{"id":"01KG17AD3BKB6GVXR1FEM8HNYT","cid":"bafkreifkw6wasdbrw6bhe6wei6l3dw5ewsbscrkuh6mnv2qdrap7ld6ioi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8241,"extracted_at":"2026-01-28T02:36:01.310Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","start_line":8177,"text":"CHAPTER XXXIII\r\n\r\n\r\nWithin a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of\r\nmen were on their way to McDougal’s cave, and the ferryboat, well filled\r\nwith passengers, soon followed. Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that bore\r\nJudge Thatcher.\r\n\r\nWhen the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in\r\nthe dim twilight of the place. Injun Joe lay stretched upon the ground,\r\ndead, with his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing\r\neyes had been fixed, to the latest moment, upon the light and the cheer\r\nof the free world outside. Tom was touched, for he knew by his own\r\nexperience how this wretch had suffered. His pity was moved, but\r\nnevertheless he felt an abounding sense of relief and security, now,\r\nwhich revealed to him in a degree which he had not fully appreciated\r\nbefore how vast a weight of dread had been lying upon him since the day\r\nhe lifted his voice against this bloody-minded outcast.\r\n\r\nInjun Joe’s bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two. The great\r\nfoundation-beam of the door had been chipped and hacked through, with\r\ntedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock formed a\r\nsill outside it, and upon that stubborn material the knife had wrought\r\nno effect; the only damage done was to the knife itself. But if there\r\nhad been no stony obstruction there the labor would have been useless\r\nstill, for if the beam had been wholly cut away Injun Joe could not have\r\nsqueezed his body under the door, and he knew it. So he had only hacked\r\nthat place in order to be doing something—in order to pass the weary\r\ntime—in order to employ his tortured faculties. Ordinarily one could\r\nfind half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the crevices of this\r\nvestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now. The prisoner\r\nhad searched them out and eaten them. He had also contrived to catch a\r\nfew bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their claws. The\r\npoor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at hand, a\r\nstalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages, builded\r\nby the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had broken off\r\nthe stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone, wherein he had\r\nscooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once\r\nin every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock-tick—a\r\ndessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. That drop was falling\r\nwhen the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome\r\nwere laid; when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the\r\nBritish empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was\r\n“news.”\r\n\r\nIt is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things shall\r\nhave sunk down the afternoon of history, and the twilight of tradition,\r\nand been swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion. Has everything a\r\npurpose and a mission? Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand\r\nyears to be ready for this flitting human insect’s need? and has it\r\nanother important object to accomplish ten thousand years to come? No\r\nmatter. It is many and many a year since the hapless half-breed scooped\r\nout the stone to catch the priceless drops, but to this day the tourist\r\nstares longest at that pathetic stone and that slow-dropping water when\r\nhe comes to see the wonders of McDougal’s cave. Injun Joe’s cup stands\r\nfirst in the list of the cavern’s marvels; even “Aladdin’s Palace”\r\n cannot rival it.\r\n\r\nInjun Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave; and people flocked\r\nthere in boats and wagons from the towns and from all the farms and\r\nhamlets for seven miles around; they brought their children, and\r\nall sorts of provisions, and confessed that they had had almost as\r\nsatisfactory a time at the funeral as they could have had at the\r\nhanging.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG176GN9Q7QTQM52PK8WKBSZ","peer_label":"CHAPTER XXXIII","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","peer_label":"tom_sawyer.txt","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG17AD3G6610NKKE07DHMPCB","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-28T02:36:01.682Z","ts":"2026-01-28T02:36:02.461Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}