A CONNECTICUT YANKEE, By Twain, Part 8.

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Title: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 8.

Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Release Date: July 7, 2004 [EBook #7249]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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Produced by David Widger

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE, By Twain, Part 8.

CONTENTS:

AN ENCOUNTER IN THE DARK

London—to a slave—was a sufficiently interesting place.  It was merely a great big village; and mainly mud and thatch.  The streets were muddy, crooked, unpaved.  The populace was an ever flocking and drifting swarm of rags, and splendors, of nodding plumes and shining armor.  The king had a palace there; he saw the outside of it.  It made him sigh; yes, and swear a little, in a poor juvenile sixth century way.  We saw knights and grandees whom we knew, but they didn't know us in our rags and dirt and raw welts and bruises, and wouldn't have recognized us if we had hailed them, nor stopped to answer, either, it being unlawful to speak with slaves on a chain.  Sandy passed within ten yards of me on a mule—hunting for me, I imagined.  But the thing which clean broke my heart was something which happened in front of our old barrack in a square, while we were enduring the spectacle of a man being boiled to death in oil for counterfeiting pennies.  It was the sight of a newsboy—and I couldn't get at him!  Still, I had one comfort—here was proof that Clarence was still alive and banging away.  I meant to be with him before long; the thought was full of cheer.

I had one little glimpse of another thing, one day, which gave me a great uplift.  It was a wire stretching from housetop to housetop. Telegraph or telephone, sure.  I did very much wish I had a little piece of it.  It was just what I needed, in order to carry out my project of escape.  My idea was to get loose some night, along with the king, then gag and bind our master, change clothes with him, batter him into the aspect of a stranger, hitch him to the slave-chain, assume possession of the property, march to Camelot, and—

But you get my idea; you see what a stunning dramatic surprise I would wind up with at the palace.  It was all feasible, if I could only get hold of a slender piece of iron which I could shape into a lock-pick.  I could then undo the lumbering padlocks with which our chains were fastened, whenever I might choose. But I never had any luck; no such thing ever happened to fall in my way.  However, my chance came at last.  A gentleman who had come twice before to dicker for me, without result, or indeed any approach to a result, came again.  I was far from expecting ever to belong to him, for the price asked for me from the time I was first enslaved was exorbitant, and always provoked either anger or derision, yet my master stuck stubbornly to it—twenty-two dollars.  He wouldn't bate a cent.  The king was greatly admired, because of his grand physique, but his kingly style was against him, and he wasn't salable; nobody wanted that kind of a slave. I considered myself safe from parting from him because of my extravagant price.  No, I was not expecting to ever belong to this gentleman whom I have spoken of, but he had something which I expected would belong to me eventually, if he would but visit us often enough.  It was a steel thing with a long pin to it, with which his long cloth outside garment was fastened together in front.  There were three of them. He had disappointed me twice, because he did not come quite close enough to me to make my project entirely safe; but this time I succeeded; I captured the lower clasp of the three, and when he missed it he thought he had lost it on the way.

I had a chance to be glad about a minute, then straightway a chance to be sad again.  For when the purchase was about to fail, as usual, the master suddenly spoke up and said what would be worded thus—in modern English:

"I'll tell you what I'll do.  I'm tired supporting these two for no good.  Give me twenty-two dollars for this one, and I'll throw the other one in."

The king couldn't get his breath, he was in such a fury.  He began to choke and gag, and meantime the master and the gentleman moved away discussing.

"An ye will keep the offer open—"

"'Tis open till the morrow at this hour."

"Then I will answer you at that time," said the gentleman, and disappeared, the master following him.

I had a time of it to cool the king down, but I managed it. I whispered in his ear, to this effect:

"Your grace will go for nothing, but after another fashion.  And so shall I.  To-night we shall both be free."

"Ah!  How is that?"

"With this thing which I have stolen, I will unlock these locks and cast off these chains to-night.  When he comes about nine-thirty to inspect us for the night, we will seize him, gag him, batter him, and early in the morning we will march out of this town, proprietors of this caravan of slaves."

That was as far as I went, but the king was charmed and satisfied. That evening we waited patiently for our fellow-slaves to get to sleep and signify it by the usual sign, for you must not take many chances on those poor fellows if you can avoid it.  It is best to keep your own secrets.  No doubt they fidgeted only about as usual, but it didn't seem so to me.  It seemed to me that they were going to be forever getting down to their regular snoring. As the time dragged on I got nervously afraid we shouldn't have enough of it left for our needs; so I made several premature attempts, and merely delayed things by it; for I couldn't seem to touch a padlock, there in the dark, without starting a rattle out of it which interrupted somebody's sleep and made him turn over and wake some more of the gang.

But finally I did get my last iron off, and was a free man once more.  I took a good breath of relief, and reached for the king's irons.  Too late! in comes the master, with a light in one hand and his heavy walking-staff in the other.  I snuggled close among the wallow of snorers, to conceal as nearly as possible that I was naked of irons; and I kept a sharp lookout and prepared to spring for my man the moment he should bend over me.

But he didn't approach.  He stopped, gazed absently toward our dusky mass a minute, evidently thinking about something else; then set down his light, moved musingly toward the door, and before a body could imagine what he was going to do, he was out of the door and had closed it behind him.

"Quick!" said the king.  "Fetch him back!"

Of course, it was the thing to do, and I was up and out in a moment.  But, dear me, there were no lamps in those days, and it was a dark night.  But I glimpsed a dim figure a few steps away.  I darted for it, threw myself upon it, and then there was a state of things and lively!  We fought and scuffled and struggled, and drew a crowd in no time.  They took an immense interest in the fight and encouraged us all they could, and, in fact, couldn't have been pleasanter or more cordial if it had been their own fight.  Then a tremendous row broke out behind us, and as much as half of our audience left us, with a rush, to invest some sympathy in that.  Lanterns began to swing in all directions; it was the watch gathering from far and near.  Presently a halberd fell across my back, as a reminder, and I knew what it meant. I was in custody.  So was my adversary.  We were marched off toward prison, one on each side of the watchman.  Here was disaster, here was a fine scheme gone to sudden destruction!  I tried to imagine what would happen when the master should discover that it was I who had been fighting him; and what would happen if they jailed us together in the general apartment for brawlers and petty law-breakers, as was the custom; and what might—

Just then my antagonist turned his face around in my direction, the freckled light from the watchman's tin lantern fell on it, and, by George, he was the wrong man!

