"Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer, Detective (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

man coming, away off, that had a gait like Hal Clayton's, and it made me
just sick. I says to myself, if he finds out I'm aboard this boat, he's
got me like a rat in a trap. All he's got to do is to have me watched, and
wait-wait till I slip ashore, thinking he is a thousand miles away, then
slip after me and dog me to a good place and make me give up the di'monds,
and then he'll-oh, I know what he'll do! Ain't it awful-awful! And now to
think the OTHER one's aboard, too! Oh, ain't it hard luck, boys-ain't it
hard! But you'll help save me, WON'T you?-oh, boys, be good to a poor
devil that's being hunted to death, and save me-I'll worship the very
ground you walk on!"
We turned in and soothed him down and told him we would plan for him
and help him, and he needn't be so afeard; and so by and by he got to
feeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and held
up his di'monds this way and that, admiring them and loving them; and when
the light struck into them they WAS beautiful, sure; why, they seemed to
kind of bust, and snap fire out all around. But all the same I judged he
was a fool. If I had been him I would a handed the di'monds to them pals
and got them to go ashore and leave me alone. But he was made different.
He said it was a whole fortune and he couldn't bear the idea.
Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and laid a good while, once in
the night; but it wasn't dark enough, and he was afeard to skip. But the
third time we had to fix it there was a better chance. We laid up at a
country woodyard about forty mile above Uncle Silas's place a little after
one at night, and it was thickening up and going to storm. So Jake he laid
for a chance to slide. We begun to take in wood. Pretty soon the rain come
a-drenching down, and the wind blowed hard. Of course every boat-hand
fixed a gunny sack and put it on like a bonnet, the way they do when they
are toting wood, and we got one for Jake, and he slipped down aft with his
hand-bag and come tramping forrard just like the rest, and walked ashore
with them, and when we see him pass out of the light of the torch-basket
and get swallowed up in the dark, we got our breath again and just felt
grateful and splendid. But it wasn't for long. Somebody told, I reckon;
for in about eight or ten minutes them two pals come tearing forrard as
tight as they could jump and darted ashore and was gone. We waited plumb
till dawn for them to come back, and kept hoping they would, but they
never did. We was awful sorry and low-spirited. All the hope we had was
that Jake had got such a start that they couldn't get on his track, and he
would get to his brother's and hide there and be safe.
He was going to take the river road, and told us to find out if Brace
and Jubiter was to home and no strangers there, and then slip out about
sundown and tell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of
sycamores right back of Tom's uncle Silas's tobacker field on the river
road, a lonesome place.
We set and talked a long time about his chances, and Tom said he was
all right if the pals struck up the river instead of down, but it wasn't
likely, because maybe they knowed where he was from; more likely they
would go right, and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and kill him when
it come dark, and take the boots. So we was pretty sorrowful.