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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7242-h.zip b/7242-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a2223f --- /dev/null +++ b/7242-h.zip diff --git a/7242-h/7242-h.htm b/7242-h/7242-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d549e35 --- /dev/null +++ b/7242-h/7242-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2119 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>A CONNECTICUT YANKEE, By Twain, Part 1.</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>A CONNECTICUT YANKEE, By Twain, Part 1.</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's +Court, Part 1., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 1. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #7242] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<br> +<hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + + +<center> +<img alt="bookcover.jpg (121K)" src="images/bookcover.jpg" height="1017" width="952"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="Extra.jpg (144K)" src="images/Extra.jpg" height="743" width="1117"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center> +<img alt="titlepage.jpg (58K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" height="1066" width="779"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<center> +<h1>A CONNECTICUT YANKEE +<br><br>IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT</h1> +<br> +<h3>by</h3> +<br> +<h2>MARK TWAIN</h2> +<h3>(Samuel L. Clemens)</h3> +<br><br> +<h3>Part 1.</h3> + +</center> + +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<h2>CONTENTS:</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + +<a href="#c1">CHAPTER I.</a> </td><td>CAMELOT<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c2">CHAPTER II.</a> </td><td>KING ARTHUR'S COURT<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c3">CHAPTER III.</a> </td><td>KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c4">CHAPTER IV.</a> </td><td>SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c5">CHAPTER V.</a> </td><td>AN INSPIRATION<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c6">CHAPTER VI.</a> </td><td>THE ECLIPSE<br></td></tr> + + + + +</table> +</center> + + + + + + +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><h2>PREFACE</h2></center> +<br> +<p>The ungentle laws and customs touched upon in this tale are +historical, and the episodes which are used to illustrate them +are also historical. It is not pretended that these laws and +customs existed in England in the sixth century; no, it is only +pretended that inasmuch as they existed in the English and other +civilizations of far later times, it is safe to consider that it is +no libel upon the sixth century to suppose them to have been in +practice in that day also. One is quite justified in inferring +that whatever one of these laws or customs was lacking in that +remote time, its place was competently filled by a worse one.</p> + +<p>The question as to whether there is such a thing as divine right +of kings is not settled in this book. It was found too difficult. +That the executive head of a nation should be a person of lofty +character and extraordinary ability, was manifest and indisputable; +that none but the Deity could select that head unerringly, was +also manifest and indisputable; that the Deity ought to make that +selection, then, was likewise manifest and indisputable; consequently, +that He does make it, as claimed, was an unavoidable deduction. +I mean, until the author of this book encountered the Pompadour, +and Lady Castlemaine, and some other executive heads of that kind; +these were found so difficult to work into the scheme, that it +was judged better to take the other tack in this book (which +must be issued this fall), and then go into training and settle +the question in another book. It is, of course, a thing which +ought to be settled, and I am not going to have anything particular +to do next winter anyway.</p> + +<p>MARK TWAIN</p> + +<p>HARTFORD, July 21, 1889</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="00-017.jpg (138K)" src="images/00-017.jpg" height="936" width="815"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center> +<h2>A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT</h2> +<br><br> + +<h3>A WORD OF EXPLANATION</h3> +</center> +<p>It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger +whom I am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: +his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, +and the restfulness of his company—for he did all the talking. +We fell together, as modest people will, in the tail of the herd +that was being shown through, and he at once began to say things +which interested me. As he talked along, softly, pleasantly, +flowingly, he seemed to drift away imperceptibly out of this world +and time, and into some remote era and old forgotten country; +and so he gradually wove such a spell about me that I seemed +to move among the specters and shadows and dust and mold of a gray +antiquity, holding speech with a relic of it! Exactly as I would +speak of my nearest personal friends or enemies, or my most familiar +neighbors, he spoke of Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de Ganis, Sir Launcelot +of the Lake, Sir Galahad, and all the other great names of the +Table Round—and how old, old, unspeakably old and faded and dry +and musty and ancient he came to look as he went on! Presently +he turned to me and said, just as one might speak of the weather, +or any other common matter—</p> + +<p>"You know about transmigration of souls; do you know about +transposition of epochs—and bodies?"</p> + +<p>I said I had not heard of it. He was so little interested—just +as when people speak of the weather—that he did not notice +whether I made him any answer or not. There was half a moment +of silence, immediately interrupted by the droning voice of the +salaried cicerone:</p> + +<p>"Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time of King Arthur +and the Round Table; said to have belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor +le Desirous; observe the round hole through the chain-mail in +the left breast; can't be accounted for; supposed to have been +done with a bullet since invention of firearms—perhaps maliciously +by Cromwell's soldiers."</p> + +<p>My acquaintance smiled—not a modern smile, but one that must +have gone out of general use many, many centuries ago—and muttered +apparently to himself:</p> + +<p>"Wit ye well, <i>I saw it done</i> ." Then, after a pause, added: +"I did it myself."</p> + +<p>By the time I had recovered from the electric surprise of this +remark, he was gone.</p> + +<p>All that evening I sat by my fire at the Warwick Arms, steeped +in a dream of the olden time, while the rain beat upon the windows, +and the wind roared about the eaves and corners. From time to +time I dipped into old Sir Thomas Malory's enchanting book, and +fed at its rich feast of prodigies and adventures, breathed in +the fragrance of its obsolete names, and dreamed again. Midnight +being come at length, I read another tale, for a nightcap—this +which here follows, to wit:</p> + +<h3>HOW SIR LAUNCELOT SLEW TWO GIANTS, <br>AND MADE A CASTLE FREE</h3> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +Anon withal came there upon him two great giants,<br> +well armed, all save the heads, with two horrible<br> +clubs in their hands. Sir Launcelot put his shield<br> +afore him, and put the stroke away of the one<br> +giant, and with his sword he clave his head asunder.<br> +When his fellow saw that, he ran away as he were<br> +wood [*demented], for fear of the horrible strokes,<br> +and Sir Launcelot after him with all his might,<br> +and smote him on the shoulder, and clave him to<br> +the middle. Then Sir Launcelot went into the hall,<br> +and there came afore him three score ladies and<br> +damsels, and all kneeled unto him, and thanked<br> +God and him of their deliverance. For, sir, said<br> +they, the most part of us have been here this<br> +seven year their prisoners, and we have worked all<br> +manner of silk works for our meat, and we are all<br> +great gentle-women born, and blessed be the time,<br> +knight, that ever thou wert born; for thou hast<br> +done the most worship that ever did knight in the<br> +world, that will we bear record, and we all pray<br> +you to tell us your name, that we may tell our<br> +friends who delivered us out of prison. Fair<br> +damsels, he said, my name is Sir Launcelot du<br> +Lake. And so he departed from them and betaught<br> +them unto God. And then he mounted upon his<br> +horse, and rode into many strange and wild<br> +countries, and through many waters and valleys,<br> +and evil was he lodged. And at the last by<br> +fortune him happened against a night to come to<br> +a fair courtilage, and therein he found an old<br> +gentle-woman that lodged him with a good-will,<br> +and there he had good cheer for him and his horse.<br> +And when time was, his host brought him into a<br> +fair garret over the gate to his bed. There<br> +Sir Launcelot unarmed him, and set his harness<br> +by him, and went to bed, and anon he fell on<br> +sleep. So, soon after there came one on<br> +horseback, and knocked at the gate in great<br> +haste. And when Sir Launcelot heard this he rose<br> +up, and looked out at the window, and saw by the<br> +moonlight three knights come riding after that<br> +one man, and all three lashed on him at once<br> +with swords, and that one knight turned on them<br> +knightly again and defended him. Truly, said<br> +Sir Launcelot, yonder one knight shall I help,<br> +for it were shame for me to see three knights<br> +on one, and if he be slain I am partner of his<br> +death. And therewith he took his harness and<br> +went out at a window by a sheet down to the four<br> +knights, and then Sir Launcelot said on high,<br> +Turn you knights unto me, and leave your<br> +fighting with that knight. And then they all<br> +three left Sir Kay, and turned unto Sir Launcelot,<br> +and there began great battle, for they alight<br> +all three, and strake many strokes at Sir<br> +Launcelot, and assailed him on every side. Then<br> +Sir Kay dressed him for to have holpen Sir<br> +Launcelot. Nay, sir, said he, I will none of<br> +your help, therefore as ye will have my help<br> +let me alone with them. Sir Kay for the pleasure<br> +of the knight suffered him for to do his will,<br> +and so stood aside. And then anon within six<br> +strokes Sir Launcelot had stricken them to the earth. + +</td></tr> +<tr><td> + +And then they all three cried, Sir Knight, we<br> +yield us unto you as man of might matchless. As<br> +to that, said Sir Launcelot, I will not take<br> +your yielding unto me, but so that ye yield<br> +you unto Sir Kay the seneschal, on that covenant<br> +I will save your lives and else not. Fair knight,<br> +said they, that were we loath to do; for as for<br> +Sir Kay we chased him hither, and had overcome<br> +him had ye not been; therefore, to yield us unto<br> +him it were no reason. Well, as to that, said<br> +Sir Launcelot, advise you well, for ye may<br> +choose whether ye will die or live, for an ye be<br> +yielden, it shall be unto Sir Kay. Fair knight,<br> +then they said, in saving our lives we will do<br> +as thou commandest us. Then shall ye, said Sir<br> +Launcelot, on Whitsunday next coming go unto the<br> +court of King Arthur, and there shall ye yield<br> +you unto Queen Guenever, and put you all three<br> +in her grace and mercy, and say that Sir Kay<br> +sent you thither to be her prisoners. On the morn<br> +Sir Launcelot arose early, and left Sir Kay<br> +sleeping; and Sir Launcelot took Sir Kay's armor<br> +and his shield and armed him, and so he went to<br> +the stable and took his horse, and took his leave<br> +of his host, and so he departed. Then soon after<br> +arose Sir Kay and missed Sir Launcelot; and<br> +then he espied that he had his armor and his<br> +horse. Now by my faith I know well that he will<br> +grieve some of the court of King Arthur; for on<br> +him knights will be bold, and deem that it is I,<br> +and that will beguile them; and because of his<br> +armor and shield I am sure I shall ride in peace.<br> +And then soon after departed Sir Kay, and<br> +thanked his host. + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<p> +As I laid the book down there was a knock at the door, and my +stranger came in. I gave him a pipe and a chair, and made him +welcome. I also comforted him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him +another one; then still another—hoping always for his story. +After a fourth persuader, he drifted into it himself, in a quite +simple and natural way:</p> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><h2>THE STRANGER'S HISTORY</h2></center> +<br> +<p>I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State +of Connecticut—anyway, just over the river, in the country. So +I am a Yankee of the Yankees—and practical; yes, and nearly +barren of sentiment, I suppose—or poetry, in other words. My +father was a blacksmith, my uncle was a horse doctor, and I was +both, along at first. Then I went over to the great arms factory +and learned my real trade; learned all there was to it; learned +to make everything: guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all +sorts of labor-saving machinery. Why, I could make anything +a body wanted—anything in the world, it didn't make any difference +what; and if there wasn't any quick new-fangled way to make a thing, +I could invent one—and do it as easy as rolling off a log. I became +head superintendent; had a couple of thousand men under me.</p> + +<p>Well, a man like that is a man that is full of fight—that goes +without saying. With a couple of thousand rough men under one, +one has plenty of that sort of amusement. I had, anyway. At last +I met my match, and I got my dose. It was during a misunderstanding +conducted with crowbars with a fellow we used to call Hercules. +He laid me out with a crusher alongside the head that made everything +crack, and seemed to spring every joint in my skull and made it +overlap its neighbor. Then the world went out in darkness, and +I didn't feel anything more, and didn't know anything at +all—at least for a while.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="00-021.jpg (163K)" src="images/00-021.jpg" height="1030" width="734"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>When I came to again, I was sitting under an oak tree, on the +grass, with a whole beautiful and broad country landscape all +to myself—nearly. Not entirely; for there was a fellow on a horse, +looking down at me—a fellow fresh out of a picture-book. He was +in old-time iron armor from head to heel, with a helmet on his +head the shape of a nail-keg with slits in it; and he had a shield, +and a sword, and a prodigious spear; and his horse had armor on, +too, and a steel horn projecting from his forehead, and gorgeous +red and green silk trappings that hung down all around him like +a bedquilt, nearly to the ground.</p> + +<p>"Fair sir, will ye just?" said this fellow.</p> + +<p>"Will I which?"</p> + +<p>"Will ye try a passage of arms for land or lady or for—"</p> + +<p>"What are you giving me?" I said. "Get along back to your circus, +or I'll report you."</p> + +<p>Now what does this man do but fall back a couple of hundred yards +and then come rushing at me as hard as he could tear, with his +nail-keg bent down nearly to his horse's neck and his long spear +pointed straight ahead. I saw he meant business, so I was up +the tree when he arrived.</p> + +<p>He allowed that I was his property, the captive of his spear. +There was argument on his side—and the bulk of the +advantage—so I judged it best to humor him. We fixed up an agreement +whereby I was to go with him and he was not to hurt me. I came +down, and we started away, I walking by the side of his horse. +We marched comfortably along, through glades and over brooks which +I could not remember to have seen before—which puzzled me and +made me wonder—and yet we did not come to any circus or sign of +a circus. So I gave up the idea of a circus, and concluded he was +from an asylum. But we never came to an asylum—so I was up +a stump, as you may say. I asked him how far we were from Hartford. +He said he had never heard of the place; which I took to be a lie, +but allowed it to go at that. At the end of an hour we saw a +far-away town sleeping in a valley by a winding river; and beyond +it on a hill, a vast gray fortress, with towers and turrets, +the first I had ever seen out of a picture.</p> + +<p>"Bridgeport?" said I, pointing.</p> + +<p>"Camelot," said he.</p> + +<p> +My stranger had been showing signs of sleepiness. He caught +himself nodding, now, and smiled one of those pathetic, obsolete +smiles of his, and said:</p> + +<p>"I find I can't go on; but come with me, I've got it all written +out, and you can read it if you like."</p> + +<p>In his chamber, he said: "First, I kept a journal; then by and by, +after years, I took the journal and turned it into a book. How +long ago that was!"</p> + +<p>He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out the place where +I should begin:</p> + +<p>"Begin here—I've already told you what goes before." He was +steeped in drowsiness by this time. As I went out at his door +I heard him murmur sleepily: "Give you good den, fair sir."</p> + +<p>I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure. The first part +of it—the great bulk of it—was parchment, and yellow with age. +I scanned a leaf particularly and saw that it was a palimpsest. +Under the old dim writing of the Yankee historian appeared traces +of a penmanship which was older and dimmer still—Latin words +and sentences: fragments from old monkish legends, evidently. +I turned to the place indicated by my stranger and began to +read—as follows.</p> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center> +<img alt="00-023.jpg (41K)" src="images/00-023.jpg" height="225" width="722"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="01-025.jpg (108K)" src="images/01-025.jpg" height="875" width="725"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<center><h1>THE TALE OF THE LOST LAND</h1></center> +<br><br> + + +<br><br><a name="c1"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER I</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="01-027.jpg (131K)" src="images/01-027.jpg" height="894" width="726"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<p>CAMELOT</p> + +<p>"Camelot—Camelot," said I to myself. "I don't seem to remember +hearing of it before. Name of the asylum, likely."</p> + +<p>It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, +and as lonesome as Sunday. The air was full of the smell of +flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of birds, +and there were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life, +nothing going on. The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints +in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on either side in +the grass—wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one's hand.