AN AWFUL PREDICAMENT

Sleep?  It was impossible.  It would naturally have been impossible in that noisome cavern of a jail, with its mangy crowd of drunken, quarrelsome, and song-singing rapscallions.  But the thing that made sleep all the more a thing not to be dreamed of, was my racking impatience to get out of this place and find out the whole size of what might have happened yonder in the slave-quarters in consequence of that intolerable miscarriage of mine.

It was a long night, but the morning got around at last.  I made a full and frank explanation to the court.  I said I was a slave, the property of the great Earl Grip, who had arrived just after dark at the Tabard inn in the village on the other side of the water, and had stopped there over night, by compulsion, he being taken deadly sick with a strange and sudden disorder.  I had been ordered to cross to the city in all haste and bring the best physician; I was doing my best; naturally I was running with all my might; the night was dark, I ran against this common person here, who seized me by the throat and began to pummel me, although I told him my errand, and implored him, for the sake of the great earl my master's mortal peril—

The common person interrupted and said it was a lie; and was going to explain how I rushed upon him and attacked him without a word—

"Silence, sirrah!" from the court.  "Take him hence and give him a few stripes whereby to teach him how to treat the servant of a nobleman after a different fashion another time.  Go!"

Then the court begged my pardon, and hoped I would not fail to tell his lordship it was in no wise the court's fault that this high-handed thing had happened.  I said I would make it all right, and so took my leave.  Took it just in time, too; he was starting to ask me why I didn't fetch out these facts the moment I was arrested.  I said I would if I had thought of it—which was true—but that I was so battered by that man that all my wit was knocked out of me—and so forth and so on, and got myself away, still mumbling.

I didn't wait for breakfast.  No grass grew under my feet.  I was soon at the slave quarters.  Empty—everybody gone! That is, everybody except one body—the slave-master's.  It lay there all battered to pulp; and all about were the evidences of a terrific fight.  There was a rude board coffin on a cart at the door, and workmen, assisted by the police, were thinning a road through the gaping crowd in order that they might bring it in.

I picked out a man humble enough in life to condescend to talk with one so shabby as I, and got his account of the matter.

"There were sixteen slaves here.  They rose against their master in the night, and thou seest how it ended."

"Yes.  How did it begin?"

"There was no witness but the slaves.  They said the slave that was most valuable got free of his bonds and escaped in some strange way—by magic arts 'twas thought, by reason that he had no key, and the locks were neither broke nor in any wise injured.  When the master discovered his loss, he was mad with despair, and threw himself upon his people with his heavy stick, who resisted and brake his back and in other and divers ways did give him hurts that brought him swiftly to his end."

"This is dreadful.  It will go hard with the slaves, no doubt, upon the trial."

"Marry, the trial is over."

"Over!"

"Would they be a week, think you—and the matter so simple?  They were not the half of a quarter of an hour at it."

"Why, I don't see how they could determine which were the guilty ones in so short a time."

"Which ones?  Indeed, they considered not particulars like to that. They condemned them in a body.  Wit ye not the law?—which men say the Romans left behind them here when they went—that if one slave killeth his master all the slaves of that man must die for it."

"True.  I had forgotten.  And when will these die?"

"Belike within a four and twenty hours; albeit some say they will wait a pair of days more, if peradventure they may find the missing one meantime."

The missing one!  It made me feel uncomfortable.

"Is it likely they will find him?"

"Before the day is spent—yes.  They seek him everywhere.  They stand at the gates of the town, with certain of the slaves who will discover him to them if he cometh, and none can pass out but he will be first examined."

"Might one see the place where the rest are confined?"

"The outside of it—yes.  The inside of it—but ye will not want to see that."

I took the address of that prison for future reference and then sauntered off.  At the first second-hand clothing shop I came to, up a back street, I got a rough rig suitable for a common seaman who might be going on a cold voyage, and bound up my face with a liberal bandage, saying I had a toothache.  This concealed my worst bruises.  It was a transformation.  I no longer resembled my former self.  Then I struck out for that wire, found it and followed it to its den.  It was a little room over a butcher's shop—which meant that business wasn't very brisk in the telegraphic line.  The young chap in charge was drowsing at his table.  I locked the door and put the vast key in my bosom.  This alarmed the young fellow, and he was going to make a noise; but I said:

"Save your wind; if you open your mouth you are dead, sure.  Tackle your instrument.  Lively, now!  Call Camelot."

"This doth amaze me!  How should such as you know aught of such matters as—"

"Call Camelot!  I am a desperate man.  Call Camelot, or get away from the instrument and I will do it myself."

"What—you?"

"Yes—certainly.  Stop gabbling.  Call the palace."

He made the call.

"Now, then, call Clarence."

"Clarence who ?"

"Never mind Clarence who.  Say you want Clarence; you'll get an answer."

He did so.  We waited five nerve-straining minutes—ten minutes—how long it did seem!—and then came a click that was as familiar to me as a human voice; for Clarence had been my own pupil.

"Now, my lad, vacate!  They would have known my touch, maybe, and so your call was surest; but I'm all right now."

He vacated the place and cocked his ear to listen—but it didn't win.  I used a cipher.  I didn't waste any time in sociabilities with Clarence, but squared away for business, straight-off—thus:

"The king is here and in danger.  We were captured and brought here as slaves.  We should not be able to prove our identity—and the fact is, I am not in a position to try.  Send a telegram for the palace here which will carry conviction with it."

