He hid the
lantern in Huck's sugar hogshead and the watch began. An hour before
midnight the tavern closed up and its lights (the only ones
thereabouts) were put out. No Spaniard had been seen. Nobody had
entered or left the alley. Everything was auspicious. The blackness of
darkness reigned, the perfect stillness was interrupted only by
occasional mutterings of distant thunder.
Tom got his lantern, lit it in the hogshead, wrapped it closely in the
towel, and the two adventurers crept in the gloom toward the tavern.
Huck stood sentry and Tom felt his way into the alley. Then there was a
season of waiting anxiety that weighed upon Huck's spirits like a
mountain. He began to wish he could see a flash from the lantern--it
would frighten him, but it would at least tell him that Tom was alive
yet. It seemed hours since Tom had disappeared. Surely he must have
fainted; maybe he was dead; maybe his heart had burst under terror and
excitement. In his uneasiness Huck found himself drawing closer and
closer to the alley; fearing all sorts of dreadful things, and
momentarily expecting some catastrophe to happen that would take away
his breath.
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