</p> + +<p>Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a cataract +of golden hair streaming down over her shoulders, came along. +Around her head she wore a hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as +sweet an outfit as ever I saw, what there was of it. She walked +indolently along, with a mind at rest, its peace reflected in her +innocent face. The circus man paid no attention to her; didn't +even seem to see her. And she—she was no more startled at his +fantastic make-up than if she was used to his like every day of +her life. She was going by as indifferently as she might have gone +by a couple of cows; but when she happened to notice me, <i>then</i> +there was a change! Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone; +her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she +was the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. And +there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied fascination, till +we turned a corner of the wood and were lost to her view. That +she should be startled at me instead of at the other man, was too +many for me; I couldn't make head or tail of it. And that she +should seem to consider me a spectacle, and totally overlook her +own merits in that respect, was another puzzling thing, and a +display of magnanimity, too, that was surprising in one so young. +There was food for thought here. I moved along as one in a dream.</p> + +<p>As we approached the town, signs of life began to appear. At +intervals we passed a wretched cabin, with a thatched roof, and +about it small fields and garden patches in an indifferent state of +cultivation. There were people, too; brawny men, with long, coarse, +uncombed hair that hung down over their faces and made them look +like animals. They and the women, as a rule, wore a coarse +tow-linen robe that came well below the knee, and a rude sort of +sandal, and many wore an iron collar. The small boys and girls +were always naked; but nobody seemed to know it. All of these +people stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts and fetched +out their families to gape at me; but nobody ever noticed that +other fellow, except to make him humble salutation and get no +response for their pains.</p> + +<p>In the town were some substantial windowless houses of stone +scattered among a wilderness of thatched cabins; the streets were +mere crooked alleys, and unpaved; troops of dogs and nude children +played in the sun and made life and noise; hogs roamed and rooted +contentedly about, and one of them lay in a reeking wallow in +the middle of the main thoroughfare and suckled her family. +Presently there was a distant blare of military music; it came +nearer, still nearer, and soon a noble cavalcade wound into view, +glorious with plumed helmets and flashing mail and flaunting banners +and rich doublets and horse-cloths and gilded spearheads; and +through the muck and swine, and naked brats, and joyous dogs, and +shabby huts, it took its gallant way, and in its wake we followed.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="01-029.jpg (162K)" src="images/01-029.jpg" height="1022" width="740"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p> +Followed through one winding alley and then another,—and climbing, +always climbing—till at last we gained the breezy height where +the huge castle stood. There was an exchange of bugle blasts; +then a parley from the walls, where men-at-arms, in hauberk and +morion, marched back and forth with halberd at shoulder under +flapping banners with the rude figure of a dragon displayed upon +them; and then the great gates were flung open, the drawbridge +was lowered, and the head of the cavalcade swept forward under +the frowning arches; and we, following, soon found ourselves in +a great paved court, with towers and turrets stretching up into +the blue air on all the four sides; and all about us the dismount +was going on, and much greeting and ceremony, and running to and +fro, and a gay display of moving and intermingling colors, and +an altogether pleasant stir and noise and confusion.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="02-031.jpg (96K)" src="images/02-031.jpg" height="819" width="675"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><a name="c2"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER II</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="02-033.jpg (138K)" src="images/02-033.jpg" height="882" width="738"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>KING ARTHUR'S COURT</p> + +<p>The moment I got a chance I slipped aside privately and touched +an ancient common looking man on the shoulder and said, in an +insinuating, confidential way:</p> + +<p>"Friend, do me a kindness. Do you belong to the asylum, or are +you just on a visit or something like that?"</p> + +<p>He looked me over stupidly, and said:</p> + +<p>"Marry, fair sir, me seemeth—"</p> + +<p>"That will do," I said; "I reckon you are a patient."</p> + +<p>I moved away, cogitating, and at the same time keeping an eye +out for any chance passenger in his right mind that might come +along and give me some light. I judged I had found one, presently; +so I drew him aside and said in his ear:</p> + +<p>"If I could see the head keeper a minute—only just a minute—"</p> + +<p>"Prithee do not let me."</p> + +<p>"Let you <i>what</i> ?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Hinder</i> me, then, if the word please thee better. Then he went +on to say he was an under-cook and could not stop to gossip, +though he would like it another time; for it would comfort his +very liver to know where I got my clothes. As he started away he +pointed and said yonder was one who was idle enough for my purpose, +and was seeking me besides, no doubt. This was an airy slim boy +in shrimp-colored tights that made him look like a forked carrot, +the rest of his gear was blue silk and dainty laces and ruffles; +and he had long yellow curls, and wore a plumed pink satin cap +tilted complacently over his ear. By his look, he was good-natured; +by his gait, he was satisfied with himself. He was pretty enough +to frame. He arrived, looked me over with a smiling and impudent +curiosity; said he had come for me, and informed me that he was a page.</p> + +<p>"Go 'long," I said; "you ain't more than a paragraph."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="02-038.jpg (94K)" src="images/02-038.jpg" height="642" width="609"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However, it never phazed +him; he didn't appear to know he was hurt. He began to talk and +laugh, in happy, thoughtless, boyish fashion, as we walked along, +and made himself old friends with me at once; asked me all sorts +of questions about myself and about my clothes, but never waited +for an answer—always chattered straight ahead, as if he didn't +know he had asked a question and wasn't expecting any reply, until +at last he happened to mention that he was born in the beginning +of the year 513.</p> + +<p>It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped and said, +a little faintly:</p> + +<p>"Maybe I didn't hear you just right. Say it again—and say it +slow. What year was it?"</p> + +<p>"513."</p> + +<p>"513! You don't look it! Come, my boy, I am a stranger and +friendless; be honest and honorable with me. Are you in your +right mind?"</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="02-035.jpg (150K)" src="images/02-035.jpg" height="1027" width="754"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>He said he was.</p> + +<p>"Are these other people in their right minds?"</p> + +<p>He said they were.</p> + +<p>"And this isn't an asylum? I mean, it isn't a place where they +cure crazy people?"</p> + +<p>He said it wasn't.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," I said, "either I am a lunatic, or something just +as awful has happened. Now tell me, honest and true, where am I?"</p> + +<p>"IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT."</p> + +<p>I waited a minute, to let that idea shudder its way home, +and then said:</p> + +<p>"And according to your notions, what year is it now?"</p> + +<p>"528—nineteenth of June."</p> + +<p>I felt a mournful sinking at the heart, and muttered: "I shall +never see my friends again—never, never again. They will not +be born for more than thirteen hundred years yet."</p> + +<p>I seemed to believe the boy, I didn't know why. <i>Something</i> in me +seemed to believe him—my consciousness, as you may say; but my +reason didn't. My reason straightway began to clamor; that was +natural. I didn't know how to go about satisfying it, because +I knew that the testimony of men wouldn't serve—my reason would +say they were lunatics, and throw out their evidence. But all +of a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew +that the only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the +sixth century occurred on the 21st of June, A.D. 528, O.S., and +began at 3 minutes after 12 noon. I also knew that no total eclipse +of the sun was due in what to <i>me</i> was the present year—i.e., 1879. +So, if I could keep my anxiety and curiosity from eating the heart +out of me for forty-eight hours, I should then find out for certain +whether this boy was telling me the truth or not.</p> + +<p>Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now shoved this +whole problem clear out of my mind till its appointed day and hour +should come, in order that I might turn all my attention to the +circumstances of the present moment, and be alert and ready to +make the most out of them that could be made. One thing at a time, +is my motto—and just play that thing for all it is worth, even +if it's only two pair and a jack. I made up my mind to two things: +if it was still the nineteenth century and I was among lunatics +and couldn't get away, I would presently boss that asylum or know +the reason why; and if, on the other hand, it was really the sixth +century, all right, I didn't want any softer thing: I would boss +the whole country inside of three months; for I judged I would +have the start of the best-educated man in the kingdom by a matter +of thirteen hundred years and upward. I'm not a man to waste +time after my mind's made up and there's work on hand; so I said +to the page:</p> + +<p>"Now, Clarence, my boy—if that might happen to be your +name—I'll get you to post me up a little if you don't mind. What is +the name of that apparition that brought me here?"</p> + +<p>"My master and thine? That is the good knight and great lord +Sir Kay the Seneschal, foster brother to our liege the king."</p> + +<p>"Very good; go on, tell me everything."</p> + +<p>He made a long story of it; but the part that had immediate interest +for me was this: He said I was Sir Kay's prisoner, and that +in the due course of custom I would be flung into a dungeon and +left there on scant commons until my friends ransomed me—unless +I chanced to rot, first. I saw that the last chance had the best +show, but I didn't waste any bother about that; time was too +precious. The page said, further, that dinner was about ended +in the great hall by this time, and that as soon as the sociability +and the heavy drinking should begin, Sir Kay would have me in and +exhibit me before King Arthur and his illustrious knights seated at +the Table Round, and would brag about his exploit in capturing +me, and would probably exaggerate the facts a little, but it +wouldn't be good form for me to correct him, and not over safe, +either; and when I was done being exhibited, then ho for the +dungeon; but he, Clarence, would find a way to come and see me every +now and then, and cheer me up, and help me get word to my friends.</p> + +<p>Get word to my friends! I thanked him; I couldn't do less; and +about this time a lackey came to say I was wanted; so Clarence +led me in and took me off to one side and sat down by me.</p> + +<p>Well, it was a curious kind of spectacle, and interesting. It was +an immense place, and rather naked—yes, and full of loud contrasts. +It was very, very lofty; so lofty that the banners depending from +the arched beams and girders away up there floated in a sort of +twilight; there was a stone-railed gallery at each end, high up, +with musicians in the one, and women, clothed in stunning colors, +in the other. The floor was of big stone flags laid in black and +white squares, rather battered by age and use, and needing repair. +As to ornament, there wasn't any, strictly speaking; though on +the walls hung some huge tapestries which were probably taxed +as works of art; battle-pieces, they were, with horses shaped like +those which children cut out of paper or create in gingerbread; +with men on them in scale armor whose scales are represented by +round holes—so that the man's coat looks as if it had been done +with a biscuit-punch. There was a fireplace big enough to camp in; +and its projecting sides and hood, of carved and pillared stonework, +had the look of a cathedral door. Along the walls stood men-at-arms, +in breastplate and morion, with halberds for their only +weapon—rigid as statues; and that is what they looked like.</p> + +<p>In the middle of this groined and vaulted public square was an oaken +table which they called the Table Round. It was as large as +a circus ring; and around it sat a great company of men dressed +in such various and splendid colors that it hurt one's eyes to look +at them. They wore their plumed hats, right along, except that +whenever one addressed himself directly to the king, he lifted +his hat a trifle just as he was beginning his remark.</p> + +<p>Mainly they were drinking—from entire ox horns; but a few were +still munching bread or gnawing beef bones. There was about +an average of two dogs to one man; and these sat in expectant +attitudes till a spent bone was flung to them, and then they went +for it by brigades and divisions, with a rush, and there ensued +a fight which filled the prospect with a tumultuous chaos of +plunging heads and bodies and flashing tails, and the storm of +howlings and barkings deafened all speech for the time; but that +was no matter, for the dog-fight was always a bigger interest +anyway; the men rose, sometimes, to observe it the better and bet +on it, and the ladies and the musicians stretched themselves out +over their balusters with the same object; and all broke into +delighted ejaculations from time to time. In the end, the winning +dog stretched himself out comfortably with his bone between his +paws, and proceeded to growl over it, and gnaw it, and grease +the floor with it, just as fifty others were already doing; and the +rest of the court resumed their previous industries and entertainments.</p> + +<p>As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people were gracious +and courtly; and I noticed that they were good and serious listeners +when anybody was telling anything—I mean in a dog-fightless +interval. And plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent lot; +telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a most gentle and +winning naivety, and ready and willing to listen to anybody else's +lie, and believe it, too. It was hard to associate them with +anything cruel or dreadful; and yet they dealt in tales of blood +and suffering with a guileless relish that made me almost forget +to shudder.</p> + +<p>I was not the only prisoner present. There were twenty or more. +Poor devils, many of them were maimed, hacked, carved, in a frightful +way; and their hair, their faces, their clothing, were caked with +black and stiffened drenchings of blood. They were suffering +sharp physical pain, of course; and weariness, and hunger and +thirst, no doubt; and at least none had given them the comfort +of a wash, or even the poor charity of a lotion for their wounds; +yet you never heard them utter a moan or a groan, or saw them show +any sign of restlessness, or any disposition to complain. The +thought was forced upon me: "The rascals—<i>they</i> have served other +people so in their day; it being their own turn, now, they were +not expecting any better treatment than this; so their philosophical +bearing is not an outcome of mental training, intellectual fortitude, +reasoning; it is mere animal training; they are white Indians."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="03-041.jpg (100K)" src="images/03-041.jpg" height="953" width="703"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><a name="c3"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER III</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="03-043.jpg (142K)" src="images/03-043.jpg" height="895" width="788"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND</p> + +<p>Mainly the Round Table talk was monologues—narrative accounts +of the adventures in which these prisoners were captured and their +friends and backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor. +As a general thing—as far as I could make out—these murderous +adventures were not forays undertaken to avenge injuries, nor to +settle old disputes or sudden fallings out; no, as a rule they were +simply duels between strangers—duels between people who had never +even been introduced to each other, and between whom existed no +cause of offense whatever. Many a time I had seen a couple of boys, +strangers, meet by chance, and say simultaneously, "I can lick you," +and go at it on the spot; but I had always imagined until now that +that sort of thing belonged to children only, and was a sign and +mark of childhood; but here were these big boobies sticking to it +and taking pride in it clear up into full age and beyond. Yet there +was something very engaging about these great simple-hearted +creatures, something attractive and lovable. There did not seem +to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak, to bait +a fish-hook with; but you didn't seem to mind that, after a little, +because you soon saw that brains were not needed in a society +like that, and indeed would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled +its symmetry—perhaps rendered its existence impossible.</p> + +<p>There was a fine manliness observable in almost every face; and +in some a certain loftiness and sweetness that rebuked your +belittling criticisms and stilled them. A most noble benignity +and purity reposed in the countenance of him they called Sir Galahad, +and likewise in the king's also; and there was majesty and greatness +in the giant frame and high bearing of Sir Launcelot of the Lake.</p> + +<p>There was presently an incident which centered the general interest +upon this Sir Launcelot. At a sign from a sort of master of +ceremonies, six or eight of the prisoners rose and came forward +in a body and knelt on the floor and lifted up their hands toward +the ladies' gallery and begged the grace of a word with the queen. +The most conspicuously situated lady in that massed flower-bed +of feminine show and finery inclined her head by way of assent, +and then the spokesman of the prisoners delivered himself and his +fellows into her hands for free pardon, ransom, captivity, or death, +as she in her good pleasure might elect; and this, as he said, he +was doing by command of Sir Kay the Seneschal, whose prisoners +they were, he having vanquished them by his single might and +prowess in sturdy conflict in the field.