His answer came straight back:

"They don't know anything about the telegraph; they haven't had any experience yet, the line to London is so new.  Better not venture that.  They might hang you.  Think up something else."

Might hang us!  Little he knew how closely he was crowding the facts.  I couldn't think up anything for the moment.  Then an idea struck me, and I started it along:

"Send five hundred picked knights with Launcelot in the lead; and send them on the jump.  Let them enter by the southwest gate, and look out for the man with a white cloth around his right arm."

The answer was prompt:

"They shall start in half an hour."

"All right, Clarence; now tell this lad here that I'm a friend of yours and a dead-head; and that he must be discreet and say nothing about this visit of mine."

The instrument began to talk to the youth and I hurried away. I fell to ciphering.  In half an hour it would be nine o'clock. Knights and horses in heavy armor couldn't travel very fast. These would make the best time they could, and now that the ground was in good condition, and no snow or mud, they would probably make a seven-mile gait; they would have to change horses a couple of times; they would arrive about six, or a little after; it would still be plenty light enough; they would see the white cloth which I should tie around my right arm, and I would take command.  We would surround that prison and have the king out in no time. It would be showy and picturesque enough, all things considered, though I would have preferred noonday, on account of the more theatrical aspect the thing would have.

Now, then, in order to increase the strings to my bow, I thought I would look up some of those people whom I had formerly recognized, and make myself known.  That would help us out of our scrape, without the knights.  But I must proceed cautiously, for it was a risky business.  I must get into sumptuous raiment, and it wouldn't do to run and jump into it.  No, I must work up to it by degrees, buying suit after suit of clothes, in shops wide apart, and getting a little finer article with each change, until I should finally reach silk and velvet, and be ready for my project.  So I started.

But the scheme fell through like scat!  The first corner I turned, I came plump upon one of our slaves, snooping around with a watchman. I coughed at the moment, and he gave me a sudden look that bit right into my marrow.  I judge he thought he had heard that cough before. I turned immediately into a shop and worked along down the counter, pricing things and watching out of the corner of my eye.  Those people had stopped, and were talking together and looking in at the door.  I made up my mind to get out the back way, if there was a back way, and I asked the shopwoman if I could step out there and look for the escaped slave, who was believed to be in hiding back there somewhere, and said I was an officer in disguise, and my pard was yonder at the door with one of the murderers in charge, and would she be good enough to step there and tell him he needn't wait, but had better go at once to the further end of the back alley and be ready to head him off when I rousted him out.

She was blazing with eagerness to see one of those already celebrated murderers, and she started on the errand at once.  I slipped out the back way, locked the door behind me, put the key in my pocket and started off, chuckling to myself and comfortable.

Well, I had gone and spoiled it again, made another mistake. A double one, in fact.  There were plenty of ways to get rid of that officer by some simple and plausible device, but no, I must pick out a picturesque one; it is the crying defect of my character. And then, I had ordered my procedure upon what the officer, being human, would naturally do; whereas when you are least expecting it, a man will now and then go and do the very thing which it's not natural for him to do.  The natural thing for the officer to do, in this case, was to follow straight on my heels; he would find a stout oaken door, securely locked, between him and me; before he could break it down, I should be far away and engaged in slipping into a succession of baffling disguises which would soon get me into a sort of raiment which was a surer protection from meddling law-dogs in Britain than any amount of mere innocence and purity of character.  But instead of doing the natural thing, the officer took me at my word, and followed my instructions.  And so, as I came trotting out of that cul de sac, full of satisfaction with my own cleverness, he turned the corner and I walked right into his handcuffs.  If I had known it was a cul de sac—however, there isn't any excusing a blunder like that, let it go.  Charge it up to profit and loss.

Of course, I was indignant, and swore I had just come ashore from a long voyage, and all that sort of thing—just to see, you know, if it would deceive that slave.  But it didn't.  He knew me.  Then I reproached him for betraying me.  He was more surprised than hurt.  He stretched his eyes wide, and said:

"What, wouldst have me let thee, of all men, escape and not hang with us, when thou'rt the very cause of our hanging?  Go to!"

"Go to" was their way of saying "I should smile!" or "I like that!" Queer talkers, those people.

Well, there was a sort of bastard justice in his view of the case, and so I dropped the matter.  When you can't cure a disaster by argument, what is the use to argue?  It isn't my way.  So I only said:

"You're not going to be hanged.  None of us are."

Both men laughed, and the slave said:

"Ye have not ranked as a fool—before.  You might better keep your reputation, seeing the strain would not be for long."

"It will stand it, I reckon.  Before to-morrow we shall be out of prison, and free to go where we will, besides."

The witty officer lifted at his left ear with his thumb, made a rasping noise in his throat, and said:

"Out of prison—yes—ye say true.  And free likewise to go where ye will, so ye wander not out of his grace the Devil's sultry realm."

I kept my temper, and said, indifferently:

"Now I suppose you really think we are going to hang within a day or two."

"I thought it not many minutes ago, for so the thing was decided and proclaimed."

"Ah, then you've changed your mind, is that it?"

"Even that.  I only thought , then; I know , now."

I felt sarcastical, so I said:

"Oh, sapient servant of the law, condescend to tell us, then, what you know ."

"That ye will all be hanged to-day , at mid-afternoon!  Oho! that shot hit home!  Lean upon me."

The fact is I did need to lean upon somebody.  My knights couldn't arrive in time.  They would be as much as three hours too late. Nothing in the world could save the King of England; nor me, which was more important.  More important, not merely to me, but to the nation—the only nation on earth standing ready to blossom into civilization.  I was sick.  I said no more, there wasn't anything to say.  I knew what the man meant; that if the missing slave was found, the postponement would be revoked, the execution take place to-day.  Well, the missing slave was found.

