 Preface. The un-gentle 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 in as much 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 Castlemane 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 21st, 1889 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 marvellous familiarity with ancient armour, and the restfulness of his company, for he did all the talking. We fell together, as modest people will, in the tale 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 spectres and shadows and dust and mould of a grey antiquity, holding speech with a relic of it. Exactly as I would speak of my nearest personal friends or enemies or my most familiar neighbours, he spoke of Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de Granis, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, Sir Gallahad, 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, "'Do you know about transmigration of souls? Do you know about transposition of epics 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 Cicceroni. Ancient Horberg, date of the sixth century, time of King Arthur and the round table, said to have belonged to the knight, Sir Sagramor le Desirous, observed 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 Mallory's enchanting book, and fed at its rich feast of prodigies and adventurers, breathed in the fragrance of its obsolete names, and dreamed again. Midnight, being calm at length, I read another tale for a nightcap, this which here follows to wit, how Sir Lancelot slew two giants and made a castle free. Anon with all came there upon him two great giants, well-armed, all save the heads with two horrible clubs in their hands. Sir Lancelot put his shield before 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 Lancelot after him, with all his might, and smote him on the shoulder and clave him to the middle. Then Sir Lancelot went into the hall, and there came for 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 night that ever thou wert borne. For thou hast done the most worship that ever did night 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 Lancelot du Lake. And so he departed from them, and be taught them unto God. And then he mounted unto 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 courtelage. 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 Lancelot 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 Lancelot heard this he rose up, and looked out at the window, and saw by the moonlight three nights come riding after that one man, and all three lashed on him at once with swords. After that one night turned on them nightly again, and offended him. Truly said Sir Lancelot, yonder one night shall I help, for it were shame for me to see three nights 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 nights, and then Sir Lancelot said on high, Turn you nights unto me, and leave your fighting with that night! And then they all three left Sir Kay, and turned unto Sir Lancelot, and there began great battle, for they alight all three, and strike many strokes at Sir Lancelot, and assailed him on every side. Then Sir Kay dressed him forth who have hopened Sir Lancelot. Nesur 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 night suffered him forward to do his will, and so stood aside, and then and on within six strokes Sir Lancelot 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 Lancelot, 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 Lancelot, advise you well, for ye may choose whether ye will die or live, for any be yielding it shall be unto Sir Kay. Fair Knight then they said, In saving our lives we will do as thou commandest. Then shall ye, said Sir Lancelot, on which Sunday next coming, go unto the court of King Arthur, and there shall ye yield you unto Queen Gwynevere, and put you all three in her grace and mercy, and say that Sir Kay sent you thither to be her prisoners. On the morning Sir Lancelot arose early and left Sir Kay sleeping, and Sir Lancelot took Sir Kay's armour 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 Lancelot, and then he aspired that he had his armour 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 be guile them. And because of his armour 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 whiskey, gave him another one, then still another hoping always for his story. After a fourth persuader he drifted into 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 labour-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 newfangled way to make a thing I could invent one, 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 neighbour. 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 armour 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 armour 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 bed-quilt, 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 humour 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 with that. At the end of an hour we saw a faraway 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. Ridgeport, 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 the place indicated by my stranger, and began to read as follows. THE TALE OF THE LOST LAND 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 gold and hair streaming down over her shoulders came around her head she wore a hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as sweet an outfit as I ever 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 was no more startled at his fantastic makeup 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 its 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 rule wore a coarse tolin and 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, and 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 Halberk and Morion marched back and forth with Halbert 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 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. End of Preface and Chapter 1 Chapter 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. 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 seamoth! 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 headkeeper 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 undercook 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 netled. However, it never phased 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. All was 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, May be 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, 19th 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's straight way began to clamour. 