</p> + +<p>Surprise and astonishment flashed from face to face all over +the house; the queen's gratified smile faded out at the name of +Sir Kay, and she looked disappointed; and the page whispered in +my ear with an accent and manner expressive of extravagant derision—</p> + +<p>"Sir <i>Kay</i> , forsooth! Oh, call me pet names, dearest, call me +a marine! In twice a thousand years shall the unholy invention +of man labor at odds to beget the fellow to this majestic lie!"</p> + +<p>Every eye was fastened with severe inquiry upon Sir Kay. But he +was equal to the occasion. He got up and played his hand like +a major—and took every trick. He said he would state the case +exactly according to the facts; he would tell the simple +straightforward tale, without comment of his own; "and then," +said he, "if ye find glory and honor due, ye will give it unto him +who is the mightiest man of his hands that ever bare shield or +strake with sword in the ranks of Christian battle—even him that +sitteth there!" and he pointed to Sir Launcelot. Ah, he fetched +them; it was a rattling good stroke. Then he went on and told +how Sir Launcelot, seeking adventures, some brief time gone by, +killed seven giants at one sweep of his sword, and set a hundred +and forty-two captive maidens free; and then went further, still +seeking adventures, and found him (Sir Kay) fighting a desperate +fight against nine foreign knights, and straightway took the battle +solely into his own hands, and conquered the nine; and that night +Sir Launcelot rose quietly, and dressed him in Sir Kay's armor and +took Sir Kay's horse and gat him away into distant lands, and +vanquished sixteen knights in one pitched battle and thirty-four +in another; and all these and the former nine he made to swear +that about Whitsuntide they would ride to Arthur's court and yield +them to Queen Guenever's hands as captives of Sir Kay the Seneschal, +spoil of his knightly prowess; and now here were these half dozen, +and the rest would be along as soon as they might be healed of +their desperate wounds.</p> + +<p>Well, it was touching to see the queen blush and smile, and look +embarrassed and happy, and fling furtive glances at Sir Launcelot +that would have got him shot in Arkansas, to a dead certainty.</p> + +<p>Everybody praised the valor and magnanimity of Sir Launcelot; and +as for me, I was perfectly amazed, that one man, all by himself, +should have been able to beat down and capture such battalions +of practiced fighters. I said as much to Clarence; but this mocking +featherhead only said:</p> + +<p>"An Sir Kay had had time to get another skin of sour wine into him, +ye had seen the accompt doubled."</p> + +<p>I looked at the boy in sorrow; and as I looked I saw the cloud of +a deep despondency settle upon his countenance. I followed the +direction of his eye, and saw that a very old and white-bearded +man, clothed in a flowing black gown, had risen and was standing +at the table upon unsteady legs, and feebly swaying his ancient +head and surveying the company with his watery and wandering eye. +The same suffering look that was in the page's face was observable +in all the faces around—the look of dumb creatures who know that +they must endure and make no moan.</p> + +<p>"Marry, we shall have it again," sighed the boy; "that same old +weary tale that he hath told a thousand times in the same words, +and that he <i>will</i> tell till he dieth, every time he hath gotten his +barrel full and feeleth his exaggeration-mill a-working. Would +God I had died or I saw this day!"</p> + +<p>"Who is it?"</p> + +<p>"Merlin, the mighty liar and magician, perdition singe him for +the weariness he worketh with his one tale! But that men fear +him for that he hath the storms and the lightnings and all the +devils that be in hell at his beck and call, they would have dug +his entrails out these many years ago to get at that tale and +squelch it. He telleth it always in the third person, making +believe he is too modest to glorify himself—maledictions light +upon him, misfortune be his dole! Good friend, prithee call me +for evensong."</p> + +<p>The boy nestled himself upon my shoulder and pretended to go +to sleep. The old man began his tale; and presently the lad was +asleep in reality; so also were the dogs, and the court, the lackeys, +and the files of men-at-arms. The droning voice droned on; a soft +snoring arose on all sides and supported it like a deep and subdued +accompaniment of wind instruments. Some heads were bowed upon +folded arms, some lay back with open mouths that issued unconscious +music; the flies buzzed and bit, unmolested, the rats swarmed +softly out from a hundred holes, and pattered about, and made +themselves at home everywhere; and one of them sat up like a +squirrel on the king's head and held a bit of cheese in its hands +and nibbled it, and dribbled the crumbs in the king's face with +naive and impudent irreverence. It was a tranquil scene, and +restful to the weary eye and the jaded spirit.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="03-046.jpg (81K)" src="images/03-046.jpg" height="531" width="676"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>This was the old man's tale. He said:</p> + +<p>"Right so the king and Merlin departed, and went until an hermit +that was a good man and a great leech. So the hermit searched +all his wounds and gave him good salves; so the king was there +three days, and then were his wounds well amended that he might +ride and go, and so departed. And as they rode, Arthur said, +I have no sword. No force,* [*Footnote from M.T.: No matter.] +said Merlin, hereby is a sword that shall be yours and I may. +So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water +and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm +clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. +Lo, said Merlin, yonder is that sword that I spake of. With that +they saw a damsel going upon the lake. What damsel is that? +said Arthur. That is the Lady of the lake, said Merlin; and within +that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any on earth, +and richly beseen, and this damsel will come to you anon, and then +speak ye fair to her that she will give you that sword. Anon +withal came the damsel unto Arthur and saluted him, and he her +again. Damsel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yonder +the arm holdeth above the water? I would it were mine, for I have +no sword. Sir Arthur King, said the damsel, that sword is mine, +and if ye will give me a gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it. +By my faith, said Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask. +Well, said the damsel, go ye into yonder barge and row yourself +to the sword, and take it and the scabbard with you, and I will ask +my gift when I see my time. So Sir Arthur and Merlin alight, and +tied their horses to two trees, and so they went into the ship, +and when they came to the sword that the hand held, Sir Arthur +took it up by the handles, and took it with him.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="03-047.jpg (103K)" src="images/03-047.jpg" height="657" width="720"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p> +And the arm +and the hand went under the water; and so they came unto the land +and rode forth. And then Sir Arthur saw a rich pavilion. What +signifieth yonder pavilion? It is the knight's pavilion, said +Merlin, that ye fought with last, Sir Pellinore, but he is out, +he is not there; he hath ado with a knight of yours, that hight +Egglame, and they have fought together, but at the last Egglame +fled, and else he had been dead, and he hath chased him even +to Carlion, and we shall meet with him anon in the highway. That +is well said, said Arthur, now have I a sword, now will I wage +battle with him, and be avenged on him. Sir, ye shall not so, +said Merlin, for the knight is weary of fighting and chasing, so +that ye shall have no worship to have ado with him; also, he will +not lightly be matched of one knight living; and therefore it is my +counsel, let him pass, for he shall do you good service in short +time, and his sons, after his days. Also ye shall see that day +in short space ye shall be right glad to give him your sister +to wed. When I see him, I will do as ye advise me, said Arthur. +Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it passing well. +Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard? +Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more unwise, +said Merlin, for the scabbard is worth ten of the sword, for while +ye have the scabbard upon you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye +never so sore wounded; therefore, keep well the scabbard always +with you. So they rode into Carlion, and by the way they met with +Sir Pellinore; but Merlin had done such a craft that Pellinore saw +not Arthur, and he passed by without any words. I marvel, said +Arthur, that the knight would not speak. Sir, said Merlin, he saw +you not; for and he had seen you ye had not lightly departed. So +they came unto Carlion, whereof his knights were passing glad. +And when they heard of his adventures they marveled that he would +jeopard his person so alone. But all men of worship said it was +merry to be under such a chieftain that would put his person in +adventure as other poor knights did."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="04-051.jpg (111K)" src="images/04-051.jpg" height="848" width="766"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c4"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER IV</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="04-053.jpg (144K)" src="images/04-053.jpg" height="946" width="751"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST</p> + +<p>It seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply and beautifully +told; but then I had heard it only once, and that makes a difference; +it was pleasant to the others when it was fresh, no doubt.</p> + +<p>Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and he soon roused +the rest with a practical joke of a sufficiently poor quality. +He tied some metal mugs to a dog's tail and turned him loose, +and he tore around and around the place in a frenzy of fright, +with all the other dogs bellowing after him and battering and +crashing against everything that came in their way and making +altogether a chaos of confusion and a most deafening din and +turmoil; at which every man and woman of the multitude laughed +till the tears flowed, and some fell out of their chairs and +wallowed on the floor in ecstasy. It was just like so many children. +Sir Dinadan was so proud of his exploit that he could not keep +from telling over and over again, to weariness, how the immortal +idea happened to occur to him; and as is the way with humorists +of his breed, he was still laughing at it after everybody else had +got through.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="04-054.jpg (156K)" src="images/04-054.jpg" height="1032" width="741"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p> +He was so set up that he concluded to make a +speech—of course a humorous speech. I think I never heard so many old +played-out jokes strung together in my life. He was worse than +the minstrels, worse than the clown in the circus. It seemed +peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen hundred years before I was +born, and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had +given me the dry gripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years +afterwards. It about convinced me that there isn't any such thing +as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at these +antiquities—but then they always do; I had noticed that, centuries later. +However, of course the scoffer didn't laugh—I mean the boy. No, +he scoffed; there wasn't anything he wouldn't scoff at. He said +the most of Sir Dinadan's jokes were rotten and the rest were +petrified. I said "petrified" was good; as I believed, myself, +that the only right way to classify the majestic ages of some of +those jokes was by geologic periods. But that neat idea hit +the boy in a blank place, for geology hadn't been invented yet. +However, I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate +the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It is no use +to throw a good thing away merely because the market isn't ripe yet.</p> + +<p>Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill with me +for fuel. It was time for me to feel serious, and I did. Sir Kay +told how he had encountered me in a far land of barbarians, who +all wore the same ridiculous garb that I did—a garb that was a work +of enchantment, and intended to make the wearer secure from hurt +by human hands. However he had nullified the force of the +enchantment by prayer, and had killed my thirteen knights in +a three hours' battle, and taken me prisoner, sparing my life +in order that so strange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited +to the wonder and admiration of the king and the court. He spoke +of me all the time, in the blandest way, as "this prodigious giant," +and "this horrible sky-towering monster," and "this tusked and +taloned man-devouring ogre", and everybody took in all this bosh +in the naivest way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that +there was any discrepancy between these watered statistics and me. +He said that in trying to escape from him I sprang into the top of +a tree two hundred cubits high at a single bound, but he dislodged +me with a stone the size of a cow, which "all-to brast" the most +of my bones, and then swore me to appear at Arthur's court for +sentence. He ended by condemning me to die at noon on the 21st; +and was so little concerned about it that he stopped to yawn before +he named the date.</p> + +<p>I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I was hardly enough +in my right mind to keep the run of a dispute that sprung up as +to how I had better be killed, the possibility of the killing being +doubted by some, because of the enchantment in my clothes. And yet +it was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop-shops. +Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail, to wit: many of +the terms used in the most matter-of-fact way by this great +assemblage of the first ladies and gentlemen in the land would +have made a Comanche blush.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="04-056.jpg (162K)" src="images/04-056.jpg" height="1019" width="721"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p> +Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey +the idea. However, I had read "Tom Jones," and "Roderick Random," +and other books of that kind, and knew that the highest and first +ladies and gentlemen in England had remained little or no cleaner +in their talk, and in the morals and conduct which such talk +implies, clear up to a hundred years ago; in fact clear into our +own nineteenth century—in which century, broadly speaking, +the earliest samples of the real lady and real gentleman discoverable +in English history—or in European history, for that matter—may be +said to have made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, instead +of putting the conversations into the mouths of his characters, +had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We should +have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena +which would embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the +unconsciously indelicate all things are delicate. King Arthur's +people were not aware that they were indecent and I had presence +of mind enough not to mention it.</p> + +<p>They were so troubled about my enchanted clothes that they were +mightily relieved, at last, when old Merlin swept the difficulty +away for them with a common-sense hint. He asked them why they +were so dull—why didn't it occur to them to strip me. In half a +minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear, dear, to think +of it: I was the only embarrassed person there. Everybody discussed +me; and did it as unconcernedly as if I had been a cabbage. +Queen Guenever was as naively interested as the rest, and said +she had never seen anybody with legs just like mine before. It was +the only compliment I got—if it was a compliment.</p> + +<p>Finally I was carried off in one direction, and my perilous clothes +in another. I was shoved into a dark and narrow cell in a dungeon, +with some scant remnants for dinner, some moldy straw for a bed, +and no end of rats for company.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="05-059.jpg (123K)" src="images/05-059.jpg" height="1020" width="688"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c5"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER V</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="05-061.jpg (134K)" src="images/05-061.jpg" height="932" width="764"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>AN INSPIRATION</p> + +<p>I was so tired that even my fears were not able to keep me awake long.</p> + +<p>When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been asleep a very +long time. My first thought was, "Well, what an astonishing dream +I've had! I reckon I've waked only just in time to keep from +being hanged or drowned or burned or something.... I'll nap again +till the whistle blows, and then I'll go down to the arms factory +and have it out with Hercules."</p> + +<p>But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains and bolts, +a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly, Clarence, stood +before me! I gasped with surprise; my breath almost got away from me.</p> + +<p>"What!" I said, "you here yet? Go along with the rest of +the dream! scatter!"</p> + +<p>But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and fell to making +fun of my sorry plight.</p> + +<p>"All right," I said resignedly, "let the dream go on; I'm in no hurry."</p> + +<p>"Prithee what dream?"</p> + +<p>"What dream? Why, the dream that I am in Arthur's court—a person +who never existed; and that I am talking to you, who are nothing +but a work of the imagination."</p> + +<p>"Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you're to be burned +to-morrow? Ho-ho—answer me that!"</p> + +<p>The shock that went through me was distressing. I now began +to reason that my situation was in the last degree serious, dream +or no dream; for I knew by past experience of the lifelike intensity +of dreams, that to be burned to death, even in a dream, would be +very far from being a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by any +means, fair or foul, that I could contrive. So I said beseechingly:</p> + +<p>"Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I've got,—for you <i>are</i> my +friend, aren't you?—don't fail me; help me to devise some way +of escaping from this place!"