SIR LAUNCELOT AND KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE

Nearing four in the afternoon.  The scene was just outside the walls of London.  A cool, comfortable, superb day, with a brilliant sun; the kind of day to make one want to live, not die.  The multitude was prodigious and far-reaching; and yet we fifteen poor devils hadn't a friend in it.  There was something painful in that thought, look at it how you might.  There we sat, on our tall scaffold, the butt of the hate and mockery of all those enemies.  We were being made a holiday spectacle.  They had built a sort of grand stand for the nobility and gentry, and these were there in full force, with their ladies.  We recognized a good many of them.

The crowd got a brief and unexpected dash of diversion out of the king.  The moment we were freed of our bonds he sprang up, in his fantastic rags, with face bruised out of all recognition, and proclaimed himself Arthur, King of Britain, and denounced the awful penalties of treason upon every soul there present if hair of his sacred head were touched.  It startled and surprised him to hear them break into a vast roar of laughter.  It wounded his dignity, and he locked himself up in silence.  Then, although the crowd begged him to go on, and tried to provoke him to it by catcalls, jeers, and shouts of:

"Let him speak!  The king!  The king! his humble subjects hunger and thirst for words of wisdom out of the mouth of their master his Serene and Sacred Raggedness!"

But it went for nothing.  He put on all his majesty and sat under this rain of contempt and insult unmoved.  He certainly was great in his way.  Absently, I had taken off my white bandage and wound it about my right arm.  When the crowd noticed this, they began upon me.  They said:

"Doubtless this sailor-man is his minister—observe his costly badge of office!"

I let them go on until they got tired, and then I said:

"Yes, I am his minister, The Boss; and to-morrow you will hear that from Camelot which—"

I got no further.  They drowned me out with joyous derision.  But presently there was silence; for the sheriffs of London, in their official robes, with their subordinates, began to make a stir which indicated that business was about to begin.  In the hush which followed, our crime was recited, the death warrant read, then everybody uncovered while a priest uttered a prayer.

Then a slave was blindfolded; the hangman unslung his rope.  There lay the smooth road below us, we upon one side of it, the banked multitude wailing its other side—a good clear road, and kept free by the police—how good it would be to see my five hundred horsemen come tearing down it!  But no, it was out of the possibilities. I followed its receding thread out into the distance—not a horseman on it, or sign of one.

There was a jerk, and the slave hung dangling; dangling and hideously squirming, for his limbs were not tied.

A second rope was unslung, in a moment another slave was dangling.

In a minute a third slave was struggling in the air.  It was dreadful.  I turned away my head a moment, and when I turned back I missed the king!  They were blindfolding him!  I was paralyzed; I couldn't move, I was choking, my tongue was petrified.  They finished blindfolding him, they led him under the rope.  I couldn't shake off that clinging impotence.  But when I saw them put the noose around his neck, then everything let go in me and I made a spring to the rescue—and as I made it I shot one more glance abroad—by George! here they came, a-tilting!—five hundred mailed and belted knights on bicycles!

The grandest sight that ever was seen.  Lord, how the plumes streamed, how the sun flamed and flashed from the endless procession of webby wheels!

I waved my right arm as Launcelot swept in—he recognized my rag—I tore away noose and bandage, and shouted:

"On your knees, every rascal of you, and salute the king!  Who fails shall sup in hell to-night!"

I always use that high style when I'm climaxing an effect.  Well, it was noble to see Launcelot and the boys swarm up onto that scaffold and heave sheriffs and such overboard.  And it was fine to see that astonished multitude go down on their knees and beg their lives of the king they had just been deriding and insulting. And as he stood apart there, receiving this homage in rags, I thought to myself, well, really there is something peculiarly grand about the gait and bearing of a king, after all.

I was immensely satisfied.  Take the whole situation all around, it was one of the gaudiest effects I ever instigated.

And presently up comes Clarence, his own self! and winks, and says, very modernly:

"Good deal of a surprise, wasn't it?  I knew you'd like it.  I've had the boys practicing this long time, privately; and just hungry for a chance to show off."

THE YANKEE'S FIGHT WITH THE KNIGHTS

Home again, at Camelot.  A morning or two later I found the paper, damp from the press, by my plate at the breakfast table.  I turned to the advertising columns, knowing I should find something of personal interest to me there.  It was this:

Clarence's editorial reference to this affair was to this effect:

Up to the day set, there was no talk in all Britain of anything but this combat.  All other topics sank into insignificance and passed out of men's thoughts and interest.  It was not because a tournament was a great matter, it was not because Sir Sagramor had found the Holy Grail, for he had not, but had failed; it was not because the second (official) personage in the kingdom was one of the duellists; no, all these features were commonplace. Yet there was abundant reason for the extraordinary interest which this coming fight was creating.  It was born of the fact that all the nation knew that this was not to be a duel between mere men, so to speak, but a duel between two mighty magicians; a duel not of muscle but of mind, not of human skill but of superhuman art and craft; a final struggle for supremacy between the two master enchanters of the age.  It was realized that the most prodigious achievements of the most renowned knights could not be worthy of comparison with a spectacle like this; they could be but child's play, contrasted with this mysterious and awful battle of the gods. Yes, all the world knew it was going to be in reality a duel between Merlin and me, a measuring of his magic powers against mine.  It was known that Merlin had been busy whole days and nights together, imbuing Sir Sagramor's arms and armor with supernal powers of offense and defense, and that he had procured for him from the spirits of the air a fleecy veil which would render the wearer invisible to his antagonist while still visible to other men.  Against Sir Sagramor, so weaponed and protected, a thousand knights could accomplish nothing; against him no known enchantments could prevail.  These facts were sure; regarding them there was no doubt, no reason for doubt.  There was but one question:  might there be still other enchantments, unknown to Merlin, which could render Sir Sagramor's veil transparent to me, and make his enchanted mail vulnerable to my weapons?  This was the one thing to be decided in the lists.  Until then the world must remain in suspense.

So the world thought there was a vast matter at stake here, and the world was right, but it was not the one they had in their minds.  No, a far vaster one was upon the cast of this die: the life of knight-errantry.  I was a champion, it was true, but not the champion of the frivolous black arts, I was the champion of hard unsentimental common-sense and reason.  I was entering the lists to either destroy knight-errantry or be its victim.

