Cave Ordeal

The Cave Ordeal is the central crisis of Tom Sawyer's journey from boyish adventurer to a figure of genuine heroism, a three-day descent into darkness, hunger, and mortal fear that tests his courage, ingenuity, and loyalty to Becky Thatcher. What begins as a playful exploration of McDougal's Cave—a vast, unmapped limestone labyrinth—turns into a struggle for survival that strips away all pretense and leaves the children clinging to life by a thread of hope. The ordeal not only cements Tom's reputation as a leader and rescuer but also leads directly to the discovery of Injun Joe's corpse and the recovery of the long-sought treasure, reshaping the fortunes of both Tom and Huckleberry Finn.

The Setting and the Descent into the Labyrinth

McDougal's Cave is described as a vast labyrinth of crooked aisles that run into each other and out again and lead nowhere, a place where one might wander days and nights together through its intricate tangle of rifts and chasms and never find the end. Its mouth is an A-shaped opening on the hillside, closed by a massive oaken door, and within lies a small chamber chilly as an ice-house, walled by solid limestone dewy with cold sweat. The main avenue, not more than eight or ten feet wide, descends steeply with lofty rock walls rising sixty feet overhead, and every few steps other lofty and still narrower crevices branch off on either hand. No man truly knows the cave; most young men know only a portion of it, and it is not customary to venture much beyond that known portion. Tom Sawyer knows as much of the cave as anyone. On the day of the picnic, the children explore the familiar wonders—The Drawing-Room, The Cathedral, Aladdin's Palace—and then engage in hide-and-seek until the exertion grows wearisome. Tom and Becky wander down a sinuous avenue, holding their candles aloft, reading the tangled web of names, dates, and mottoes frescoed on the walls in candle-smoke. They smoke their own names under an overhanging shelf and move on, scarcely noticing that they have entered a part of the cave whose walls are not frescoed. They come to a place where a little stream of water, trickling over a ledge and carrying limestone sediment, has formed a laced and ruffled Niagara in gleaming, imperishable stone. Tom squeezes his small body behind it to illuminate it for Becky and discovers that it curtains a steep natural stairway enclosed between narrow walls. Seized by the ambition to be a discoverer, he leads Becky down, making a smoke-mark for future guidance, and they wind far down into the secret depths, making another mark and branching off in search of novelties. They find a spacious cavern with a multitude of shining stalactites, a bewitching spring whose basin is incrusted with glittering crystals, and fantastic pillars formed by the joining of stalactites and stalagmites. Under the roof, vast knots of bats—thousands in a bunch—are disturbed by the lights and come flocking down by hundreds, squeaking and darting furiously at the candles. Tom seizes Becky's hand and hurries her into the first corridor that offers, a bat striking out Becky's light with its wing as she passes out of the cavern. The bats chase them a good distance before the fugitives plunge into new passages and finally escape. Tom finds a subterranean lake stretching its dim length away until its shape is lost in the shadows, and for the first time the deep stillness of the place lays a clammy hand upon their spirits.

