that 'll fix
it. We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to
go by that town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy."

Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the
heat-lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the
leaves was beginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was
easy to see that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our
wigwam, to see what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick--better
than Jim's, which was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around
about in a shuck tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you
roll over the dry shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of
dead leaves; it makes such a rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke
allowed he would take my bed; but the king allowed he wouldn't. He
says:

"I should 'a' reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you
that a corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on. Your
Grace 'll take the shuck bed yourself."

Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was
going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when
the duke says:

"'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of
oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I
submit; 'tis my fate. I am alone in the world--let me suffer; I can
bear it."

We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to stand
well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we
got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch
of lights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a
half a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a mile below
we hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to
rain and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king
told us to both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him
and the duke crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It
was my watch below till twelve, but I wouldn't 'a' turned in anyway if
I'd had a bed, because a body don't see such a storm as that every day
in the week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream
along! And every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the
white-caps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking
dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind;
then comes a _h-whack!_--bum