Vast as the show-grounds were, there were no vacant spaces in them outside of the lists, at ten o'clock on the morning of the 16th. The mammoth grand-stand was clothed in flags, streamers, and rich tapestries, and packed with several acres of small-fry tributary kings, their suites, and the British aristocracy; with our own royal gang in the chief place, and each and every individual a flashing prism of gaudy silks and velvets—well, I never saw anything to begin with it but a fight between an Upper Mississippi sunset and the aurora borealis.  The huge camp of beflagged and gay-colored tents at one end of the lists, with a stiff-standing sentinel at every door and a shining shield hanging by him for challenge, was another fine sight.  You see, every knight was there who had any ambition or any caste feeling; for my feeling toward their order was not much of a secret, and so here was their chance.  If I won my fight with Sir Sagramor, others would have the right to call me out as long as I might be willing to respond.

Down at our end there were but two tents; one for me, and another for my servants.  At the appointed hour the king made a sign, and the heralds, in their tabards, appeared and made proclamation, naming the combatants and stating the cause of quarrel.  There was a pause, then a ringing bugle-blast, which was the signal for us to come forth.  All the multitude caught their breath, and an eager curiosity flashed into every face.

Out from his tent rode great Sir Sagramor, an imposing tower of iron, stately and rigid, his huge spear standing upright in its socket and grasped in his strong hand, his grand horse's face and breast cased in steel, his body clothed in rich trappings that almost dragged the ground—oh, a most noble picture.  A great shout went up, of welcome and admiration.

And then out I came.  But I didn't get any shout.  There was a wondering and eloquent silence for a moment, then a great wave of laughter began to sweep along that human sea, but a warning bugle-blast cut its career short.  I was in the simplest and comfortablest of gymnast costumes—flesh-colored tights from neck to heel, with blue silk puffings about my loins, and bareheaded. My horse was not above medium size, but he was alert, slender-limbed, muscled with watchsprings, and just a greyhound to go.  He was a beauty, glossy as silk, and naked as he was when he was born, except for bridle and ranger-saddle.

The iron tower and the gorgeous bedquilt came cumbrously but gracefully pirouetting down the lists, and we tripped lightly up to meet them.  We halted; the tower saluted, I responded; then we wheeled and rode side by side to the grand-stand and faced our king and queen, to whom we made obeisance.  The queen exclaimed:

"Alack, Sir Boss, wilt fight naked, and without lance or sword or—"

But the king checked her and made her understand, with a polite phrase or two, that this was none of her business.  The bugles rang again; and we separated and rode to the ends of the lists, and took position.  Now old Merlin stepped into view and cast a dainty web of gossamer threads over Sir Sagramor which turned him into Hamlet's ghost; the king made a sign, the bugles blew, Sir Sagramor laid his great lance in rest, and the next moment here he came thundering down the course with his veil flying out behind, and I went whistling through the air like an arrow to meet him—cocking my ear the while, as if noting the invisible knight's position and progress by hearing, not sight.  A chorus of encouraging shouts burst out for him, and one brave voice flung out a heartening word for me—said:

"Go it, slim Jim!"

It was an even bet that Clarence had procured that favor for me—and furnished the language, too.  When that formidable lance-point was within a yard and a half of my breast I twitched my horse aside without an effort, and the big knight swept by, scoring a blank. I got plenty of applause that time.  We turned, braced up, and down we came again.  Another blank for the knight, a roar of applause for me.  This same thing was repeated once more; and it fetched such a whirlwind of applause that Sir Sagramor lost his temper, and at once changed his tactics and set himself the task of chasing me down.  Why, he hadn't any show in the world at that; it was a game of tag, with all the advantage on my side; I whirled out of his path with ease whenever I chose, and once I slapped him on the back as I went to the rear.  Finally I took the chase into my own hands; and after that, turn, or twist, or do what he would, he was never able to get behind me again; he found himself always in front at the end of his maneuver.  So he gave up that business and retired to his end of the lists.  His temper was clear gone now, and he forgot himself and flung an insult at me which disposed of mine.  I slipped my lasso from the horn of my saddle, and grasped the coil in my right hand.  This time you should have seen him come!—it was a business trip, sure; by his gait there was blood in his eye.  I was sitting my horse at ease, and swinging the great loop of my lasso in wide circles about my head; the moment he was under way, I started for him; when the space between us had narrowed to forty feet, I sent the snaky spirals of the rope a-cleaving through the air, then darted aside and faced about and brought my trained animal to a halt with all his feet braced under him for a surge.  The next moment the rope sprang taut and yanked Sir Sagramor out of the saddle!  Great Scott, but there was a sensation!

Unquestionably, the popular thing in this world is novelty.  These people had never seen anything of that cowboy business before, and it carried them clear off their feet with delight.  From all around and everywhere, the shout went up:

"Encore! encore!"

I wondered where they got the word, but there was no time to cipher on philological matters, because the whole knight-errantry hive was just humming now, and my prospect for trade couldn't have been better.  The moment my lasso was released and Sir Sagramor had been assisted to his tent, I hauled in the slack, took my station and began to swing my loop around my head again.  I was sure to have use for it as soon as they could elect a successor for Sir Sagramor, and that couldn't take long where there were so many hungry candidates.  Indeed, they elected one straight off—Sir Hervis de Revel.

Bzz !  Here he came, like a house afire; I dodged:  he passed like a flash, with my horse-hair coils settling around his neck; a second or so later, fst ! his saddle was empty.

I got another encore; and another, and another, and still another. When I had snaked five men out, things began to look serious to the ironclads, and they stopped and consulted together.  As a result, they decided that it was time to waive etiquette and send their greatest and best against me.  To the astonishment of that little world, I lassoed Sir Lamorak de Galis, and after him Sir Galahad.  So you see there was simply nothing to be done now, but play their right bower—bring out the superbest of the superb, the mightiest of the mighty, the great Sir Launcelot himself!