The Realization of Being Lost and the Struggle for Survival

Becky notices that it seems ever so long since she heard any of the others, and Tom realizes they are far below the rest of the party, uncertain of direction. When Tom tries to find the way back, a certain indecision in his manner reveals the fearful fact to Becky: he cannot find his way back. He confesses he was a fool not to have made marks, that it is all mixed up. Becky sinks to the ground and bursts into a frenzy of crying, and Tom is appalled by the idea that she might die or lose her reason. He sits by her, puts his arms around her, and begs her to pluck up hope. She says she will try to hope again and will follow wherever he might lead if only he will not blame himself. They move on aimlessly, at random, all they can do is to keep moving. Tom economizes by blowing out Becky's candle, a gesture that needs no words; Becky understands that he has a whole candle and three or four pieces in his pockets yet must conserve them. Fatigue begins to assert its claims, and they know that to sit down is to invite death and shorten its pursuit. At last Becky's frail limbs refuse to carry her farther, and she sits down. Tom rests with her, and they talk of home, of friends, of comfortable beds, and above all, of light. Becky cries, and Tom tries to comfort her, but his encouragements have grown threadbare. Fatigue bears so heavily upon Becky that she drows off to sleep, and Tom is grateful. He sits looking into her drawn face and sees it grow smooth under the influence of pleasant dreams; a smile dawns and rests there. The peaceful face reflects peace and healing into his own spirit, and his thoughts wander to bygone times. When Becky wakes with a breezy little laugh, it is stricken dead upon her lips, and a groan follows. They rise and wander on, hand in hand and hopeless. They try to estimate how long they have been in the cave, but all they know is that it seems days and weeks, yet their candles are not gone. A long time after, Tom says they must go softly and listen for dripping water to find a spring. They find one, and Tom says it is time to rest again. Becky is surprised to hear him dissent. He fastens his candle to the wall with clay, and they sit in silence. Becky says she is hungry, and Tom takes out their wedding-cake from the picnic, the only food they have. He divides it, and Becky eats with good appetite while Tom nibbles at his moiety. They drink abundant cold water. Then Tom tells Becky the truth: they must stay where there is water, and that little piece is their last candle. Becky gives loose to tears and wailings. They watch the bit of candle melt slowly and pitilessly away, see the half inch of wick stand alone, see the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin column of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then—the horror of utter darkness reigns. How long afterward it is that Becky comes to a slow consciousness of crying in Tom's arms, neither can tell. After what seems a mighty stretch of time, both awake out of a dead stupor of sleep and resume their miseries. Tom says it might be Sunday now, maybe Monday. He tries to get Becky to talk, but her hopes are gone. He shouts, but the distant echoes sound so hideously that he tries it no more. The hours waste away, and hunger comes to torment them again. They divide and eat the remaining portion of cake, but it only whets desire. Then Tom hears a faint, far-off shout. He answers it and, leading Becky by the hand, starts groping down the corridor in its direction. He listens again; the sound is nearer. Tom says they are coming, that they are all right now. But they come to a pitfall and must stop; Tom reaches down but finds no bottom. They must wait for the searchers. They listen; the distant shoutings grow more distant and then go altogether. Tom whoops until he is hoarse, but it is of no use. They grope their way back to the spring. The weary time drags on; they sleep again and awake famished and woe-stricken. Tom believes it must be Tuesday by this time.

The Encounter with Injun Joe and the Final Escape

An idea strikes Tom: there are side passages near at hand, and it would be better to explore them than to bear the weight of idle time. He takes a kite-line from his pocket, ties it to a projection, and starts with Becky, Tom in the lead, unwinding the line as he gropes along. At the end of twenty steps the corridor ends in a jumping-off place. Tom gets down on his knees and feels below, then as far around the corner as he can reach. He makes an effort to stretch a little farther to the right, and at that moment, not twenty yards away, a human hand holding a candle appears from behind a rock. Tom lifts up a glorious shout, and instantly that hand is followed by the body it belongs to—Injun Joe's. Tom is paralyzed; he cannot move. He is vastly gratified the next moment to see the Spaniard take to his heels and get himself out of sight. Tom wonders that Joe did not recognize his voice and come over to kill him for testifying in court, but reasons that the echoes must have disguised the voice. His fright weakens every muscle in his body, and he resolves that if he has strength enough to get back to the spring, he will stay there and nothing shall tempt him to risk meeting Injun Joe again. He is careful to keep from Becky what he has seen, telling her he only shouted for luck. But hunger and wretchedness rise superior to fears in the long run. After another tedious wait at the spring and another long sleep, the children awake tortured with raging hunger. Tom believes it must be Wednesday or Thursday or even Friday or Saturday now, and that the search has been given over. He proposes to explore another passage, feeling willing to risk Injun Joe and all other terrors. But Becky is very weak, sunk into a dreary apathy; she says she will wait where she is and die. She tells Tom to go with the kite-line and explore if he chooses, but implores him to come back every little while and speak to her, and makes him promise that when the awful time comes, he will stay by her and hold her hand until all is over. Tom kisses her with a choking sensation and makes a show of confidence, then takes the kite-line and goes groping down one of the passages on his hands and knees, distressed with hunger and sick with bodings of coming doom. He follows two avenues as far as the kite-line will reach, then a third to its fullest stretch, and is about to turn back when he glimpses a far-off speck that looks like daylight. He drops the line and gropes toward it, pushes his head and shoulders through a small hole, and sees the broad Mississippi River rolling by. He goes back for Becky and breaks the good news; she tells him not to fret her with such stuff, for she is tired and knows she is going to die. He labors with her and convinces her, and she almost dies for joy when she gropes to where she actually sees the blue speck of daylight. He pushes his way out at the hole and then helps her out. They sit there and cry for gladness. Some men come along in a skiff; Tom hails them and tells them their situation and their famished condition. The men do not believe the wild tale at first, because the children are five miles down the river below the valley the cave is in, but they take them aboard, row to a house, give them supper, make them rest until two or three hours after dark, and then bring them home.