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 three minutes after twelve 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 night 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 closed 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 with children cut out of paper or created in gingerbread, with men on them in scale-imer 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 wall stood men-at-arms in breastplate and morion, with halberds for their only weapon, rigid as statues. 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 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. 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 Kings also, and there was majesty and greatness in the giant frame and high bearing of Sir Lancelot of the lake. There was presently an incident which centered the general interest upon this Sir Lancelot, 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 lady's 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 Kaye 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 Kaye, and she looked disappointed, and the page whispered in my ear with an accent and manner expressive of extravagant derision. Sir Kaye, 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 Kaye, 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 honour due, ye will give it unto him who is the mightiest man of his hands that ever bear shield, or strike withstored in the ranks of Christian battle, even him that sitteth there. And he pointed to Sir Lancelot. Ah, he fetched them! It was a rattling good stroke. Then he went on and told how Sir Lancelot, 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 Kaye, fighting a desperate fight against nine foreign knights, and straightway took the battle solely into his own hands, and conquered the nine. And that knight Sir Lancelot rose quietly, and dressed him in Sir Kaye's armour, and took Sir Kaye's horse, and got 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 Whitsentide they would ride to Arthur's court, and yield them to Queen Guinevere's hands as captives of Sir Kaye the Seneschal, spoil of his nightly 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 Lancelot that would have got him shot in Arkansas to a dead certainty. Everybody praised the valor and magnanimity of Sir Lancelot, 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 practised fighters. I said as much to Clarence, but this mocking featherhead only said, and Sir Kaye had had time to get another skin of sour wine into him, he had seen the account 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, closed 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. Mary, 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 dyeth every time he hath gotten his barrel full and feeleth his exaggeration miller working. Would God I had died or I saw this day? Who is it? Merlin, the mighty liar and magician. Perditions singe him for the weariness he worketh with this 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 back and call they would have dug his entrails out this 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. Maladdictions light upon him, misfortune be his dole. Good friend, pretty call me for even song. 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 imputant 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 selves. 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, that which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was wear of an arm closed 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 be seen, and this damsel will come to you, Anon, and then speak ye fair to her that she will give you that sword. Anon with all 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 signifyeth yonder pavilion? It is the knight's pavilion, said Merlin, that ye fought with last, Sir Pelinor, but he is out, he is not there. He hath a do with a knight of yours, that height, Eglemay, and they have fought together, and at the last Eglemay fled, and else he had been dead, and he hath chased him even to Corleone, and we shall meet with him and on 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 a do with him. Also he will not lightly be matched of one knight living, and therefore it is my council, 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, said Arthur. Then Arthur looked on the sword and liked it passing well. Whether likeeth you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard? Me likeeth 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 Carlyon, and by the way, they met with Sir Pellinor, but Merlin had done such a craft that Pellinor 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 Carlyon, 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 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 Dinadin, 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 Dinadin 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 Dinadin'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 brassed 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 twenty-first, 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 sprang 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 shots. Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail to it. 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 19th 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 Guinevere 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 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, are 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 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, lie indeed! And is it a dream that you are to be burned to-morrow? 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 life-like 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 reasons? What are they? Well, they say—oh, but I dare not, indeed, dare not. 