</p> + +<p>"Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man, the corridors are +in guard and keep of men-at-arms."</p> + +<p>"No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? Not many, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"Full a score. One may not hope to escape." After a +pause—hesitatingly: "and there be other reasons—and weightier."</p> + +<p>"Other ones? What are they?"</p> + +<p>"Well, they say—oh, but I daren't, indeed daren't!"</p> + +<p>"Why, poor lad, what is the matter? Why do you blench? Why do +you tremble so?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, in sooth, there is need! I do want to tell you, but—"</p> + +<p>"Come, come, be brave, be a man—speak out, there's a good lad!"</p> + +<p>He hesitated, pulled one way by desire, the other way by fear; +then he stole to the door and peeped out, listening; and finally +crept close to me and put his mouth to my ear and told me his +fearful news in a whisper, and with all the cowering apprehension +of one who was venturing upon awful ground and speaking of things +whose very mention might be freighted with death.</p> + +<p>"Merlin, in his malice, has woven a spell about this dungeon, and +there bides not the man in these kingdoms that would be desperate +enough to essay to cross its lines with you! Now God pity me, +I have told it! Ah, be kind to me, be merciful to a poor boy who +means thee well; for an thou betray me I am lost!"</p> + +<p>I laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had for some time; +and shouted:</p> + +<p>"Merlin has wrought a spell! <i>Merlin</i> , forsooth! That cheap old +humbug, that maundering old ass? Bosh, pure bosh, the silliest bosh +in the world! Why, it does seem to me that of all the childish, +idiotic, chuckle-headed, chicken-livered superstitions that +ev—oh, damn Merlin!"</p> + +<p>But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had half finished, +and he was like to go out of his mind with fright.</p> + +<p>"Oh, beware! These are awful words! Any moment these walls +may crumble upon us if you say such things. Oh call them back +before it is too late!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="05-063.jpg (142K)" src="images/05-063.jpg" height="712" width="725"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Now this strange exhibition gave me a good idea and set me to +thinking. If everybody about here was so honestly and sincerely +afraid of Merlin's pretended magic as Clarence was, certainly +a superior man like me ought to be shrewd enough to contrive +some way to take advantage of such a state of things. I went +on thinking, and worked out a plan. Then I said:</p> + +<p>"Get up. Pull yourself together; look me in the eye. Do you +know why I laughed?"</p> + +<p>"No—but for our blessed Lady's sake, do it no more."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you why I laughed. Because I'm a magician myself."</p> + +<p>"Thou!" The boy recoiled a step, and caught his breath, for +the thing hit him rather sudden; but the aspect which he took +on was very, very respectful. I took quick note of that; it +indicated that a humbug didn't need to have a reputation in this +asylum; people stood ready to take him at his word, without that. +I resumed.</p> + +<p>"I've known Merlin seven hundred years, and he—"</p> + +<p>"Seven hun—"</p> + +<p>"Don't interrupt me. He has died and come alive again thirteen +times, and traveled under a new name every time: Smith, Jones, +Robinson, Jackson, Peters, Haskins, Merlin—a new alias every +time he turns up. I knew him in Egypt three hundred years ago; +I knew him in India five hundred years ago—he is always blethering +around in my way, everywhere I go; he makes me tired. He don't +amount to shucks, as a magician; knows some of the old common +tricks, but has never got beyond the rudiments, and never will. +He is well enough for the provinces—one-night stands and that +sort of thing, you know—but dear me, <i>he</i> oughtn't to set up for +an expert—anyway not where there's a real artist. Now look here, +Clarence, I am going to stand your friend, right along, and in +return you must be mine. I want you to do me a favor. I want +you to get word to the king that I am a magician myself—and the +Supreme Grand High-yu-Muck-amuck and head of the tribe, at that; +and I want him to be made to understand that I am just quietly +arranging a little calamity here that will make the fur fly in these +realms if Sir Kay's project is carried out and any harm comes +to me. Will you get that to the king for me?"</p> + +<p>The poor boy was in such a state that he could hardly answer me. +It was pitiful to see a creature so terrified, so unnerved, so +demoralized. But he promised everything; and on my side he made +me promise over and over again that I would remain his friend, and +never turn against him or cast any enchantments upon him. Then +he worked his way out, staying himself with his hand along the +wall, like a sick person.</p> + +<p>Presently this thought occurred to me: how heedless I have been! +When the boy gets calm, he will wonder why a great magician like me +should have begged a boy like him to help me get out of this place; +he will put this and that together, and will see that I am a humbug.</p> + +<p>I worried over that heedless blunder for an hour, and called myself +a great many hard names, meantime. But finally it occurred to me +all of a sudden that these animals didn't reason; that <i>they</i> never +put this and that together; that all their talk showed that they +didn't know a discrepancy when they saw it. I was at rest, then.</p> + +<p>But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes on +something else to worry about. It occurred to me that I had made +another blunder: I had sent the boy off to alarm his betters with +a threat—I intending to invent a calamity at my leisure; now +the people who are the readiest and eagerest and willingest to +swallow miracles are the very ones who are hungriest to see you +perform them; suppose I should be called on for a sample? Suppose +I should be asked to name my calamity? Yes, I had made a blunder; +I ought to have invented my calamity first. "What shall I do? +what can I say, to gain a little time?" I was in trouble again; +in the deepest kind of trouble...</p> + +<p>"There's a footstep!—they're coming. If I had only just a moment +to think.... Good, I've got it. I'm all right."</p> + +<p>You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind in the nick +of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played +an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my +chance. I could play it myself, now, and it wouldn't be any +plagiarism, either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand +years ahead of those parties.</p> + +<p>Clarence came in, subdued, distressed, and said:</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="05-066.jpg (67K)" src="images/05-066.jpg" height="496" width="653"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"I hasted the message to our liege the king, and straightway he +had me to his presence. He was frighted even to the marrow, +and was minded to give order for your instant enlargement, and +that you be clothed in fine raiment and lodged as befitted one so +great; but then came Merlin and spoiled all; for he persuaded +the king that you are mad, and know not whereof you speak; and +said your threat is but foolishness and idle vaporing. They +disputed long, but in the end, Merlin, scoffing, said, 'Wherefore +hath he not <i>named</i> his brave calamity? Verily it is because he +cannot.' This thrust did in a most sudden sort close the king's +mouth, and he could offer naught to turn the argument; and so, +reluctant, and full loth to do you the discourtesy, he yet prayeth +you to consider his perplexed case, as noting how the matter stands, +and name the calamity—if so be you have determined the nature +of it and the time of its coming. Oh, prithee delay not; to delay +at such a time were to double and treble the perils that already +compass thee about. Oh, be thou wise—name the calamity!"</p> + +<p>I allowed silence to accumulate while I got my impressiveness +together, and then said:</p> + +<p>"How long have I been shut up in this hole?"</p> + +<p>"Ye were shut up when yesterday was well spent. It is 9 of +the morning now."</p> + +<p>"No! Then I have slept well, sure enough. Nine in the morning +now! And yet it is the very complexion of midnight, to a shade. +This is the 20th, then?"</p> + +<p>"The 20th—yes."</p> + +<p>"And I am to be burned alive to-morrow." The boy shuddered.</p> + +<p>"At what hour?"</p> + +<p>"At high noon."</p> + +<p>"Now then, I will tell you what to say." I paused, and stood over +that cowering lad a whole minute in awful silence; then, in a voice +deep, measured, charged with doom, I began, and rose by dramatically +graded stages to my colossal climax, which I delivered in as sublime +and noble a way as ever I did such a thing in my life: "Go back +and tell the king that at that hour I will smother the whole world +in the dead blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he +shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack +of light and warmth, and the peoples of the earth shall famish +and die, to the last man!"</p> + +<p>I had to carry the boy out myself, he sunk into such a collapse. +I handed him over to the soldiers, and went back.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="06-069.jpg (99K)" src="images/06-069.jpg" height="944" width="685"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c6"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER VI</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="06-069.jpg (99K)" src="images/06-069.jpg" height="944" width="685"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>THE ECLIPSE</p> + +<p>In the stillness and the darkness, realization soon began to +supplement knowledge. The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but +when you come to <i>realize</i> your fact, it takes on color. It is +all the difference between hearing of a man being stabbed to +the heart, and seeing it done. In the stillness and the darkness, +the knowledge that I was in deadly danger took to itself deeper +and deeper meaning all the time; a something which was realization +crept inch by inch through my veins and turned me cold.</p> + +<p>But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like these, +as soon as a man's mercury has got down to a certain point there +comes a revulsion, and he rallies. Hope springs up, and cheerfulness +along with it, and then he is in good shape to do something for +himself, if anything can be done. When my rally came, it came with +a bound. I said to myself that my eclipse would be sure to save me, +and make me the greatest man in the kingdom besides; and straightway +my mercury went up to the top of the tube, and my solicitudes +all vanished. I was as happy a man as there was in the world. +I was even impatient for to-morrow to come, I so wanted to gather +in that great triumph and be the center of all the nation's wonder +and reverence. Besides, in a business way it would be the making +of me; I knew that.</p> + +<p>Meantime there was one thing which had got pushed into the background +of my mind. That was the half-conviction that when the nature +of my proposed calamity should be reported to those superstitious +people, it would have such an effect that they would want to +compromise. So, by and by when I heard footsteps coming, that +thought was recalled to me, and I said to myself, "As sure as +anything, it's the compromise. Well, if it is good, all right, +I will accept; but if it isn't, I mean to stand my ground and play +my hand for all it is worth."</p> + +<p>The door opened, and some men-at-arms appeared. The leader said:</p> + +<p>"The stake is ready. Come!"</p> + +<p>The stake! The strength went out of me, and I almost fell down. +It is hard to get one's breath at such a time, such lumps come into +one's throat, and such gaspings; but as soon as I could speak, I said:</p> + +<p>"But this is a mistake—the execution is to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Order changed; been set forward a day. Haste thee!"</p> + +<p>I was lost. There was no help for me. I was dazed, stupefied; +I had no command over myself, I only wandered purposely about, +like one out of his mind; so the soldiers took hold of me, and +pulled me along with them, out of the cell and along the maze of +underground corridors, and finally into the fierce glare of daylight +and the upper world. As we stepped into the vast enclosed court +of the castle I got a shock; for the first thing I saw was the stake, +standing in the center, and near it the piled fagots and a monk. +On all four sides of the court the seated multitudes rose rank +above rank, forming sloping terraces that were rich with color. +The king and the queen sat in their thrones, the most conspicuous +figures there, of course.</p> + +<p>To note all this, occupied but a second. The next second Clarence +had slipped from some place of concealment and was pouring news +into my ear, his eyes beaming with triumph and gladness. He said:</p> + +<p>"Tis through <i>me</i> the change was wrought! And main hard have I worked +to do it, too. But when I revealed to them the calamity in store, +and saw how mighty was the terror it did engender, then saw I also +that this was the time to strike! Wherefore I diligently pretended, +unto this and that and the other one, that your power against the sun +could not reach its full until the morrow; and so if any would save +the sun and the world, you must be slain to-day, while your +enchantments are but in the weaving and lack potency. Odsbodikins, +it was but a dull lie, a most indifferent invention, but you should +have seen them seize it and swallow it, in the frenzy of their +fright, as it were salvation sent from heaven; and all the while +was I laughing in my sleeve the one moment, to see them so cheaply +deceived, and glorifying God the next, that He was content to let +the meanest of His creatures be His instrument to the saving of +thy life. Ah how happy has the matter sped! You will not need +to do the sun a <i>real</i> hurt—ah, forget not that, on your soul forget +it not! Only make a little darkness—only the littlest little +darkness, mind, and cease with that. It will be sufficient. They +will see that I spoke falsely,—being ignorant, as they will +fancy—and with the falling of the first shadow of that darkness you +shall see them go mad with fear; and they will set you free and +make you great! Go to thy triumph, now! But remember—ah, good +friend, I implore thee remember my supplication, and do the blessed +sun no hurt. For <i>my</i> sake, thy true friend."</p> + +<p>I choked out some words through my grief and misery; as much as +to say I would spare the sun; for which the lad's eyes paid me back +with such deep and loving gratitude that I had not the heart +to tell him his good-hearted foolishness had ruined me and sent me +to my death.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="06-074.jpg (169K)" src="images/06-074.jpg" height="1026" width="715"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>As the soldiers assisted me across the court the stillness was +so profound that if I had been blindfold I should have supposed +I was in a solitude instead of walled in by four thousand people. +There was not a movement perceptible in those masses of humanity; +they were as rigid as stone images, and as pale; and dread sat +upon every countenance. This hush continued while I was being +chained to the stake; it still continued while the fagots were +carefully and tediously piled about my ankles, my knees, my thighs, +my body. Then there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if possible, +and a man knelt down at my feet with a blazing torch; the multitude +strained forward, gazing, and parting slightly from their seats +without knowing it; the monk raised his hands above my head, and +his eyes toward the blue sky, and began some words in Latin; in +this attitude he droned on and on, a little while, and then stopped. +I waited two or three moments; then looked up; he was standing +there petrified. With a common impulse the multitude rose slowly +up and stared into the sky. I followed their eyes, as sure as guns, +there was my eclipse beginning! The life went boiling through +my veins; I was a new man! The rim of black spread slowly into +the sun's disk, my heart beat higher and higher, and still the +assemblage and the priest stared into the sky, motionless. I knew +that this gaze would be turned upon me, next. When it was, I was +ready. I was in one of the most grand attitudes I ever struck, +with my arm stretched up pointing to the sun. It was a noble +effect. You could <i>see</i> the shudder sweep the mass like a wave. +Two shouts rang out, one close upon the heels of the other:</p> + +<p>"Apply the torch!"</p> + +<p>"I forbid it!"</p> + +<p>The one was from Merlin, the other from the king. Merlin started +from his place—to apply the torch himself, I judged. I said:</p> + +<p>"Stay where you are. If any man moves—even the king—before +I give him leave, I will blast him with thunder, I will consume +him with lightnings!"</p> + +<p>The multitude sank meekly into their seats, and I was just expecting +they would. Merlin hesitated a moment or two, and I was on pins +and needles during that little while. Then he sat down, and I took +a good breath; for I knew I was master of the situation now. +The king said:</p> + +<p>"Be merciful, fair sir, and essay no further in this perilous matter, +lest disaster follow. It was reported to us that your powers could +not attain unto their full strength until the morrow; but—"</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty thinks the report may have been a lie? It <i>was</i> a lie."</p> + +<p>That made an immense effect; up went appealing hands everywhere, +and the king was assailed with a storm of supplications that +I might be bought off at any price, and the calamity stayed. +The king was eager to comply. He said:</p> + +<p>"Name any terms, reverend sir, even to the halving of my kingdom; +but banish this calamity, spare the sun!"</p> + +<p>My fortune was made. I would have taken him up in a minute, but +I couldn't stop an eclipse; the thing was out of the question. So +I asked time to consider. The king said:</p> + +<p>"How long—ah, how long, good sir? Be merciful; look, it groweth +darker, moment by moment. Prithee how long?"</p> + +<p>"Not long. Half an hour—maybe an hour."</p> + +<p>There were a thousand pathetic protests, but I couldn't shorten up +any, for I couldn't remember how long a total eclipse lasts. I was +in a puzzled condition, anyway, and wanted to think. Something +was wrong about that eclipse, and the fact was very unsettling. +If this wasn't the one I was after, how was I to tell whether this +was the sixth century, or nothing but a dream? Dear me, if I could +only prove it was the latter! Here was a glad new hope. If the boy +was right about the date, and this was surely the 20th, it <i>wasn't</i> +the sixth century. I reached for the monk's sleeve, in considerable +excitement, and asked him what day of the month it was.