A proud moment for me?  I should think so.  Yonder was Arthur, King of Britain; yonder was Guenever; yes, and whole tribes of little provincial kings and kinglets; and in the tented camp yonder, renowned knights from many lands; and likewise the selectest body known to chivalry, the Knights of the Table Round, the most illustrious in Christendom; and biggest fact of all, the very sun of their shining system was yonder couching his lance, the focal point of forty thousand adoring eyes; and all by myself, here was I laying for him.  Across my mind flitted the dear image of a certain hello-girl of West Hartford, and I wished she could see me now.  In that moment, down came the Invincible, with the rush of a whirlwind—the courtly world rose to its feet and bent forward—the fateful coils went circling through the air, and before you could wink I was towing Sir Launcelot across the field on his back, and kissing my hand to the storm of waving kerchiefs and the thunder-crash of applause that greeted me!

Said I to myself, as I coiled my lariat and hung it on my saddle-horn, and sat there drunk with glory, "The victory is perfect—no other will venture against me—knight-errantry is dead."  Now imagine my astonishment—and everybody else's, too—to hear the peculiar bugle-call which announces that another competitor is about to enter the lists!  There was a mystery here; I couldn't account for this thing.  Next, I noticed Merlin gliding away from me; and then I noticed that my lasso was gone!  The old sleight-of-hand expert had stolen it, sure, and slipped it under his robe.

The bugle blew again.  I looked, and down came Sagramor riding again, with his dust brushed off and his veil nicely re-arranged. I trotted up to meet him, and pretended to find him by the sound of his horse's hoofs.  He said:

"Thou'rt quick of ear, but it will not save thee from this!" and he touched the hilt of his great sword.  "An ye are not able to see it, because of the influence of the veil, know that it is no cumbrous lance, but a sword—and I ween ye will not be able to avoid it."

His visor was up; there was death in his smile.  I should never be able to dodge his sword, that was plain.  Somebody was going to die this time.  If he got the drop on me, I could name the corpse.  We rode forward together, and saluted the royalties. This time the king was disturbed.  He said:

"Where is thy strange weapon?"

"It is stolen, sire."

"Hast another at hand?"

"No, sire, I brought only the one."

Then Merlin mixed in:

"He brought but the one because there was but the one to bring. There exists none other but that one.  It belongeth to the king of the Demons of the Sea.  This man is a pretender, and ignorant, else he had known that that weapon can be used in but eight bouts only, and then it vanisheth away to its home under the sea."

"Then is he weaponless," said the king.  "Sir Sagramore, ye will grant him leave to borrow."

"And I will lend!" said Sir Launcelot, limping up.  "He is as brave a knight of his hands as any that be on live, and he shall have mine."

He put his hand on his sword to draw it, but Sir Sagramor said:

"Stay, it may not be.  He shall fight with his own weapons; it was his privilege to choose them and bring them.  If he has erred, on his head be it."

"Knight!" said the king.  "Thou'rt overwrought with passion; it disorders thy mind.  Wouldst kill a naked man?"

"An he do it, he shall answer it to me," said Sir Launcelot.

"I will answer it to any he that desireth!" retorted Sir Sagramor hotly.

Merlin broke in, rubbing his hands and smiling his lowdownest smile of malicious gratification:

"'Tis well said, right well said!  And 'tis enough of parleying, let my lord the king deliver the battle signal."

The king had to yield.  The bugle made proclamation, and we turned apart and rode to our stations.  There we stood, a hundred yards apart, facing each other, rigid and motionless, like horsed statues. And so we remained, in a soundless hush, as much as a full minute, everybody gazing, nobody stirring.  It seemed as if the king could not take heart to give the signal.  But at last he lifted his hand, the clear note of the bugle followed, Sir Sagramor's long blade described a flashing curve in the air, and it was superb to see him come.  I sat still.  On he came.  I did not move.  People got so excited that they shouted to me:

"Fly, fly!  Save thyself!  This is murther!"

I never budged so much as an inch till that thundering apparition had got within fifteen paces of me; then I snatched a dragoon revolver out of my holster, there was a flash and a roar, and the revolver was back in the holster before anybody could tell what had happened.

Here was a riderless horse plunging by, and yonder lay Sir Sagramor, stone dead.

The people that ran to him were stricken dumb to find that the life was actually gone out of the man and no reason for it visible, no hurt upon his body, nothing like a wound.  There was a hole through the breast of his chain-mail, but they attached no importance to a little thing like that; and as a bullet wound there produces but little blood, none came in sight because of the clothing and swaddlings under the armor.  The body was dragged over to let the king and the swells look down upon it.  They were stupefied with astonishment naturally.  I was requested to come and explain the miracle.  But I remained in my tracks, like a statue, and said:

"If it is a command, I will come, but my lord the king knows that I am where the laws of combat require me to remain while any desire to come against me."

I waited.  Nobody challenged.  Then I said:

"If there are any who doubt that this field is well and fairly won, I do not wait for them to challenge me, I challenge them."

"It is a gallant offer," said the king, "and well beseems you. Whom will you name first?"

"I name none, I challenge all!  Here I stand, and dare the chivalry of England to come against me—not by individuals, but in mass!"

"What!" shouted a score of knights.

"You have heard the challenge.  Take it, or I proclaim you recreant knights and vanquished, every one!"

It was a "bluff" you know.  At such a time it is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to "call," and you rake in the chips.  But just this once—well, things looked squally!  In just no time, five hundred knights were scrambling into their saddles, and before you could wink a widely scattering drove were under way and clattering down upon me.  I snatched both revolvers from the holsters and began to measure distances and calculate chances.

Bang!  One saddle empty.  Bang! another one.  Bang—bang, and I bagged two.  Well, it was nip and tuck with us, and I knew it. If I spent the eleventh shot without convincing these people, the twelfth man would kill me, sure.  And so I never did feel so happy as I did when my ninth downed its man and I detected the wavering in the crowd which is premonitory of panic.  An instant lost now could knock out my last chance.  But I didn't lose it. I raised both revolvers and pointed them—the halted host stood their ground just about one good square moment, then broke and fled.

