little shabby huts and things that was scattered about it
clean disappeared and gone, and nothing around it now
but a soft wide spread of yaller velvet, which was the
sand.
That was the right place to stop, and we done it.
We set there a-looking and a-thinking for a half an
hour, nobody a-saying anything, for it made us feel
quiet and kind of solemn to remember it had been
looking over that valley just that same way, and think-
ing its awful thoughts all to itself for thousands of
years. and nobody can’t find out what they are to this
day.
At last I took up the glass and see some little black
things a-capering around on that velvet carpet, and
some more a-climbing up the cretur’s back, and then I
see two or three wee puffs of white smoke, and told
Tom to look. He done it, and says:
“They’re bugs. No — hold on; they — why, I be-
lieve they’re men. Yes, it’s men — men and horses
both. They’re hauling a long ladder up onto the
Sphinx’s back — now ain’t that odd? And now they’re
trying to lean it up a — there’s some more puffs of
smoke — it’s guns! Huck, they’re after Jim.”
We clapped on the power, and went for them a-
biling. We was there in no time, and come a-whizzing
down amongst them, and they broke and scattered every
which way, and some that was climbing the ladder after
Jim let go all holts and fell. We soared up and found
him laying on top of the head panting and most
tuckered out, partly from howling for help and partly
from scare. He had been standing a siege a long time
— a week, HE said, but it warn’t so, it only just seemed
so to him because they was crowding him so. They
had shot at him, and rained the bullets all around him,
but he warn’t hit, and when they found he wouldn’t
stand up and the bullets couldn’t git at him when he
was laying down, they went for the ladder, and then
he knowed it was all up with him if we didn’t come
pretty quick. Tom was very indignant, and asked him
why he didn’t show the flag and command them to GIT,
in the name of the United States. Jim said he done
it, but they never paid no attention. Tom said he
would have this thing looked into at Washington, and
says:
“You’ll see that they’ll have to apologize for insult-
ing the flag, and pay an indemnity, too, on top of it
even if they git off THAT easy.”
Jim says:
“What’s an indemnity, Mars Tom?”
“It’s cash, that’s what it is.”
“Who gits it, Mars Tom?”
“Why, WE do.”
“En who gits de apology?”
“The United States. Or, we can take whichever
we please. We can take the apology, if we want to,
and let the gov’ment take the money.”
“How much money will it be, Mars Tom?”
“Well, in an aggravated case like this one, it will
be at least three dollars apiece, and I don’t know but
more.”
“Well, den, we’ll take de money, Mars Tom, blame
de ‘pology. Hain’t dat yo’ notion, too? En hain’t it
yourn, Huck?”
We talked it over a little and allowed that that was as
good a way as any, so we agreed to take the money.
It was a new business to me, and I asked Tom if
countries always apologized when they had done wrong,
and he says:
“Yes; the little ones does.”
We was sailing around examining the pyramids, you
know, and now we soared up and roosted on the flat top
of the biggest one, and found it was just like what the
man said in the Sunday-school. It was like four pairs
of stairs that starts broad at the bottom and slants up
and comes together in a point at the top, only these
stair-steps couldn’t be clumb the way you climb other
stairs; no, for each step was as high as your chin, and
you have to be boosted up from behind. The two
other pyramids warn’t far away, and the people moving