Consequences and Aftermath

The village of St. Petersburg, which had sunk into hopeless mourning, erupts in wild celebration when the children are found. The bells peal, the streets swarm with frantic half-clad people, and the children are brought home in an open carriage drawn by shouting citizens. The village is illuminated; nobody goes to bed again; it is the greatest night the little town has ever seen. Aunt Polly's happiness is complete, and Mrs. Thatcher's nearly so. Tom lies on a sofa with an eager auditory about him and tells the history of the wonderful adventure, putting in many striking additions. Three days and nights of toil and hunger in the cave are not to be shaken off at once; Tom and Becky are bedridden all of Wednesday and Thursday. Tom gets about a little on Thursday, is down-town Friday, and nearly as whole as ever Saturday, but Becky does not leave her room until Sunday, looking as if she has passed through a wasting illness. Tom learns of Huck's sickness and visits him, but is warned to keep still about his adventure. About a fortnight after his rescue, Tom stops to see Becky at Judge Thatcher's house. The Judge and some friends set Tom to talking, and someone asks him ironically if he would not like to go to the cave again. Tom says he thinks he would not mind it. The Judge reveals that he has had the cave's big door sheathed with boiler iron and triple-locked, and that he has the keys. Tom turns as white as a sheet. When water is thrown in his face and he is asked what is the matter, he gasps: "Oh, Judge, Injun Joe's in the cave!" Within minutes, the news spreads, and a dozen skiff-loads of men are on their way to McDougal's Cave, with the ferryboat following. When the door is unlocked, Injun Joe lies dead on the ground, his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing eyes had been fixed to the latest moment upon the light and cheer of the free world outside. Tom is touched, knowing by his own experience how this wretch has suffered. His bowie-knife lies close by, its blade broken in two; the great foundation-beam of the door has been chipped and hacked through with tedious but useless labor, for the native rock forms a sill outside that the knife could not cut. The prisoner has searched out and eaten all the bits of candle left by tourists, and has caught and eaten a few bats, leaving only their claws. He has starved to death. Near at hand, a stalagmite has been broken off, and upon the stump a stone has been placed with a shallow hollow scooped out to catch the precious drop that falls once every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock-tick—a dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. Injun Joe is buried near the mouth of the cave, and people flock from towns and farms for seven miles around, bringing their children and provisions, confessing that they have had almost as satisfactory a time at the funeral as they could have had at the hanging. The morning after the funeral, Tom takes Huck to a private place and reveals that the treasure is in the cave. They borrow a skiff, float down the river, and enter through the secret hole Tom discovered. Following the kite-line and the cross marked in candle-smoke on the rock, they find the treasure-box in a snug little cavern, along with an empty powder-keg, two guns in leather cases, moccasins, a leather belt, and other rubbish. The box weighs about fifty pounds and contains over twelve thousand dollars in gold. The money is soon in bags, and the boys hide it in the loft of the widow's woodshed. That evening, at a party at the Widow Douglas's house, Tom pours the mass of yellow coin upon the table, announcing that half is Huck's and half his own. The spectacle takes the general breath away. The sum amounts to a little over twelve thousand dollars, more than anyone present has ever seen at one time before. The ordeal thus ends not only in survival but in a transformation of fortune that elevates both boys to the status of local heroes and wealthy citizens, setting the stage for Huck's reluctant adoption into civilized life and Tom's continued dreams of robber glory.