The day was mine.  Knight-errantry was a doomed institution.  The march of civilization was begun.  How did I feel?  Ah, you never could imagine it.

And Brer Merlin?  His stock was flat again.  Somehow, every time the magic of fol-de-rol tried conclusions with the magic of science, the magic of fol-de-rol got left.

THREE YEARS LATER

When I broke the back of knight-errantry that time, I no longer felt obliged to work in secret.  So, the very next day I exposed my hidden schools, my mines, and my vast system of clandestine factories and workshops to an astonished world.  That is to say, I exposed the nineteenth century to the inspection of the sixth.

Well, it is always a good plan to follow up an advantage promptly. The knights were temporarily down, but if I would keep them so I must just simply paralyze them—nothing short of that would answer.  You see, I was "bluffing" that last time in the field; it would be natural for them to work around to that conclusion, if I gave them a chance.  So I must not give them time; and I didn't.

I renewed my challenge, engraved it on brass, posted it up where any priest could read it to them, and also kept it standing in the advertising columns of the paper.

I not only renewed it, but added to its proportions.  I said, name the day, and I would take fifty assistants and stand up against the massed chivalry of the whole earth and destroy it.

I was not bluffing this time.  I meant what I said; I could do what I promised.  There wasn't any way to misunderstand the language of that challenge.  Even the dullest of the chivalry perceived that this was a plain case of "put up, or shut up."  They were wise and did the latter.  In all the next three years they gave me no trouble worth mentioning.

Consider the three years sped.  Now look around on England.  A happy and prosperous country, and strangely altered.  Schools everywhere, and several colleges; a number of pretty good newspapers.  Even authorship was taking a start; Sir Dinadan the Humorist was first in the field, with a volume of gray-headed jokes which I had been familiar with during thirteen centuries.  If he had left out that old rancid one about the lecturer I wouldn't have said anything; but I couldn't stand that one.  I suppressed the book and hanged the author.

Slavery was dead and gone; all men were equal before the law; taxation had been equalized.  The telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the typewriter, the sewing-machine, and all the thousand willing and handy servants of steam and electricity were working their way into favor.  We had a steamboat or two on the Thames, we had steam warships, and the beginnings of a steam commercial marine; I was getting ready to send out an expedition to discover America.

We were building several lines of railway, and our line from Camelot to London was already finished and in operation.  I was shrewd enough to make all offices connected with the passenger service places of high and distinguished honor.  My idea was to attract the chivalry and nobility, and make them useful and keep them out of mischief.  The plan worked very well, the competition for the places was hot.  The conductor of the 4.33 express was a duke; there wasn't a passenger conductor on the line below the degree of earl.  They were good men, every one, but they had two defects which I couldn't cure, and so had to wink at:  they wouldn't lay aside their armor, and they would "knock down" fare—I mean rob the company.

There was hardly a knight in all the land who wasn't in some useful employment.  They were going from end to end of the country in all manner of useful missionary capacities; their penchant for wandering, and their experience in it, made them altogether the most effective spreaders of civilization we had.  They went clothed in steel and equipped with sword and lance and battle-axe, and if they couldn't persuade a person to try a sewing-machine on the installment plan, or a melodeon, or a barbed-wire fence, or a prohibition journal, or any of the other thousand and one things they canvassed for, they removed him and passed on.

I was very happy.  Things were working steadily toward a secretly longed-for point.  You see, I had two schemes in my head which were the vastest of all my projects.  The one was to overthrow the Catholic Church and set up the Protestant faith on its ruins—not as an Established Church, but a go-as-you-please one; and the other project was to get a decree issued by and by, commanding that upon Arthur's death unlimited suffrage should be introduced, and given to men and women alike—at any rate to all men, wise or unwise, and to all mothers who at middle age should be found to know nearly as much as their sons at twenty-one.  Arthur was good for thirty years yet, he being about my own age—that is to say, forty—and I believed that in that time I could easily have the active part of the population of that day ready and eager for an event which should be the first of its kind in the history of the world—a rounded and complete governmental revolution without bloodshed.  The result to be a republic.  Well, I may as well confess, though I do feel ashamed when I think of it: I was beginning to have a base hankering to be its first president myself.  Yes, there was more or less human nature in me; I found that out.

Clarence was with me as concerned the revolution, but in a modified way.  His idea was a republic, without privileged orders, but with a hereditary royal family at the head of it instead of an elective chief magistrate.  He believed that no nation that had ever known the joy of worshiping a royal family could ever be robbed of it and not fade away and die of melancholy.  I urged that kings were dangerous.  He said, then have cats.  He was sure that a royal family of cats would answer every purpose.  They would be as useful as any other royal family, they would know as much, they would have the same virtues and the same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shindies with other royal cats, they would be laughably vain and absurd and never know it, they would be wholly inexpensive; finally, they would have as sound a divine right as any other royal house, and "Tom VII, or Tom XI, or Tom XIV by the grace of God King," would sound as well as it would when applied to the ordinary royal tomcat with tights on.  "And as a rule," said he, in his neat modern English, "the character of these cats would be considerably above the character of the average king, and this would be an immense moral advantage to the nation, for the reason that a nation always models its morals after its monarch's.  The worship of royalty being founded in unreason, these graceful and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as any other royalties, and indeed more so, because it would presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence than the customary human king, and would certainly get it.  The eyes of the whole harried world would soon be fixed upon this humane and gentle system, and royal butchers would presently begin to disappear; their subjects would fill the vacancies with catlings from our own royal house; we should become a factory; we should supply the thrones of the world; within forty years all Europe would be governed by cats, and we should furnish the cats.  The reign of universal peace would begin then, to end no more forever....  Me-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow—fzt!—wow!"