</p> + +<p>Hang him, he said it was the <i>twenty-first</i> ! It made me turn cold +to hear him. I begged him not to make any mistake about it; but +he was sure; he knew it was the 21st. So, that feather-headed +boy had botched things again! The time of the day was right +for the eclipse; I had seen that for myself, in the beginning, +by the dial that was near by. Yes, I was in King Arthur's court, +and I might as well make the most out of it I could.</p> + +<p>The darkness was steadily growing, the people becoming more and +more distressed. I now said:</p> + +<p>"I have reflected, Sir King. For a lesson, I will let this darkness +proceed, and spread night in the world; but whether I blot out +the sun for good, or restore it, shall rest with you. These are +the terms, to wit: You shall remain king over all your dominions, +and receive all the glories and honors that belong to the kingship; +but you shall appoint me your perpetual minister and executive, +and give me for my services one per cent of such actual increase +of revenue over and above its present amount as I may succeed +in creating for the state. If I can't live on that, I sha'n't ask +anybody to give me a lift. Is it satisfactory?"</p> + +<p>There was a prodigious roar of applause, and out of the midst +of it the king's voice rose, saying:</p> + +<p>"Away with his bonds, and set him free! and do him homage, high +and low, rich and poor, for he is become the king's right hand, +is clothed with power and authority, and his seat is upon the highest +step of the throne! Now sweep away this creeping night, and bring +the light and cheer again, that all the world may bless thee."</p> + +<p>But I said:</p> + +<p>"That a common man should be shamed before the world, is nothing; +but it were dishonor to the <i>king</i> if any that saw his minister naked +should not also see him delivered from his shame. If I might ask +that my clothes be brought again—"</p> + +<p>"They are not meet," the king broke in. "Fetch raiment of another +sort; clothe him like a prince!"</p> + +<p>My idea worked. I wanted to keep things as they were till the +eclipse was total, otherwise they would be trying again to get +me to dismiss the darkness, and of course I couldn't do it. Sending +for the clothes gained some delay, but not enough. So I had to make +another excuse. I said it would be but natural if the king should +change his mind and repent to some extent of what he had done +under excitement; therefore I would let the darkness grow a while, +and if at the end of a reasonable time the king had kept his mind +the same, the darkness should be dismissed. Neither the king nor +anybody else was satisfied with that arrangement, but I had +to stick to my point.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="06-078.jpg (132K)" src="images/06-078.jpg" height="936" width="713"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I struggled +with those awkward sixth-century clothes. It got to be pitch dark, +at last, and the multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold +uncanny night breezes fan through the place and see the stars +come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the eclipse was total, +and I was very glad of it, but everybody else was in misery; which +was quite natural. I said:</p> + +<p>"The king, by his silence, still stands to the terms." Then +I lifted up my hands—stood just so a moment—then I said, with +the most awful solemnity: "Let the enchantment dissolve and +pass harmless away!"</p> + +<p>There was no response, for a moment, in that deep darkness and +that graveyard hush. But when the silver rim of the sun pushed +itself out, a moment or two later, the assemblage broke loose with +a vast shout and came pouring down like a deluge to smother me +with blessings and gratitude; and Clarence was not the last of +the wash, to be sure.</p> + + + + +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's +Court, Part 1., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + +***** This file should be named 7242-h.htm or 7242-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/4/7242/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 1. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #7242] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT + + by + + MARK TWAIN + (Samuel L. Clemens) + + Part 1. + + + + +PREFACE + +The ungentle laws and customs touched upon in this tale are +historical, and the episodes which are used to illustrate them +are also historical. It is not pretended that these laws and +customs existed in England in the sixth century; no, it is only +pretended that inasmuch as they existed in the English and other +civilizations of far later times, it is safe to consider that it is +no libel upon the sixth century to suppose them to have been in +practice in that day also. One is quite justified in inferring +that whatever one of these laws or customs was lacking in that +remote time, its place was competently filled by a worse one. + +The question as to whether there is such a thing as divine right +of kings is not settled in this book. It was found too difficult. +That the executive head of a nation should be a person of lofty +character and extraordinary ability, was manifest and indisputable; +that none but the Deity could select that head unerringly, was +also manifest and indisputable; that the Deity ought to make that +selection, then, was likewise manifest and indisputable; consequently, +that He does make it, as claimed, was an unavoidable deduction. +I mean, until the author of this book encountered the Pompadour, +and Lady Castlemaine, and some other executive heads of that kind; +these were found so difficult to work into the scheme, that it +was judged better to take the other tack in this book (which +must be issued this fall), and then go into training and settle +the question in another book. It is, of course, a thing which +ought to be settled, and I am not going to have anything particular +to do next winter anyway. + +MARK TWAIN + +HARTFORD, July 21, 1889 + + + + + +A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT + + + + +A WORD OF EXPLANATION + +It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger +whom I am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: +his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, +and the restfulness of his company--for he did all the talking. +We fell together, as modest people will, in the tail of the herd +that was being shown through, and he at once began to say things +which interested me. As he talked along, softly, pleasantly, +flowingly, he seemed to drift away imperceptibly out of this world +and time, and into some remote era and old forgotten country; +and so he gradually wove such a spell about me that I seemed +to move among the specters and shadows and dust and mold of a gray +antiquity, holding speech with a relic of it! Exactly as I would +speak of my nearest personal friends or enemies, or my most familiar +neighbors, he spoke of Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de Ganis, Sir Launcelot +of the Lake, Sir Galahad, and all the other great names of the +Table Round--and how old, old, unspeakably old and faded and dry +and musty and ancient he came to look as he went on! Presently +he turned to me and said, just as one might speak of the weather, +or any other common matter-- + +"You know about transmigration of souls; do you know about +transposition of epochs--and bodies?" + +I said I had not heard of it. He was so little interested--just +as when people speak of the weather--that he did not notice +whether I made him any answer or not. There was half a moment +of silence, immediately interrupted by the droning voice of the +salaried cicerone: + +"Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time of King Arthur +and the Round Table; said to have belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor +le Desirous; observe the round hole through the chain-mail in +the left breast; can't be accounted for; supposed to have been +done with a bullet since invention of firearms--perhaps maliciously +by Cromwell's soldiers." + +My acquaintance smiled--not a modern smile, but one that must +have gone out of general use many, many centuries ago--and muttered +apparently to himself: + +"Wit ye well, _I saw it done_." Then, after a pause, added: +"I did it myself." + +By the time I had recovered from the electric surprise of this +remark, he was gone. + +All that evening I sat by my fire at the Warwick Arms, steeped +in a dream of the olden time, while the rain beat upon the windows, +and the wind roared about the eaves and corners. From time to +time I dipped into old Sir Thomas Malory's enchanting book, and +fed at its rich feast of prodigies and adventures, breathed in +the fragrance of its obsolete names, and dreamed again. Midnight +being come at length, I read another tale, for a nightcap--this +which here follows, to wit: + +HOW SIR LAUNCELOT SLEW TWO GIANTS, AND MADE A CASTLE FREE + + Anon withal came there upon him two great giants, + well armed, all save the heads, with two horrible + clubs in their hands. Sir Launcelot put his shield + afore him, and put the stroke away of the one + giant, and with his sword he clave his head asunder. + When his fellow saw that, he ran away as he were + wood [*demented], for fear of the horrible strokes, + and Sir Launcelot after him with all his might, + and smote him on the shoulder, and clave him to + the middle. Then Sir Launcelot went into the hall, + and there came afore him three score ladies and + damsels, and all kneeled unto him, and thanked + God and him of their deliverance. For, sir, said + they, the most part of us have been here this + seven year their prisoners, and we have worked all + manner of silk works for our meat, and we are all + great gentle-women born, and blessed be the time, + knight, that ever thou wert born; for thou hast + done the most worship that ever did knight in the + world, that will we bear record, and we all pray + you to tell us your name, that we may tell our + friends who delivered us out of prison. Fair + damsels, he said, my name is Sir Launcelot du + Lake. And so he departed from them and betaught + them unto God. And then he mounted upon his + horse, and rode into many strange and wild + countries, and through many waters and valleys, + and evil was he lodged. And at the last by + fortune him happened against a night to come to + a fair courtilage, and therein he found an old + gentle-woman that lodged him with a good-will, + and there he had good cheer for him and his horse. + And when time was, his host brought him into a + fair garret over the gate to his bed. There + Sir Launcelot unarmed him, and set his harness + by him, and went to bed, and anon he fell on + sleep. So, soon after there came one on + horseback, and knocked at the gate in great + haste. And when Sir Launcelot heard this he rose + up, and looked out at the window, and saw by the + moonlight three knights come riding after that + one man, and all three lashed on him at once + with swords, and that one knight turned on them + knightly again and defended him. Truly, said + Sir Launcelot, yonder one knight shall I help, + for it were shame for me to see three knights + on one, and if he be slain I am partner of his + death. And therewith he took his harness and + went out at a window by a sheet down to the four + knights, and then Sir Launcelot said on high, + Turn you knights unto me, and leave your + fighting with that knight. And then they all + three left Sir Kay, and turned unto Sir Launcelot, + and there began great battle, for they alight + all three, and strake many strokes at Sir + Launcelot, and assailed him on every side. Then + Sir Kay dressed him for to have holpen Sir + Launcelot. Nay, sir, said he, I will none of + your help, therefore as ye will have my help + let me alone with them. Sir Kay for the pleasure + of the knight suffered him for to do his will, + and so stood aside. And then anon within six + strokes Sir Launcelot had stricken them to the earth. + + And then they all three cried, Sir Knight, we + yield us unto you as man of might matchless. As + to that, said Sir Launcelot, I will not take + your yielding unto me, but so that ye yield + you unto Sir Kay the seneschal, on that covenant + I will save your lives and else not. Fair knight, + said they, that were we loath to do; for as for + Sir Kay we chased him hither, and had overcome + him had ye not been; therefore, to yield us unto + him it were no reason. Well, as to that, said + Sir Launcelot, advise you well, for ye may + choose whether ye will die or live, for an ye be + yielden, it shall be unto Sir Kay. Fair knight, + then they said, in saving our lives we will do + as thou commandest us. Then shall ye, said Sir + Launcelot, on Whitsunday next coming go unto the + court of King Arthur, and there shall ye yield + you unto Queen Guenever, and put you all three + in her grace and mercy, and say that Sir Kay + sent you thither to be her prisoners. On the morn + Sir Launcelot arose early, and left Sir Kay + sleeping; and Sir Launcelot took Sir Kay's armor + and his shield and armed him, and so he went to + the stable and took his horse, and took his leave + of his host, and so he departed. Then soon after + arose Sir Kay and missed Sir Launcelot; and + then he espied that he had his armor and his + horse. Now by my faith I know well that he will + grieve some of the court of King Arthur; for on + him knights will be bold, and deem that it is I, + and that will beguile them; and because of his + armor and shield I am sure I shall ride in peace. + And then soon after departed Sir Kay, and + thanked his host. + + +As I laid the book down there was a knock at the door, and my +stranger came in. I gave him a pipe and a chair, and made him +welcome. I also comforted him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him +another one; then still another--hoping always for his story. +After a fourth persuader, he drifted into it himself, in a quite +simple and natural way: + + + +THE STRANGER'S HISTORY + +I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State +of Connecticut--anyway, just over the river, in the country. So +I am a Yankee of the Yankees--and practical; yes, and nearly +barren of sentiment, I suppose--or poetry, in other words. My +father was a blacksmith, my uncle was a horse doctor, and I was +both, along at first. Then I went over to the great arms factory +and learned my real trade; learned all there was to it; learned +to make everything: guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all +sorts of labor-saving machinery. Why, I could make anything +a body wanted--anything in the world, it didn't make any difference +what; and if there wasn't any quick new-fangled way to make a thing, +I could invent one--and do it as easy as rolling off a log. I became +head superintendent; had a couple of thousand men under me. + +Well, a man like that is a man that is full of fight--that goes +without saying. With a couple of thousand rough men under one, +one has plenty of that sort of amusement. I had, anyway. At last +I met my match, and I got my dose. It was during a misunderstanding +conducted with crowbars with a fellow we used to call Hercules. +He laid me out with a crusher alongside the head that made everything +crack, and seemed to spring every joint in my skull and made it +overlap its neighbor. Then the world went out in darkness, and +I didn't feel anything more, and didn't know anything at all +--at least for a while. + +When I came to again, I was sitting under an oak tree, on the +grass, with a whole beautiful and broad country landscape all +to myself--nearly. Not entirely; for there was a fellow on a horse, +looking down at me--a fellow fresh out of a picture-book. He was +in old-time iron armor from head to heel, with a helmet on his +head the shape of a nail-keg with slits in it; and he had a shield, +and a sword, and a prodigious spear; and his horse had armor on, +too, and a steel horn projecting from his forehead, and gorgeous +red and green silk trappings that hung down all around him like +a bedquilt, nearly to the ground. + +"Fair sir, will ye just?" said this fellow. + +"Will I which?" + +"Will ye try a passage of arms for land or lady or for--" + +"What are you giving me?" I said. "Get along back to your circus, +or I'll report you." + +Now what does this man do but fall back a couple of hundred yards +and then come rushing at me as hard as he could tear, with his +nail-keg bent down nearly to his horse's neck and his long spear +pointed straight ahead. I saw he meant business, so I was up +the tree when he arrived. + +He allowed that I was his property, the captive of his spear. +There was argument on his side--and the bulk of the advantage +--so I judged it best to humor him. We fixed up an agreement +whereby I was to go with him and he was not to hurt me. I came +down, and we started away, I walking by the side of his horse. +We marched comfortably along, through glades and over brooks which +I could not remember to have seen before--which puzzled me and +made me wonder--and yet we did not come to any circus or sign of +a circus. So I gave up the idea of a circus, and concluded he was +from an asylum. But we never came to an asylum--so I was up +a stump, as you may say. I asked him how far we were from Hartford. +He said he had never heard of the place; which I took to be a lie, +but allowed it to go at that. At the end of an hour we saw a +far-away town sleeping in a valley by a winding river; and beyond +it on a hill, a vast gray fortress, with towers and turrets, +the first I had ever seen out of a picture. + +"Bridgeport?" said I, pointing. + +"Camelot," said he. + + +My stranger had been showing signs of sleepiness. He caught +himself nodding, now, and smiled one of those pathetic, obsolete +smiles of his, and said: + +"I find I can't go on; but come with me, I've got it all written +out, and you can read it if you like." + +In his chamber, he said: "First, I kept a journal; then by and by, +after years, I took the journal and turned it into a book. How +long ago that was!" + +He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out the place where +I should begin: + +"Begin here--I've already told you what goes before." He was +steeped in drowsiness by this time. As I went out at his door +I heard him murmur sleepily: "Give you good den, fair sir." + +I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure. The first part +of it--the great bulk of it--was parchment, and yellow with age. +I scanned a leaf particularly and saw that it was a palimpsest. +Under the old dim writing of the Yankee historian appeared traces +of a penmanship which was older and dimmer still--Latin words +and sentences: fragments from old monkish legends, evidently. +I turned to the place indicated by my stranger and began to read +--as follows: + + + + +THE TALE OF THE LOST LAND + + + + +CHAPTER I + +CAMELOT + +"Camelot--Camelot," said I to myself. "I don't seem to remember +hearing of it before. Name of the asylum, likely." + +It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, +and as lonesome as Sunday. The air was full of the smell of +flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of birds, +and there were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life, +nothing going on. The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints +in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on either side in +the grass--wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one's hand. + +Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a cataract +of golden hair streaming down over her shoulders, came along. +Around her head she wore a hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as +sweet an outfit as ever I saw, what there was of it. She walked +indolently along, with a mind at rest, its peace reflected in her +innocent face. The circus man paid no attention to her; didn't +even seem to see her. And she--she was no more startled at his +fantastic make-up than if she was used to his like every day of +her life. She was going by as indifferently as she might have gone +by a couple of cows; but when she happened to notice me, _then_ +there was a change! Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone; +her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she +was the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. And +there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied fascination, till +we turned a corner of the wood and were lost to her view. That +she should be startled at me instead of at the other man, was too +many for me; I couldn't make head or tail of it. And that she +should seem to consider me a spectacle, and totally overlook her +own merits in that respect, was another puzzling thing, and a +display of magnanimity, too, that was surprising in one so young. +There was food for thought here. I moved along as one in a dream. + +As we approached the town, signs of life began to appear. At +intervals we passed a wretched cabin, with a thatched roof, and +about it small fields and garden patches in an indifferent state of +cultivation. There were people, too; brawny men, with long, coarse, +uncombed hair that hung down over their faces and made them look +like animals. They and the women, as a rule, wore a coarse +tow-linen robe that came well below the knee, and a rude sort of +sandal, and many wore an iron collar. The small boys and girls +were always naked; but nobody seemed to know it. All of these +people stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts and fetched +out their families to gape at me; but nobody ever noticed that +other fellow, except to make him humble salutation and get no +response for their pains. + +In the town were some substantial windowless houses of stone +scattered among a wilderness of thatched cabins; the streets were +mere crooked alleys, and unpaved; troops of dogs and nude children +played in the sun and made life and noise; hogs roamed and rooted +contentedly about, and one of them lay in a reeking wallow in +the middle of the main thoroughfare and suckled her family. +Presently there was a distant blare of military music; it came +nearer, still nearer, and soon a noble cavalcade wound into view, +glorious with plumed helmets and flashing mail and flaunting banners +and rich doublets and horse-cloths and gilded spearheads; and +through the muck and swine, and naked brats, and joyous dogs, and +shabby huts, it took its gallant way, and in its wake we followed. +Followed through one winding alley and then another,--and climbing, +always climbing--till at last we gained the breezy height where +the huge castle stood. There was an exchange of bugle blasts; +then a parley from the walls, where men-at-arms, in hauberk and +morion, marched back and forth with halberd at shoulder under +flapping banners with the rude figure of a dragon displayed upon +them; and then the great gates were flung open, the drawbridge +was lowered, and the head of the cavalcade swept forward under +the frowning arches; and we, following, soon found ourselves in +a great paved court, with towers and turrets stretching up into +the blue air on all the four sides; and all about us the dismount +was going on, and much greeting and ceremony, and running to and +fro, and a gay display of moving and intermingling colors, and +an altogether pleasant stir and noise and confusion. + + + +CHAPTER II + +KING ARTHUR'S COURT + +The moment I got a chance I slipped aside privately and touched +an ancient common looking man on the shoulder and said, in an +insinuating, confidential way: + +"Friend, do me a kindness. Do you belong to the asylum, or are +you just on a visit or something like that?" + +He looked me over stupidly, and said: + +"Marry, fair sir, me seemeth--" + +"That will do," I said; "I reckon you are a patient." + +I moved away, cogitating, and at the same time keeping an eye +out for any chance passenger in his right mind that might come +along and give me some light. I judged I had found one, presently; +so I drew him aside and said in his ear: + +"If I could see the head keeper a minute--only just a minute--" + +"Prithee do not let me." + +"Let you _what_?" + +"_Hinder_ me, then, if the word please thee better. Then he went +on to say he was an under-cook and could not stop to gossip, +though he would like it another time; for it would comfort his +very liver to know where I got my clothes. As he started away he +pointed and said yonder was one who was idle enough for my purpose, +and was seeking me besides, no doubt. This was an airy slim boy +in shrimp-colored tights that made him look like a forked carrot, +the rest of his gear was blue silk and dainty laces and ruffles; +and he had long yellow curls, and wore a plumed pink satin cap +tilted complacently over his ear. By his look, he was good-natured; +by his gait, he was satisfied with himself. He was pretty enough +to frame. He arrived, looked me over with a smiling and impudent +curiosity; said he had come for me, and informed me that he was a page. + +"Go 'long," I said; "you ain't more than a paragraph." + +It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However, it never phazed +him; he didn't appear to know he was hurt. He began to talk and +laugh, in happy, thoughtless, boyish fashion, as we walked along, +and made himself old friends with me at once; asked me all sorts +of questions about myself and about my clothes, but never waited +for an answer--always chattered straight ahead, as if he didn't +know he had asked a question and wasn't expecting any reply, until +at last he happened to mention that he was born in the beginning +of the year 513. + +It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped and said, +a little faintly: + +"Maybe I didn't hear you just right. Say it again--and say it +slow. What year was it?" + +"513." + +"513! You don't look it! Come, my boy, I am a stranger and +friendless; be honest and honorable with me. Are you in your +right mind?" + +He said he was. + +"Are these other people in their right minds?" + +He said they were. + +"And this isn't an asylum? I mean, it isn't a place where they +cure crazy people?" + +He said it wasn't. + +"Well, then," I said, "either I am a lunatic, or something just +as awful has happened. Now tell me, honest and true, where am I?" + +"IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT." + +I waited a minute, to let that idea shudder its way home, +and then said: + +"And according to your notions, what year is it now?" + +"528--nineteenth of June." + +I felt a mournful sinking at the heart, and muttered: "I shall +never see my friends again--never, never again. They will not +be born for more than thirteen hundred years yet." + +I seemed to believe the boy, I didn't know why. _Something_ in me +seemed to believe him--my consciousness, as you may say; but my +reason didn't. My reason straightway began to clamor; that was +natural. I didn't know how to go about satisfying it, because +I knew that the testimony of men wouldn't serve--my reason would +say they were lunatics, and throw out their evidence. But all +of a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew +that the only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the +sixth century occurred on the 21st of June, A.D. 528, O.S., and +began at 3 minutes after 12 noon. I also knew that no total eclipse +of the sun was due in what to _me_ was the present year--i.e., 1879. +So, if I could keep my anxiety and curiosity from eating the heart +out of me for forty-eight hours, I should then find out for certain +whether this boy was telling me the truth or not. + +Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now shoved this +whole problem clear out of my mind till its appointed day and hour +should come, in order that I might turn all my attention to the +circumstances of the present moment, and be alert and ready to +make the most out of them that could be made. One thing at a time, +is my motto--and just play that thing for all it is worth, even +if it's only two pair and a jack. I made up my mind to two things: +if it was still the nineteenth century and I was among lunatics +and couldn't get away, I would presently boss that asylum or know +the reason why; and if, on the other hand, it was really the sixth +century, all right, I didn't want any softer thing: I would boss +the whole country inside of three months; for I judged I would +have the start of the best-educated man in the kingdom by a matter +of thirteen hundred years and upward. I'm not a man to waste +time after my mind's made up and there's work on hand; so I said +to the page: + +"Now, Clarence, my boy--if that might happen to be your name +--I'll get you to post me up a little if you don't mind. What is +the name of that apparition that brought me here?" + +"My master and thine? That is the good knight and great lord +Sir Kay the Seneschal, foster brother to our liege the king." + +"Very good; go on, tell me everything." + +He made a long story of it; but the part that had immediate interest +for me was this: He said I was Sir Kay's prisoner, and that +in the due course of custom I would be flung into a dungeon and +left there on scant commons until my friends ransomed me--unless +I chanced to rot, first. I saw that the last chance had the best +show, but I didn't waste any bother about that; time was too +precious. The page said, further, that dinner was about ended +in the great hall by this time, and that as soon as the sociability +and the heavy drinking should begin, Sir Kay would have me in and +exhibit me before King Arthur and his illustrious knights seated at +the Table Round, and would brag about his exploit in capturing +me, and would probably exaggerate the facts a little, but it +wouldn't be good form for me to correct him, and not over safe, +either; and when I was done being exhibited, then ho for the +dungeon; but he, Clarence, would find a way to come and see me every +now and then, and cheer me up, and help me get word to my friends. + +Get word to my friends! I thanked him; I couldn't do less; and +about this time a lackey came to say I was wanted; so Clarence +led me in and took me off to one side and sat down by me. + +Well, it was a curious kind of spectacle, and interesting. It was +an immense place, and rather naked--yes, and full of loud contrasts. +It was very, very lofty; so lofty that the banners depending from +the arched beams and girders away up there floated in a sort of +twilight; there was a stone-railed gallery at each end, high up, +with musicians in the one, and women, clothed in stunning colors, +in the other. The floor was of big stone flags laid in black and +white squares, rather battered by age and use, and needing repair. +As to ornament, there wasn't any, strictly speaking; though on +the walls hung some huge tapestries which were probably taxed +as works of art; battle-pieces, they were, with horses shaped like +those which children cut out of paper or create in gingerbread; +with men on them in scale armor whose scales are represented by +round holes--so that the man's coat looks as if it had been done +with a biscuit-punch. There was a fireplace big enough to camp in; +and its projecting sides and hood, of carved and pillared stonework, +had the look of a cathedral door. Along the walls stood men-at-arms, +in breastplate and morion, with halberds for their only weapon +--rigid as statues; and that is what they looked like. + +In the middle of this groined and vaulted public square was an oaken +table which they called the Table Round. It was as large as +a circus ring; and around it sat a great company of men dressed +in such various and splendid colors that it hurt one's eyes to look +at them. They wore their plumed hats, right along, except that +whenever one addressed himself directly to the king, he lifted +his hat a trifle just as he was beginning his remark. + +Mainly they were drinking--from entire ox horns; but a few were +still munching bread or gnawing beef bones. There was about +an average of two dogs to one man; and these sat in expectant +attitudes till a spent bone was flung to them, and then they went +for it by brigades and divisions, with a rush, and there ensued +a fight which filled the prospect with a tumultuous chaos of +plunging heads and bodies and flashing tails, and the storm of +howlings and barkings deafened all speech for the time; but that +was no matter, for the dog-fight was always a bigger interest +anyway; the men rose, sometimes, to observe it the better and bet +on it, and the ladies and the musicians stretched themselves out +over their balusters with the same object; and all broke into +delighted ejaculations from time to time. In the end, the winning +dog stretched himself out comfortably with his bone between his +paws, and proceeded to growl over it, and gnaw it, and grease +the floor with it, just as fifty others were already doing; and the +rest of the court resumed their previous industries and entertainments. + +As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people were gracious +and courtly; and I noticed that they were good and serious listeners +when anybody was telling anything--I mean in a dog-fightless +interval. And plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent lot; +telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a most gentle and +winning naivety, and ready and willing to listen to anybody else's +lie, and believe it, too. It was hard to associate them with +anything cruel or dreadful; and yet they dealt in tales of blood +and suffering with a guileless relish that made me almost forget +to shudder. + +I was not the only prisoner present. There were twenty or more. +Poor devils, many of them were maimed, hacked, carved, in a frightful +way; and their hair, their faces, their clothing, were caked with +black and stiffened drenchings of blood. They were suffering +sharp physical pain, of course; and weariness, and hunger and +thirst, no doubt; and at least none had given them the comfort +of a wash, or even the poor charity of a lotion for their wounds; +yet you never heard them utter a moan or a groan, or saw them show +any sign of restlessness, or any disposition to complain. The +thought was forced upon me: "The rascals--_they_ have served other +people so in their day; it being their own turn, now, they were +not expecting any better treatment than this; so their philosophical +bearing is not an outcome of mental training, intellectual fortitude, +reasoning; it is mere animal training; they are white Indians." + + + +CHAPTER III + +KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND + +Mainly the Round Table talk was monologues--narrative accounts +of the adventures in which these prisoners were captured and their +friends and backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor. +As a general thing--as far as I could make out--these murderous +adventures were not forays undertaken to avenge injuries, nor to +settle old disputes or sudden fallings out; no, as a rule they were +simply duels between strangers--duels between people who had never +even been introduced to each other, and between whom existed no +cause of offense whatever. Many a time I had seen a couple of boys, +strangers, meet by chance, and say simultaneously, "I can lick you," +and go at it on the spot; but I had always imagined until now that +that sort of thing belonged to children only, and was a sign and +mark of childhood; but here were these big boobies sticking to it +and taking pride in it clear up into full age and beyond. Yet there +was something very engaging about these great simple-hearted +creatures, something attractive and lovable. There did not seem +to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak, to bait +a fish-hook with; but you didn't seem to mind that, after a little, +because you soon saw that brains were not needed in a society +like that, and indeed would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled +its symmetry--perhaps rendered its existence impossible. + +There was a fine manliness observable in almost every face; and +in some a certain loftiness and sweetness that rebuked your +belittling criticisms and stilled them. A most noble benignity +and purity reposed in the countenance of him they called Sir Galahad, +and likewise in the king's also; and there was majesty and greatness +in the giant frame and high bearing of Sir Launcelot of the Lake. + +There was presently an incident which centered the general interest +upon this Sir Launcelot. At a sign from a sort of master of +ceremonies, six or eight of the prisoners rose and came forward +in a body and knelt on the floor and lifted up their hands toward +the ladies' gallery and begged the grace of a word with the queen. +The most conspicuously situated lady in that massed flower-bed +of feminine show and finery inclined her head by way of assent, +and then the spokesman of the prisoners delivered himself and his +fellows into her hands for free pardon, ransom, captivity, or death, +as she in her good pleasure might elect; and this, as he said, he +was doing by command of Sir Kay the Seneschal, whose prisoners +they were, he having vanquished them by his single might and +prowess in sturdy conflict in the field. + +Surprise and astonishment flashed from face to face all over +the house; the queen's gratified smile faded out at the name of +Sir Kay, and she looked disappointed; and the page whispered in +my ear with an accent and manner expressive of extravagant derision-- + +"Sir _Kay_, forsooth! Oh, call me pet names, dearest, call me +a marine! In twice a thousand years shall the unholy invention +of man labor at odds to beget the fellow to this majestic lie!" + +Every eye was fastened with severe inquiry upon Sir Kay. But he +was equal to the occasion. He got up and played his hand like +a major--and took every trick. He said he would state the case +exactly according to the facts; he would tell the simple +straightforward tale, without comment of his own; "and then," +said