Table of Contents

“What sail’s she carrying?” “Courses, tops’ls and flying-jib, sir.” “Send the r’yals
up! Lay out aloft, there, half a dozen of ye,- foretopmaststuns’l! Lively, now!”
“Aye-aye, sir!” “Shake out that maintogalans’l! Sheets and braces! Now, my
hearties!” “Aye-aye, sir!” “Hellum-a-lee-hard a port! Stand by to meet her when
she comes! Port, port! Now, men! With a will! Stead-y-y-y!” “Steady it is, sir!”
The raft drew beyond the middle of the river; the boys pointed her head right,
and then lay on their oars. The river was not high, so there was not more than a
two-or three-mile current. Hardly a word was said during the next three-
quarters of an hour. Now the raft was passing before the distant town. Two or
three glimmering lights showed where it lay, peacefully sleeping, beyond the
vague vast sweep of star-gemmed water, unconscious of the tremendous event
that was happening. The Black Avenger stood, still with folded arms, “looking
his last” upon the scene of his former joys and his later sufferings, and wishing
“she” could see him now, abroad on the wild sea, facing peril and death with
dauntless heart, going to his doom with a grim smile on his lips. It was but a
small strain on his imagination to remove Jackson’s Island beyond eye-shot of
the village, and so he “looked his last” with a broken and satisfied heart. The
other pirates were looking their last, too; and they all looked so long that they
came near letting the current drift them out of the range of the island. But they
discovered the danger in time, and made shift to avert it. About two o’clock in
the morning the raft grounded on the bar two hundred yards above the head of
the island, and they waded back and forth until they had landed their freight.
Part of the little rafts belongings consisted of an old sail, and this they spread
over a nook in the bushes for a tent to shelter their provisions; but they
themselves would sleep in the open air in good weather, as became outlaws.
They built a fire against the side of a great log twenty or thirty steps within the
sombre depths of the forest, and then cooked some bacon in the frying-pan for
supper, and used up half of the corn “pone” stock they had brought. It seemed
glorious sport to be feasting in that wild free way in the virgin forest of an
unexplored and uninhabited island, far from the haunts of men, and they said
they never would return to civilization. The climbing fire lit up their faces and
threw its ruddy glare upon the pillared tree trunks of their forest temple, and
upon the varnished foliage and festooning vines.

When the last crisp slice of bacon was gone, and the last allowance of corn pone
devoured, the boys stretched themselves out on the grass, filled with
contentment. They could have found a cooler place, but they would not deny
themselves such a romantic feature as the roasting camp-fire.

“Ain’t it gay?” said Joe.
“It’s nuts!” said Tom. “What would the boys say if they could see us?” “Say?
Well they’d just die to be here-hey Hucky?” “I reckon so,” said Huckleberry;
“anyways I’m suited. I don’t want nothing better’n this. I don’t ever get enough
to eat, gen’ally-and here they can’t come and pick at a feller and bullyrag him
so.” “It’s just the life for me,” said Tom. “You don’t have to get up, mornings,
and you don’t have to go to school, and wash, and all that blame foolishness.