There, now, that's as fair as a man can say."

    "Oh, Joe, you're an angel. I'll bless you for this the longest day I live."
    And Potter began to cry.

    "Come, now, that's enough of that. This ain't any time for blubbering. You be off
    yonder way and I'll go this. Move, now, and don't leave any tracks behind you."

    Potter started on a trot that quickly increased to a run. The half-breed stood looking
    after him. He muttered:

    "If he's as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as he had the look
    of being, he won't think of the knife till he's gone so far he'll be afraid to come back
    after it to such a place by himself -- chicken-heart!"

    Two or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse, the lidless coffin,
    and the open grave were under no inspection but the moon's. The stillness was complete
    again, too.