he, "if ye find glory and honor due, ye will give it unto him +who is the mightiest man of his hands that ever bare shield or +strake with sword in the ranks of Christian battle--even him that +sitteth there!" and he pointed to Sir Launcelot. Ah, he fetched +them; it was a rattling good stroke. Then he went on and told +how Sir Launcelot, seeking adventures, some brief time gone by, +killed seven giants at one sweep of his sword, and set a hundred +and forty-two captive maidens free; and then went further, still +seeking adventures, and found him (Sir Kay) fighting a desperate +fight against nine foreign knights, and straightway took the battle +solely into his own hands, and conquered the nine; and that night +Sir Launcelot rose quietly, and dressed him in Sir Kay's armor and +took Sir Kay's horse and gat him away into distant lands, and +vanquished sixteen knights in one pitched battle and thirty-four +in another; and all these and the former nine he made to swear +that about Whitsuntide they would ride to Arthur's court and yield +them to Queen Guenever's hands as captives of Sir Kay the Seneschal, +spoil of his knightly prowess; and now here were these half dozen, +and the rest would be along as soon as they might be healed of +their desperate wounds. + +Well, it was touching to see the queen blush and smile, and look +embarrassed and happy, and fling furtive glances at Sir Launcelot +that would have got him shot in Arkansas, to a dead certainty. + +Everybody praised the valor and magnanimity of Sir Launcelot; and +as for me, I was perfectly amazed, that one man, all by himself, +should have been able to beat down and capture such battalions +of practiced fighters. I said as much to Clarence; but this mocking +featherhead only said: + +"An Sir Kay had had time to get another skin of sour wine into him, +ye had seen the accompt doubled." + +I looked at the boy in sorrow; and as I looked I saw the cloud of +a deep despondency settle upon his countenance. I followed the +direction of his eye, and saw that a very old and white-bearded +man, clothed in a flowing black gown, had risen and was standing +at the table upon unsteady legs, and feebly swaying his ancient +head and surveying the company with his watery and wandering eye. +The same suffering look that was in the page's face was observable +in all the faces around--the look of dumb creatures who know that +they must endure and make no moan. + +"Marry, we shall have it again," sighed the boy; "that same old +weary tale that he hath told a thousand times in the same words, +and that he _will_ tell till he dieth, every time he hath gotten his +barrel full and feeleth his exaggeration-mill a-working. Would +God I had died or I saw this day!" + +"Who is it?" + +"Merlin, the mighty liar and magician, perdition singe him for +the weariness he worketh with his one tale! But that men fear +him for that he hath the storms and the lightnings and all the +devils that be in hell at his beck and call, they would have dug +his entrails out these many years ago to get at that tale and +squelch it. He telleth it always in the third person, making +believe he is too modest to glorify himself--maledictions light +upon him, misfortune be his dole! Good friend, prithee call me +for evensong." + +The boy nestled himself upon my shoulder and pretended to go +to sleep. The old man began his tale; and presently the lad was +asleep in reality; so also were the dogs, and the court, the lackeys, +and the files of men-at-arms. The droning voice droned on; a soft +snoring arose on all sides and supported it like a deep and subdued +accompaniment of wind instruments. Some heads were bowed upon +folded arms, some lay back with open mouths that issued unconscious +music; the flies buzzed and bit, unmolested, the rats swarmed +softly out from a hundred holes, and pattered about, and made +themselves at home everywhere; and one of them sat up like a +squirrel on the king's head and held a bit of cheese in its hands +and nibbled it, and dribbled the crumbs in the king's face with +naive and impudent irreverence. It was a tranquil scene, and +restful to the weary eye and the jaded spirit. + +This was the old man's tale. He said: + +"Right so the king and Merlin departed, and went until an hermit +that was a good man and a great leech. So the hermit searched +all his wounds and gave him good salves; so the king was there +three days, and then were his wounds well amended that he might +ride and go, and so departed. And as they rode, Arthur said, +I have no sword. No force,* [*Footnote from M.T.: No matter.] +said Merlin, hereby is a sword that shall be yours and I may. +So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water +and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm +clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. +Lo, said Merlin, yonder is that sword that I spake of. With that +they saw a damsel going upon the lake. What damsel is that? +said Arthur. That is the Lady of the lake, said Merlin; and within +that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any on earth, +and richly beseen, and this damsel will come to you anon, and then +speak ye fair to her that she will give you that sword. Anon +withal came the damsel unto Arthur and saluted him, and he her +again. Damsel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yonder +the arm holdeth above the water? I would it were mine, for I have +no sword. Sir Arthur King, said the damsel, that sword is mine, +and if ye will give me a gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it. +By my faith, said Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask. +Well, said the damsel, go ye into yonder barge and row yourself +to the sword, and take it and the scabbard with you, and I will ask +my gift when I see my time. So Sir Arthur and Merlin alight, and +tied their horses to two trees, and so they went into the ship, +and when they came to the sword that the hand held, Sir Arthur +took it up by the handles, and took it with him. And the arm +and the hand went under the water; and so they came unto the land +and rode forth. And then Sir Arthur saw a rich pavilion. What +signifieth yonder pavilion? It is the knight's pavilion, said +Merlin, that ye fought with last, Sir Pellinore, but he is out, +he is not there; he hath ado with a knight of yours, that hight +Egglame, and they have fought together, but at the last Egglame +fled, and else he had been dead, and he hath chased him even +to Carlion, and we shall meet with him anon in the highway. That +is well said, said Arthur, now have I a sword, now will I wage +battle with him, and be avenged on him. Sir, ye shall not so, +said Merlin, for the knight is weary of fighting and chasing, so +that ye shall have no worship to have ado with him; also, he will +not lightly be matched of one knight living; and therefore it is my +counsel, let him pass, for he shall do you good service in short +time, and his sons, after his days. Also ye shall see that day +in short space ye shall be right glad to give him your sister +to wed. When I see him, I will do as ye advise me, said Arthur. +Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it passing well. +Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard? +Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more unwise, +said Merlin, for the scabbard is worth ten of the sword, for while +ye have the scabbard upon you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye +never so sore wounded; therefore, keep well the scabbard always +with you. So they rode into Carlion, and by the way they met with +Sir Pellinore; but Merlin had done such a craft that Pellinore saw +not Arthur, and he passed by without any words. I marvel, said +Arthur, that the knight would not speak. Sir, said Merlin, he saw +you not; for and he had seen you ye had not lightly departed. So +they came unto Carlion, whereof his knights were passing glad. +And when they heard of his adventures they marveled that he would +jeopard his person so alone. But all men of worship said it was +merry to be under such a chieftain that would put his person in +adventure as other poor knights did." + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST + +It seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply and beautifully +told; but then I had heard it only once, and that makes a difference; +it was pleasant to the others when it was fresh, no doubt. + +Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and he soon roused +the rest with a practical joke of a sufficiently poor quality. +He tied some metal mugs to a dog's tail and turned him loose, +and he tore around and around the place in a frenzy of fright, +with all the other dogs bellowing after him and battering and +crashing against everything that came in their way and making +altogether a chaos of confusion and a most deafening din and +turmoil; at which every man and woman of the multitude laughed +till the tears flowed, and some fell out of their chairs and +wallowed on the floor in ecstasy. It was just like so many children. +Sir Dinadan was so proud of his exploit that he could not keep +from telling over and over again, to weariness, how the immortal +idea happened to occur to him; and as is the way with humorists +of his breed, he was still laughing at it after everybody else had +got through. He was so set up that he concluded to make a speech +--of course a humorous speech. I think I never heard so many old +played-out jokes strung together in my life. He was worse than +the minstrels, worse than the clown in the circus. It seemed +peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen hundred years before I was +born, and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had +given me the dry gripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years +afterwards. It about convinced me that there isn't any such thing +as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at these antiquities +--but then they always do; I had noticed that, centuries later. +However, of course the scoffer didn't laugh--I mean the boy. No, +he scoffed; there wasn't anything he wouldn't scoff at. He said +the most of Sir Dinadan's jokes were rotten and the rest were +petrified. I said "petrified" was good; as I believed, myself, +that the only right way to classify the majestic ages of some of +those jokes was by geologic periods. But that neat idea hit +the boy in a blank place, for geology hadn't been invented yet. +However, I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate +the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It is no use +to throw a good thing away merely because the market isn't ripe yet. + +Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill with me +for fuel. It was time for me to feel serious, and I did. Sir Kay +told how he had encountered me in a far land of barbarians, who +all wore the same ridiculous garb that I did--a garb that was a work +of enchantment, and intended to make the wearer secure from hurt +by human hands. However he had nullified the force of the +enchantment by prayer, and had killed my thirteen knights in +a three hours' battle, and taken me prisoner, sparing my life +in order that so strange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited +to the wonder and admiration of the king and the court. He spoke +of me all the time, in the blandest way, as "this prodigious giant," +and "this horrible sky-towering monster," and "this tusked and +taloned man-devouring ogre", and everybody took in all this bosh +in the naivest way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that +there was any discrepancy between these watered statistics and me. +He said that in trying to escape from him I sprang into the top of +a tree two hundred cubits high at a single bound, but he dislodged +me with a stone the size of a cow, which "all-to brast" the most +of my bones, and then swore me to appear at Arthur's court for +sentence. He ended by condemning me to die at noon on the 21st; +and was so little concerned about it that he stopped to yawn before +he named the date. + +I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I was hardly enough +in my right mind to keep the run of a dispute that sprung up as +to how I had better be killed, the possibility of the killing being +doubted by some, because of the enchantment in my clothes. And yet +it was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop-shops. +Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail, to wit: many of +the terms used in the most matter-of-fact way by this great +assemblage of the first ladies and gentlemen in the land would +have made a Comanche blush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey +the idea. However, I had read "Tom Jones," and "Roderick Random," +and other books of that kind, and knew that the highest and first +ladies and gentlemen in England had remained little or no cleaner +in their talk, and in the morals and conduct which such talk +implies, clear up to a hundred years ago; in fact clear into our +own nineteenth century--in which century, broadly speaking, +the earliest samples of the real lady and real gentleman discoverable +in English history--or in European history, for that matter--may be +said to have made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, instead +of putting the conversations into the mouths of his characters, +had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We should +have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena +which would embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the +unconsciously indelicate all things are delicate. King Arthur's +people were not aware that they were indecent and I had presence +of mind enough not to mention it. + +They were so troubled about my enchanted clothes that they were +mightily relieved, at last, when old Merlin swept the difficulty +away for them with a common-sense hint. He asked them why they +were so dull--why didn't it occur to them to strip me. In half a +minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear, dear, to think +of it: I was the only embarrassed person there. Everybody discussed +me; and did it as unconcernedly as if I had been a cabbage. +Queen Guenever was as naively interested as the rest, and said +she had never seen anybody with legs just like mine before. It was +the only compliment I got--if it was a compliment. + +Finally I was carried off in one direction, and my perilous clothes +in another. I was shoved into a dark and narrow cell in a dungeon, +with some scant remnants for dinner, some moldy straw for a bed, +and no end of rats for company. + + + +CHAPTER V + +AN INSPIRATION + +I was so tired that even my fears were not able to keep me awake long. + +When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been asleep a very +long time. My first thought was, "Well, what an astonishing dream +I've had! I reckon I've waked only just in time to keep from +being hanged or drowned or burned or something.... I'll nap again +till the whistle blows, and then I'll go down to the arms factory +and have it out with Hercules." + +But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains and bolts, +a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly, Clarence, stood +before me! I gasped with surprise; my breath almost got away from me. + +"What!" I said, "you here yet? Go along with the rest of +the dream! scatter!" + +But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and fell to making +fun of my sorry plight. + +"All right," I said resignedly, "let the dream go on; I'm in no hurry." + +"Prithee what dream?" + +"What dream? Why, the dream that I am in Arthur's court--a person +who never existed; and that I am talking to you, who are nothing +but a work of the imagination." + +"Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you're to be burned +to-morrow? Ho-ho--answer me that!" + +The shock that went through me was distressing. I now began +to reason that my situation was in the last degree serious, dream +or no dream; for I knew by past experience of the lifelike intensity +of dreams, that to be burned to death, even in a dream, would be +very far from being a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by any +means, fair or foul, that I could contrive. So I said beseechingly: + +"Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I've got,--for you _are_ my +friend, aren't you?