(np, Twain) surrounded by assassins!

[Michael Bailey]

--- after the widow Douglas was so nice to him and everything, Tom's
Gang makes Huck offer her up as a potential sacrifice, signs her away
without a second thought:


"Everybody was willing.  So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had
wrote the oath on, and read it.  It swore every boy to stick to the
band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything
to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person
and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep
till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was
the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could
use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again
he must be killed.  And if anybody that belonged to the band told the
secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt
up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the
list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a
curse put on it and be forgot forever.

"Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got
it out of his own head.  He said, some of it, but the rest was out of
pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had
it.

"Some thought it would be good to kill the FAMILIES of boys that told
the secrets.  Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and
wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:

"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout him?"

"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.

"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days.  He
used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been
seen in these parts for a year or more."

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they
said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
wouldn't be fair and square for the others.  Well, nobody could think
of anything to do—everybody was stumped, and set still.  I was most
ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered
them Miss Watson—they could kill her.  Everybody said:

"Oh, she'll do.  That's all right.  Huck can come in."

Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,
and I made my mark on the paper.