湯姆歷險(xiǎn)記Chapter 27 忐忑不安的跟蹤

Chapter 27
      
      
        
            
      
   
    THE adventure of the day mightily tormented Tom's dreams that night. Four times
    he had his hands on that rich treasure and four times it wasted to nothingness in his
    fingers as sleep forsook him and wakefulness brought back the hard reality of his
    misfortune. As he lay in the early morning recalling the incidents of his great adventure,
    he noticed that they seemed curiously subdued and far away -- somewhat as if they had
    happened in another world, or in a time long gone by. Then it occurred to him that the
    great adventure itself must be a dream! There was one very strong argument in favor of
    this idea -- namely, that the quantity of coin he had seen was too vast to be real. He had
    never seen as much as fifty dollars in one mass before, and he was like all boys of his
    age and station in life, in that he imagined that all references to "hundreds"
    and "thousands" were mere fanciful forms of speech, and that no such sums really
    existed in the world. He never had supposed for a moment that so large a sum as a hundred
    dollars was to be found in actual money in any one's possession. If his notions of hidden
    treasure had been analyzed, they would have been found to consist of a handful of real
    dimes and a bushel of vague, splendid, ungraspable dollars.

    But the incidents of his adventure grew sensibly sharper and clearer under the
    attrition of thinking them over, and so he presently found himself leaning to the
    impression that the thing might not have been a dream, after all. This uncertainty must be
    swept away. He would snatch a hurried breakfast and go and find Huck. Huck was sitting on
    the gunwale of a flatboat, listlessly dangling his feet in the water and looking very
    melancholy. Tom concluded to let Huck lead up to the subject. If he did not do it, then
    the adventure would be proved to have been only a dream.

    "Hello, Huck!"

    "Hello, yourself."

    Silence, for a minute.

    "Tom, if we'd 'a' left the blame tools at the dead tree, we'd 'a' got the money.
    Oh, ain't it awful!"

    "'Tain't a dream, then, 'tain't a dream! Somehow I most wish it was. Dog'd if I
    don't, Huck."

    "What ain't a dream?"

    "Oh, that thing yesterday. I been half thinking it was."

    "Dream! If them stairs hadn't broke down you'd 'a' seen how much dream it was!
    I've had dreams enough all night -- with that patch-eyed Spanish devil going for me all
    through 'em -- rot him!"

    "No, not rot him. FIND him! Track the money!"

    "Tom, we'll never find him. A feller don't have only one chance for such a pile --
    and that one's lost. I'd feel mighty shaky if I was to see him, anyway."

    "Well, so'd I; but I'd like to see him, anyway -- and track him out -- to his
    Number Two."

    "Number Two -- yes, that's it. I been thinking 'bout that. But I can't make
    nothing out of it. What do you reckon it is?"

    "I dono. It's too deep. Say, Huck -- maybe it's the number of a house!"

    "Goody! ... No, Tom, that ain't it. If it is, it ain't in this one-horse town.
    They ain't no numbers here."

    "Well, that's so. Lemme think a minute. Here -- it's the number of a room -- in a
    tavern, you know!"

    "Oh, that's the trick! They ain't only two taverns. We can find out quick."

    "You stay here, Huck, till I come."

    Tom was off at once. He did not care to have Huck's company in public places. He was
    gone half an hour. He found that in the best tavern, No. 2 had long been occupied by a
    young lawyer, and was still so occupied. In the less ostentatious house, No. 2 was a
    mystery. The tavern-keeper's young son said it was kept locked all the time, and he never
    saw anybody go into it or come out of it except at night; he did not know any particular
    reason for this state of things; had had some little curiosity, but it was rather feeble;
    had made the most of the mystery by entertaining himself with the idea that that room was
    "ha'nted"; had noticed that there was a light in there the night before.

    "That's what I've found out, Huck. I reckon that's the very No. 2 we're
    after."

    "I reckon it is, Tom. Now what you going to do?"

    "Lemme think."

    Tom thought a long time. Then he said:

    "I'll tell you. The back door of that No. 2 is the door that comes out into that
    little close alley between the tavern and the old rattle trap of a brick store. Now you
    get hold of all the door-keys you can find, and I'll nip all of auntie's, and the first
    dark night we'll go there and try 'em. And mind you, keep a lookout for Injun Joe, because
    he said he was going to drop into town and spy around once more for a chance to get his
    revenge. If you see him, you just follow him; and if he don't go to that No. 2, that ain't
    the place."

    "Lordy, I don't want to foller him by myself!"

    "Why, it'll be night, sure. He mightn't ever see you -- and if he did, maybe he'd
    never think anything."

    "Well, if it's pretty dark I reckon I'll track him. I dono -- I dono. I'll
    try."

    "You bet I'll follow him, if it's dark, Huck. Why, he might 'a' found out he
    couldn't get his revenge, and be going right after that money."

    "It's so, Tom, it's so. I'll foller him; I will, by jingoes!"

    "Now you're talking! Don't you ever weaken, Huck, and I won't."