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, and 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, for sooth, 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—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 700 years, and he 700—don't interrupt me. He has died and come alive again 13 times, and traveled under a new name every time—Smith, Jones, Robinson, Jackson, Peters, Haskins, Merlin—the new alias every time he turns up. I knew him in Egypt 300 years ago. I knew him in India 500 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 hyamuckamuck 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. Recently 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 we'll 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 bedders with a threat, I intending to invent a calamity at my leisure. Now the people who are the readiest and eagerness and willingness 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 Leech the King, and straightway he had me to his presence. He was frighted even to the marrow, and was minded to give order for an instant enlargement, and that you be closed 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 not to turn the argument, and so reluctant, and full loathes to do you the discurtsy, 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. O pretty delay not! To delay at such a time were to double and treble the perils that already compass thee about. O 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 whole? He were shut up when yesterday was well spent. It is nine o' 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 twentieth then? The twentieth, 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. The stillness and the darkness, realisation soon began to supplement knowledge. The mere knowledge of a fact is pale. But when you come to realise your fact, it takes on colour. It is all the difference between hearing of 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 realisation 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 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 tomorrow to come, I so wanted to gather in that great triumph, and be the centre 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 a 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's worth. The door opened, and some men at arms appeared. The leaders 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 tomorrow. 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 and closed 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 faggots 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 in gender, 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. Odds-botacons, 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 that 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 faggots 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 disc. 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 arms 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, reverence, sir, even to the halfing 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? How long, good sir, be merciful. Look, it grows 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 twentieth, 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 twenty first. 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 nearby. 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 it 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 percent 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 shan'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, his 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 broken. 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, and 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. In as much as I was now the second personage in the kingdom, as far as political power and authority were concerned, much was made of me. My raiment was of silks and velvets and cloth of gold, and by consequence was very showy, also uncomfortable. But habit would soon reconcile me to my clothes, I was aware of that. I was given the choice a suite of apartments in the castle after the kings. They were a glow with loud-colored silken hangings, but the stone floors had nothing but rushes on them for a carpet, and they were misfit rushes at that, being not all of one breed. As for conveniences, properly speaking, there weren't any. I mean little conveniences. It is the little conveniences that make the real comfort of life. The big, oaken chairs, graced with rude carvings, were well enough, but that was the stopping place. There was no soap, no matches, no looking-glass except a metal one, about as powerful as a pail of water, and not a chromo. I had been used to cromos for years, and I saw now that without my suspecting it, a passion for art had got worked into the fabric of my being, and was become a part of me. It made me homesick to look around over this proud and gaudy but heartless barrenness, and remember that in our house in East Hartford, all unpretending as it was, you couldn't go into a room, but you would find an insurance-cromo, or at least a three-color God bless our home over the door, and in the parlor we had nine. But here, even in my grand room of state, there wasn't anything in the nature of a picture except a thing the size of a bed quilt, which was either woven or knitted. It had darned places in it. And nothing in it was the right color or the right shape, and as for proportions, even Raphael himself couldn't have botched them more formatively after all his practice on those nightmares they call his celebrated Hampton Court cartoons. Raphael was a bird. We had several of his cromos. One was his miraculous draft of fishes, where he puts in a miracle of his own, puts three men into a canoe which wouldn't have held a dog without upsetting. I always admired to study ours art. It was so fresh and unconventional. There wasn't even a bell or a speaking tube in the castle. I had a great many servants, and those that were on duty lulled in the anti-room, and when I wanted one of them I had to go and call for him. There was no gas, there were no candles, a bronze dish half full of boarding-house butter with a blazing rag floating in it was the thing that produced what was regarded as light. A lot of these hung along the walls and modified the dark just toned it down enough to make it dismal. If you went out at night your servants carried torches. There were no books, pens, paper or ink, and no glass in the openings they believed to be windows. It is a little thing, glass is, until it is absent, then it becomes a big thing. But perhaps the worst of all was that there wasn't any sugar, coffee, tea or tobacco. I saw that I was just another Robinson Crusoe cast away on an uninhabited island with no society but some more or less tame animals, and