"I tell you you DIDN'T see it either -- because it warn't there to see."
It astonished Jim to hear him talk so, and he broke in and says, kind of pleading and distressed:
"Mars Tom, PLEASE don't say sich things in sich an awful time as dis. You ain't only reskin' yo' own self, but you's reskin' us -- same way like Anna Nias en Siffra. De lake WUZ dah -- I seen it jis' as plain as I sees you en Huck dis minute."
I says:
"Why, he seen it himself! He was the very one that seen it first. NOW, then!"
"Yes, Mars Tom, hit's so -- you can't deny it. We all seen it, en dat PROVE it was dah."
"Proves it! How does it prove it?"
"Same way it does in de courts en everywheres, Mars Tom. One pusson might be drunk, or dreamy or suthin', en he could be mistaken; en two might, maybe; but I tell you, sah, when three sees a thing, drunk er sober, it's SO. Dey ain't no gittin' aroun' dat, en you knows it, Mars Tom."
"I don't know nothing of the kind. There used to be forty thousand million people that seen the sun move from one side of the sky to the other every day.
Did that prove that the sun DONE it?"
"Course it did. En besides, dey warn't no 'casion to prove it. A body 'at's got any sense ain't gwine to doubt it. Dah she is now -- a sailin' thoo de sky, like she allays done."
Tom turned on me, then, and says:
"What do YOU say -- is the sun standing still?"
"Tom Sawyer, what's the use to ask such a jackass question? Anybody that ain't blind can see it don't stand still."
"Well," he says, "I'm lost in the sky with no company but a passel of low-down animals that don't know no more than the head boss of a university did three or four hundred years ago."
It warn't fair play, and I let him know it. I says:
"Throwin' mud ain't arguin', Tom Sawyer."
"Oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness gracious, dah's de lake agi'n!" yelled Jim, just then. "NOW, Mars Tom, what you gwine to say?"
Yes, sir, there was the lake again, away yonder across the desert, perfectly plain, trees and all, just the same as it was before. I says:
"I reckon you're satisfied now, Tom Sawyer."
But he says, perfectly ca'm:
"Yes, satisfied there ain't no lake there."
Jim says:
"DON'T talk so, Mars Tom -- it sk'yers me to hear you. It's so hot, en you's so thirsty, dat you ain't in yo' right mine, Mars Tom. Oh, but don't she look good! 'clah I doan' know how I's gwine to wait tell we gits dah, I's SO thirsty."
"Well, you'll have to wait; and it won't do you no good, either, because there ain't no lake there, I tell you."
I says:
"Jim, don't you take your eye off of it, and I won't, either."
"'Deed I won't; en bless you, honey, I couldn't ef I wanted to."
We went a-tearing along toward it, piling the miles behind us like nothing, but never gaining an inch on it -- and all of a sudden it was gone again! Jim stag-gered, and 'most fell down. When he got his breath he says, gasping like a fish:
"Mars Tom, hit's a GHOS', dat's what it is, en I hopes to goodness we ain't gwine to see it no mo'.
Dey's BEEN a lake, en suthin's happened, en de lake's dead, en we's seen its ghos'; we's seen it twiste, en dat's proof. De desert's ha'nted, it's ha'nted, sho; oh, Mars Tom, le''s git outen it; I'd ruther die den have de night ketch us in it ag'in en de ghos' er dat lake come a-mournin' aroun' us en we asleep en doan' know de danger we's in."
"Ghost, you gander! It ain't anything but air and heat and thirstiness pasted together by a person's imagination. If I -- gimme the glass!"
He grabbed it and begun to gaze off to the right.
"It's a flock of birds," he says. "It's getting toward sundown, and they're ****** a bee-line across our track for somewheres. They mean business -- maybe they're going for food or water, or both. Let her go to starboard! -- Port your hellum! Hard down!
There -- ease up -- steady, as you go."
We shut down some of the power, so as not to out-speed them, and took out after them. We went skim-ming along a quarter of a mile behind them, and when we had followed them an hour and a half and was get-ting pretty discouraged, and was thirsty clean to unendurableness, Tom says:
"Take the glass, one of you, and see what that is, away ahead of the birds."
Jim got the first glimpse, and slumped down on the locker sick. He was most crying, and says:
"She's dah ag'in, Mars Tom, she's dah ag'in, en I knows I's gwine to die, 'case when a body sees a ghos' de third time, dat's what it means. I wisht I'd never come in dis balloon, dat I does."
