that's out of his head, and says he's going round the world and then
drown us all. We've GOT to do something, I tell you, and do it before he
wakes up, too, or we mayn't ever get another chance. Come!"

But it made us turn cold and creepy just to think of it, and we said we
wouldn't budge. So Tom was for slipping back there by himself to see if
he couldn't get at the steering-gear and land the ship. We begged and
begged him not to, but it warn't no use; so he got down on his hands and
knees, and begun to crawl an inch at a time, we a-holding our breath and
watching. After he got to the middle of the boat he crept slower than
ever, and it did seem like years to me. But at last we see him get to the
professor's head, and sort of raise up soft and look a good spell in his
face and listen. Then we see him begin to inch along again toward the
professor's feet where the steering-buttons was. Well, he got there all
safe, and was reaching slow and steady toward the buttons, but he knocked
down something that made a noise, and we see him slump down flat an' soft
in the bottom, and lay still. The professor stirred, and says, "What's
that?" But everybody kept dead still and quiet, and he begun to mutter
and mumble and nestle, like a person that's going to wake up, and I
thought I was going to die, I was so worried and scared.

Then a cloud slid over the moon, and I 'most cried, I was so glad. She
buried herself deeper and deeper into the cloud, and it got so dark we
couldn't see Tom. Then it began to sprinkle rain, and we could hear the
professor fussing at his ropes and things and abusing the weather. We was
afraid every minute he would touch Tom, and then we would be goners, and
no help; but Tom was already on his way back, and when we felt his hands
on our knees my breath stopped sudden, and my heart fell down 'mongst my
other works, because I couldn't tell in the dark but it might be the
professor! which I thought it WAS.