Hang him, I supposed he was in earnest, and was beginning to be persuaded by him, until he exploded that cat-howl and startled me almost out of my clothes.  But he never could be in earnest.  He didn't know what it was.  He had pictured a distinct and perfectly rational and feasible improvement upon constitutional monarchy, but he was too feather-headed to know it, or care anything about it, either.  I was going to give him a scolding, but Sandy came flying in at that moment, wild with terror, and so choked with sobs that for a minute she could not get her voice.  I ran and took her in my arms, and lavished caresses upon her and said, beseechingly:

"Speak, darling, speak!  What is it?"

Her head fell limp upon my bosom, and she gasped, almost inaudibly:

"HELLO-CENTRAL!"

"Quick!" I shouted to Clarence; "telephone the king's homeopath to come!"

In two minutes I was kneeling by the child's crib, and Sandy was dispatching servants here, there, and everywhere, all over the palace.  I took in the situation almost at a glance—membranous croup!  I bent down and whispered:

"Wake up, sweetheart!  Hello-Central."

She opened her soft eyes languidly, and made out to say:

"Papa."

That was a comfort.  She was far from dead yet.  I sent for preparations of sulphur, I rousted out the croup-kettle myself; for I don't sit down and wait for doctors when Sandy or the child is sick.  I knew how to nurse both of them, and had had experience. This little chap had lived in my arms a good part of its small life, and often I could soothe away its troubles and get it to laugh through the tear-dews on its eye-lashes when even its mother couldn't.

Sir Launcelot, in his richest armor, came striding along the great hall now on his way to the stock-board; he was president of the stock-board, and occupied the Siege Perilous, which he had bought of Sir Galahad; for the stock-board consisted of the Knights of the Round Table, and they used the Round Table for business purposes now.  Seats at it were worth—well, you would never believe the figure, so it is no use to state it.  Sir Launcelot was a bear, and he had put up a corner in one of the new lines, and was just getting ready to squeeze the shorts to-day; but what of that?  He was the same old Launcelot, and when he glanced in as he was passing the door and found out that his pet was sick, that was enough for him; bulls and bears might fight it out their own way for all him, he would come right in here and stand by little Hello-Central for all he was worth.  And that was what he did.  He shied his helmet into the corner, and in half a minute he had a new wick in the alcohol lamp and was firing up on the croup-kettle.  By this time Sandy had built a blanket canopy over the crib, and everything was ready.

Sir Launcelot got up steam, he and I loaded up the kettle with unslaked lime and carbolic acid, with a touch of lactic acid added thereto, then filled the thing up with water and inserted the steam-spout under the canopy.  Everything was ship-shape now, and we sat down on either side of the crib to stand our watch. Sandy was so grateful and so comforted that she charged a couple of church-wardens with willow-bark and sumach-tobacco for us, and told us to smoke as much as we pleased, it couldn't get under the canopy, and she was used to smoke, being the first lady in the land who had ever seen a cloud blown.  Well, there couldn't be a more contented or comfortable sight than Sir Launcelot in his noble armor sitting in gracious serenity at the end of a yard of snowy church-warden.  He was a beautiful man, a lovely man, and was just intended to make a wife and children happy.  But, of course Guenever—however, it's no use to cry over what's done and can't be helped.

Well, he stood watch-and-watch with me, right straight through, for three days and nights, till the child was out of danger; then he took her up in his great arms and kissed her, with his plumes falling about her golden head, then laid her softly in Sandy's lap again and took his stately way down the vast hall, between the ranks of admiring men-at-arms and menials, and so disappeared. And no instinct warned me that I should never look upon him again in this world!  Lord, what a world of heart-break it is.

The doctors said we must take the child away, if we would coax her back to health and strength again.  And she must have sea-air. So we took a man-of-war, and a suite of two hundred and sixty persons, and went cruising about, and after a fortnight of this we stepped ashore on the French coast, and the doctors thought it would be a good idea to make something of a stay there.  The little king of that region offered us his hospitalities, and we were glad to accept.  If he had had as many conveniences as he lacked, we should have been plenty comfortable enough; even as it was, we made out very well, in his queer old castle, by the help of comforts and luxuries from the ship.

At the end of a month I sent the vessel home for fresh supplies, and for news.  We expected her back in three or four days.  She would bring me, along with other news, the result of a certain experiment which I had been starting.  It was a project of mine to replace the tournament with something which might furnish an escape for the extra steam of the chivalry, keep those bucks entertained and out of mischief, and at the same time preserve the best thing in them, which was their hardy spirit of emulation. I had had a choice band of them in private training for some time, and the date was now arriving for their first public effort.

This experiment was baseball.  In order to give the thing vogue from the start, and place it out of the reach of criticism, I chose my nines by rank, not capacity.  There wasn't a knight in either team who wasn't a sceptered sovereign.  As for material of this sort, there was a glut of it always around Arthur.  You couldn't throw a brick in any direction and not cripple a king.  Of course, I couldn't get these people to leave off their armor; they wouldn't do that when they bathed.  They consented to differentiate the armor so that a body could tell one team from the other, but that was the most they would do.  So, one of the teams wore chain-mail ulsters, and the other wore plate-armor made of my new Bessemer steel.  Their practice in the field was the most fantastic thing I ever saw.  Being ball-proof, they never skipped out of the way, but stood still and took the result; when a Bessemer was at the bat and a ball hit him, it would bound a hundred and fifty yards sometimes.  And when a man was running, and threw himself on his stomach to slide to his base, it was like an iron-clad coming into port.  At first I appointed men of no rank to act as umpires, but I had to discontinue that.  These people were no easier to please than other nines.  The umpire's first decision was usually his last; they broke him in two with a bat, and his friends toted him home on a shutter.  When it was noticed that no umpire ever survived a game, umpiring got to be unpopular.  So I was obliged to appoint somebody whose rank and lofty position under the government would protect him.

Here are the names of the nines:

The first public game would certainly draw fifty thousand people; and for solid fun would be worth going around the world to see. Everything would be favorable; it was balmy and beautiful spring weather now, and Nature was all tailored out in her new clothes.

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