--don't fail me; help me to devise some way +of escaping from this place!" + +"Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man, the corridors are +in guard and keep of men-at-arms." + +"No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? Not many, I hope?" + +"Full a score. One may not hope to escape." After a pause +--hesitatingly: "and there be other reasons--and weightier." + +"Other ones? What are they?" + +"Well, they say--oh, but I daren't, indeed daren't!" + +"Why, poor lad, what is the matter? Why do you blench? Why do +you tremble so?" + +"Oh, in sooth, there is need! I do want to tell you, but--" + +"Come, come, be brave, be a man--speak out, there's a good lad!" + +He hesitated, pulled one way by desire, the other way by fear; +then he stole to the door and peeped out, listening; and finally +crept close to me and put his mouth to my ear and told me his +fearful news in a whisper, and with all the cowering apprehension +of one who was venturing upon awful ground and speaking of things +whose very mention might be freighted with death. + +"Merlin, in his malice, has woven a spell about this dungeon, and +there bides not the man in these kingdoms that would be desperate +enough to essay to cross its lines with you! Now God pity me, +I have told it! Ah, be kind to me, be merciful to a poor boy who +means thee well; for an thou betray me I am lost!" + +I laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had for some time; +and shouted: + +"Merlin has wrought a spell! _Merlin_, forsooth! That cheap old +humbug, that maundering old ass? Bosh, pure bosh, the silliest bosh +in the world! Why, it does seem to me that of all the childish, +idiotic, chuckle-headed, chicken-livered superstitions that ev +--oh, damn Merlin!" + +But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had half finished, +and he was like to go out of his mind with fright. + +"Oh, beware! These are awful words! Any moment these walls +may crumble upon us if you say such things. Oh call them back +before it is too late!" + +Now this strange exhibition gave me a good idea and set me to +thinking. If everybody about here was so honestly and sincerely +afraid of Merlin's pretended magic as Clarence was, certainly +a superior man like me ought to be shrewd enough to contrive +some way to take advantage of such a state of things. I went +on thinking, and worked out a plan. Then I said: + +"Get up. Pull yourself together; look me in the eye. Do you +know why I laughed?" + +"No--but for our blessed Lady's sake, do it no more." + +"Well, I'll tell you why I laughed. Because I'm a magician myself." + +"Thou!" The boy recoiled a step, and caught his breath, for +the thing hit him rather sudden; but the aspect which he took +on was very, very respectful. I took quick note of that; it +indicated that a humbug didn't need to have a reputation in this +asylum; people stood ready to take him at his word, without that. +I resumed. + +"I've known Merlin seven hundred years, and he--" + +"Seven hun--" + +"Don't interrupt me. He has died and come alive again thirteen +times, and traveled under a new name every time: Smith, Jones, +Robinson, Jackson, Peters, Haskins, Merlin--a new alias every +time he turns up. I knew him in Egypt three hundred years ago; +I knew him in India five hundred years ago--he is always blethering +around in my way, everywhere I go; he makes me tired. He don't +amount to shucks, as a magician; knows some of the old common +tricks, but has never got beyond the rudiments, and never will. +He is well enough for the provinces--one-night stands and that +sort of thing, you know--but dear me, _he_ oughtn't to set up for +an expert--anyway not where there's a real artist. Now look here, +Clarence, I am going to stand your friend, right along, and in +return you must be mine. I want you to do me a favor. I want +you to get word to the king that I am a magician myself--and the +Supreme Grand High-yu-Muck-amuck and head of the tribe, at that; +and I want him to be made to understand that I am just quietly +arranging a little calamity here that will make the fur fly in these +realms if Sir Kay's project is carried out and any harm comes +to me. Will you get that to the king for me?" + +The poor boy was in such a state that he could hardly answer me. +It was pitiful to see a creature so terrified, so unnerved, so +demoralized. But he promised everything; and on my side he made +me promise over and over again that I would remain his friend, and +never turn against him or cast any enchantments upon him. Then +he worked his way out, staying himself with his hand along the +wall, like a sick person. + +Presently this thought occurred to me: how heedless I have been! +When the boy gets calm, he will wonder why a great magician like me +should have begged a boy like him to help me get out of this place; +he will put this and that together, and will see that I am a humbug. + +I worried over that heedless blunder for an hour, and called myself +a great many hard names, meantime. But finally it occurred to me +all of a sudden that these animals didn't reason; that _they_ never +put this and that together; that all their talk showed that they +didn't know a discrepancy when they saw it. I was at rest, then. + +But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes on +something else to worry about. It occurred to me that I had made +another blunder: I had sent the boy off to alarm his betters with +a threat--I intending to invent a calamity at my leisure; now +the people who are the readiest and eagerest and willingest to +swallow miracles are the very ones who are hungriest to see you +perform them; suppose I should be called on for a sample? Suppose +I should be asked to name my calamity? Yes, I had made a blunder; +I ought to have invented my calamity first. "What shall I do? +what can I say, to gain a little time?" I was in trouble again; +in the deepest kind of trouble... + +"There's a footstep!--they're coming. If I had only just a moment +to think.... Good, I've got it. I'm all right." + +You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind in the nick +of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played +an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my +chance. I could play it myself, now, and it wouldn't be any +plagiarism, either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand +years ahead of those parties. + +Clarence came in, subdued, distressed, and said: + +"I hasted the message to our liege the king, and straightway he +had me to his presence. He was frighted even to the marrow, +and was minded to give order for your instant enlargement, and +that you be clothed in fine raiment and lodged as befitted one so +great; but then came Merlin and spoiled all; for he persuaded +the king that you are mad, and know not whereof you speak; and +said your threat is but foolishness and idle vaporing. They +disputed long, but in the end, Merlin, scoffing, said, 'Wherefore +hath he not _named_ his brave calamity? Verily it is because he +cannot.' This thrust did in a most sudden sort close the king's +mouth, and he could offer naught to turn the argument; and so, +reluctant, and full loth to do you the discourtesy, he yet prayeth +you to consider his perplexed case, as noting how the matter stands, +and name the calamity--if so be you have determined the nature +of it and the time of its coming. Oh, prithee delay not; to delay +at such a time were to double and treble the perils that already +compass thee about. Oh, be thou wise--name the calamity!" + +I allowed silence to accumulate while I got my impressiveness +together, and then said: + +"How long have I been shut up in this hole?" + +"Ye were shut up when yesterday was well spent. It is 9 of +the morning now." + +"No! Then I have slept well, sure enough. Nine in the morning +now! And yet it is the very complexion of midnight, to a shade. +This is the 20th, then?" + +"The 20th--yes." + +"And I am to be burned alive to-morrow." The boy shuddered. + +"At what hour?" + +"At high noon." + +"Now then, I will tell you what to say." I paused, and stood over +that cowering lad a whole minute in awful silence; then, in a voice +deep, measured, charged with doom, I began, and rose by dramatically +graded stages to my colossal climax, which I delivered in as sublime +and noble a way as ever I did such a thing in my life: "Go back +and tell the king that at that hour I will smother the whole world +in the dead blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he +shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack +of light and warmth, and the peoples of the earth shall famish +and die, to the last man!" + +I had to carry the boy out myself, he sunk into such a collapse. +I handed him over to the soldiers, and went back. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ECLIPSE + +In the stillness and the darkness, realization soon began to +supplement knowledge. The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but +when you come to _realize_ your fact, it takes on color. It is +all the difference between hearing of a man being stabbed to +the heart, and seeing it done. In the stillness and the darkness, +the knowledge that I was in deadly danger took to itself deeper +and deeper meaning all the time; a something which was realization +crept inch by inch through my veins and turned me cold. + +But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like these, +as soon as a man's mercury has got down to a certain point there +comes a revulsion, and he rallies. Hope springs up, and cheerfulness +along with it, and then he is in good shape to do something for +himself, if anything can be done. When my rally came, it came with +a bound. I said to myself that my eclipse would be sure to save me, +and make me the greatest man in the kingdom besides; and straightway +my mercury went up to the top of the tube, and my solicitudes +all vanished. I was as happy a man as there was in the world. +I was even impatient for to-morrow to come, I so wanted to gather +in that great triumph and be the center of all the nation's wonder +and reverence. Besides, in a business way it would be the making +of me; I knew that. + +Meantime there was one thing which had got pushed into the background +of my mind. That was the half-conviction that when the nature +of my proposed calamity should be reported to those superstitious +people, it would have such an effect that they would want to +compromise. So, by and by when I heard footsteps coming, that +thought was recalled to me, and I said to myself, "As sure as +anything, it's the compromise. Well, if it is good, all right, +I will accept; but if it isn't, I mean to stand my ground and play +my hand for all it is worth." + +The door opened, and some men-at-arms appeared. The leader said: + +"The stake is ready. Come!" + +The stake! The strength went out of me, and I almost fell down. +It is hard to get one's breath at such a time, such lumps come into +one's throat, and such gaspings; but as soon as I could speak, I said: + +"But this is a mistake--the execution is to-morrow." + +"Order changed; been set forward a day. Haste thee!" + +I was lost. There was no help for me. I was dazed, stupefied; +I had no command over myself, I only wandered purposely about, +like one out of his mind; so the soldiers took hold of me, and +pulled me along with them, out of the cell and along the maze of +underground corridors, and finally into the fierce glare of daylight +and the upper world. As we stepped into the vast enclosed court +of the castle I got a shock; for the first thing I saw was the stake, +standing in the center, and near it the piled fagots and a monk. +On all four sides of the court the seated multitudes rose rank +above rank, forming sloping terraces that were rich with color. +The king and the queen sat in their thrones, the most conspicuous +figures there, of course. + +To note all this, occupied but a second. The next second Clarence +had slipped from some place of concealment and was pouring news +into my ear, his eyes beaming with triumph and gladness. He said: + +"Tis through _me_ the change was wrought! And main hard have I worked +to do it, too. But when I revealed to them the calamity in store, +and saw how mighty was the terror it did engender, then saw I also +that this was the time to strike! Wherefore I diligently pretended, +unto this and that and the other one, that your power against the sun +could not reach its full until the morrow; and so if any would save +the sun and the world, you must be slain to-day, while your +enchantments are but in the weaving and lack potency. Odsbodikins, +it was but a dull lie, a most indifferent invention, but you should +have seen them seize it and swallow it, in the frenzy of their +fright, as it were salvation sent from heaven; and all the while +was I laughing in my sleeve the one moment, to see them so cheaply +deceived, and glorifying God the next, that He was content to let +the meanest of His creatures be His instrument to the saving of +thy life. Ah how happy has the matter sped! You will not need +to do the sun a _real_ hurt--ah, forget not that, on your soul forget +it not! Only make a little darkness--only the littlest little +darkness, mind, and cease with that. It will be sufficient. They +will see that I spoke falsely,--being ignorant, as they will fancy +--and with the falling of the first shadow of that darkness you +shall see them go mad with fear; and they will set you free and +make you great! Go to thy triumph, now! But remember--ah, good +friend, I implore thee remember my supplication, and do the blessed +sun no hurt. For _my_ sake, thy true friend." + +I choked out some words through my grief and misery; as much as +to say I would spare the sun; for which the lad's eyes paid me back +with such deep and loving gratitude that I had not the heart +to tell him his good-hearted foolishness had ruined me and sent me +to my death. + +As the soldiers assisted me across the court the stillness was +so profound that if I had been blindfold I should have supposed +I was in a solitude instead of walled in by four thousand people. +There was not a movement perceptible in those masses of humanity; +they were as rigid as stone images, and as pale; and dread sat +upon every countenance. This hush continued while I was being +chained to the stake; it still continued while the fagots were +carefully and tediously piled about my ankles, my knees, my thighs, +my body. Then there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if possible, +and a man knelt down at my feet with a blazing torch; the multitude +strained forward, gazing, and parting slightly from their seats +without knowing it; the monk raised his hands above my head, and +his eyes toward the blue sky, and began some words in Latin; in +this attitude he droned on and on, a little while, and then stopped. +I waited two or three moments; then looked up; he was standing +there petrified. With a common impulse the multitude rose slowly +up and stared into the sky. I followed their eyes, as sure as guns, +there was my eclipse beginning! The life went boiling through +my veins; I was a new man! The rim of black spread slowly into +the sun's disk, my heart beat higher and higher, and still the +assemblage and the priest stared into the sky, motionless. I knew +that this gaze would be turned upon me, next. When it was, I was +ready. I was in one of the most grand attitudes I ever struck, +with my arm stretched up pointing to the sun. It was a noble +effect. You could _see_ the shudder sweep the mass like a wave. +Two shouts rang out, one close upon the heels of the other: + +"Apply the torch!" + +"I forbid it!" + +The one was from Merlin, the other from the king. Merlin started +from his place--to apply the torch himself, I judged. I said: + +"Stay where you are. If any man moves--even the king--before +I give him leave, I will blast him with thunder, I will consume +him with lightnings!" + +The multitude sank meekly into their seats, and I was just expecting +they would. Merlin hesitated a moment or two, and I was on pins +and needles during that little while. Then he sat down, and I took +a good breath; for I knew I was master of the situation now. +The king said: + +"Be merciful, fair sir, and essay no further in this perilous matter, +lest disaster follow. It was reported to us that your powers could +not attain unto their full strength until the morrow; but--" + +"Your Majesty thinks the report may have been a lie? It _was_ a lie." + +That made an immense effect; up went appealing hands everywhere, +and the king was assailed with a storm of supplications that +I might be bought off at any price, and the calamity stayed. +The king was eager to comply. He said: + +"Name any terms, reverend sir, even to the halving of my kingdom; +but banish this calamity, spare the sun!" + +My fortune was made. I would have taken him up in a minute, but +I couldn't stop an eclipse; the thing was out of the question. So +I asked time to consider. The king said: + +"How long--ah, how long, good sir? Be merciful; look, it groweth +darker, moment by moment. Prithee how long?" + +"Not long. Half an hour--maybe an hour." + +There were a thousand pathetic protests, but I couldn't shorten up +any, for I couldn't remember how long a total eclipse lasts. I was +in a puzzled condition, anyway, and wanted to think. Something +was wrong about that eclipse, and the fact was very unsettling. +If this wasn't the one I was after, how was I to tell whether this +was the sixth century, or nothing but a dream? Dear me, if I could +only prove it was the latter! Here was a glad new hope. If the boy +was right about the date, and this was surely the 20th, it _wasn't_ +the sixth century. I reached for the monk's sleeve, in considerable +excitement, and asked him what day of the month it was. + +Hang him, he said it was the _twenty-first_! It made me turn cold +to hear him. I begged him not to make any mistake about it; but +he was sure; he knew it was the 21st. So, that feather-headed +boy had botched things again! The time of the day was right +for the eclipse; I had seen that for myself, in the beginning, +by the dial that was near by. Yes, I was in King Arthur's court, +and I might as well make the most out of it I could. + +The darkness was steadily growing, the people becoming more and +more distressed. I now said: + +"I have reflected, Sir King. For a lesson, I will let this darkness +proceed, and spread night in the world; but whether I blot out +the sun for good, or restore it, shall rest with you. These are +the terms, to wit: You shall remain king over all your dominions, +and receive all the glories and honors that belong to the kingship; +but you shall appoint me your perpetual minister and executive, +and give me for my services one per cent of such actual increase +of revenue over and above its present amount as I may succeed +in creating for the state. If I can't live on that, I sha'n't ask +anybody to give me a lift. Is it satisfactory?" + +There was a prodigious roar of applause, and out of the midst +of it the king's voice rose, saying: + +"Away with his bonds, and set him free! and do him homage, high +and low, rich and poor, for he is become the king's right hand, +is clothed with power and authority, and his seat is upon the highest +step of the throne! Now sweep away this creeping night, and bring +the light and cheer again, that all the world may bless thee." + +But I said: + +"That a common man should be shamed before the world, is nothing; +but it were dishonor to the _king_ if any that saw his minister naked +should not also see him delivered from his shame. If I might ask +that my clothes be brought again--" + +"They are not meet," the king broke in. "Fetch raiment of another +sort; clothe him like a prince!" + +My idea worked. I wanted to keep things as they were till the +eclipse was total, otherwise they would be trying again to get +me to dismiss the darkness, and of course I couldn't do it. Sending +for the clothes gained some delay, but not enough. So I had to make +another excuse. I said it would be but natural if the king should +change his mind and repent to some extent of what he had done +under excitement; therefore I would let the darkness grow a while, +and if at the end of a reasonable time the king had kept his mind +the same, the darkness should be dismissed. Neither the king nor +anybody else was satisfied with that arrangement, but I had +to stick to my point. + +It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I struggled +with those awkward sixth-century clothes. It got to be pitch dark, +at last, and the multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold +uncanny night breezes fan through the place and see the stars +come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the eclipse was total, +and I was very glad of it, but everybody else was in misery; which +was quite natural. I said: + +"The king, by his silence, still stands to the terms." Then +I lifted up my hands--stood just so a moment--then I said, with +the most awful solemnity: "Let the enchantment dissolve and +pass harmless away!" + +There was no response, for a moment, in that deep darkness and +that graveyard hush. But when the silver rim of the sun pushed +itself out, a moment or two later, the assemblage broke loose with +a vast shout and came pouring down like a deluge to smother me +with blessings and gratitude; and Clarence was not the last of +the wash, to be sure. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in +King Arthur's Court, Part 1., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + +***** This file should be named 7242.txt or 7242.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/4/7242/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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