if I wanted to make life bearable I must do as he did, invent, contrive, create, reorganize things, set brain and hand to work and keep them busy. Well, that was in my line. One thing troubled me along at first the immense interest which people took in me. Apparently the whole nation wanted a look at me. It soon transpired that the eclipse had scared the British world almost to death, that while it lasted the whole country from one end to the other was in a pitiable state of panic, and the churches, hermitages and monkries overflowed with praying and weeping poor creatures who thought the end of the world was come. Then had followed the news that the producer of this awful event was a stranger, a mighty magician at Arthur's court, that he could have blown out the sun like a candle, and was just going to do it when his mercy was purchased, and he then dissolved his enchantments, and was now recognized and honored as the man who had by his unaided might saved the globe from destruction and its peoples from extinction. Now, if you consider that everybody believed that, and not only believed it, but never even dreamed of doubting it, you will easily understand that there was not a person in all Britain that would not have walked 50 miles to get a sight of me. Of course I was all the talk, all other subjects were dropped. Even the king became suddenly a person of minor interest and notoriety. Within twenty-four hours the delegations began to arrive, and from that time onward for a fortnight they kept coming. The village was crowded, and all the countryside. I had to go out a dozen times a day and show myself to these reverent and awe-stricken multitudes. It came to be a great burden as to time and trouble, but of course it was at the same time compensatingly agreeable to be so celebrated and such a center of homage. It turned Brer Merlin green with envy in spite, which was a great satisfaction to me. But there was one thing I couldn't understand. Nobody had asked for an autograph. I spoke to Clarence about it. By George I had to explain to him what it was. Then he said nobody in the country could read or write, but had few dozen priests. Land, think of that! There was another thing that troubled me a little. Those multitudes presently began to agitate for another miracle. That was natural. To be able to carry back to their far homes the boast that they had seen the man who could command the sun riding in the heavens and be obeyed would make them great in the eyes of their neighbors and envied by them all, but to be able to also say they had seen him work a miracle themselves, why, people would come a distance to see them. The pressure got to be pretty strong. There was going to be an eclipse of the moon, and I knew the day to an hour, but it was too far away. Two years! I would have given a good deal for license to hurry it up and use it now when there was a big market for it. It seemed a great pity to have it wasted so, and come lagging along at a time when a body wouldn't have any use for it like it is not. If it had been booked for only a month away I could have sold it short, but as matters stood I couldn't seem to cipher out any way to make it do me any good, so I gave up trying. Next Clarence found that old Merlin was making himself busy on the sly among those people. He was spreading a report that I was a humbug, and that the reason I didn't accommodate the people with a miracle was because I couldn't. I saw that I must do something. I presently thought out a plan. By my authority as executive I threw Merlin into prison, the same cell I had occupied myself. Then I gave public notice by Harold and Trumpet that I should be busy with affairs of state for a fortnight, but about the end of that time I would take a moment's leisure and blow up Merlin's stone tower by fires from heaven. In the meantime who so listened to evil reports about me? Let him beware. Furthermore I would perform but this one miracle at this time and no more. If it failed to satisfy and any murmured I would turn the murmurers into horses and make them useful. Quiet ensued. I took Clarence into my confidence to a certain degree and we went to work privately. I told him that this was a sort of miracle that required a trifle of preparation, and that it would be sudden death to ever talk about these preparations to anybody. That made his mouth safe enough. Clandestinely we made a few bushels a first-rate blasting powder, and I superintended my armorers while they constructed a lightning rod and some wires. His old stone tower was very massive, and rather ruinous too, for it was Roman, and four hundred years old, yes and handsome after a rude fashion, and closed with ivy from base to summit as with a shirt of scale mail. It stood on a lonely eminence in a good view from the castle, and about half a mile away. Working by night we stowed the powder in the tower, dug stones out on the inside, and buried the powder in the walls themselves which were fifteen feet thick at the base. We put in a peck at a time in a dozen places. We could have blown up the tower of London with these charges. When the thirteenth night was come we put up our lightning rod, bedded it in one of the batches of powder, and ran wires from it to the other batches. Everybody had shunned that locality from the day of my proclamation, but on the morning of the fourteenth I thought best to warn the people through the heralds to keep clear away a quarter of a mile away. Then added by command that at some time during the twenty-four hours I would consummate the miracle and would first give a brief notice by flags on the castle towers if in the daytime, by torch baskets in the same places if at night. Thunder showers had been tolerably frequent of late, and I was not much afraid of a failure. Still I shouldn't have cared for a delay of a day or two. I should have explained that I was busy with affairs of state yet, and the people must wait. Of course we had a blazing sunny day, almost the first one without a cloud for three weeks, things always happen so. I kept secluded and watched the weather. Clarence dropped in from time to time and said the public excitement was growing and growing all the time, and the whole country filling up with human masses as far as one could see from the battlements. At last the wind sprang up and a cloud appeared in the right quarter, too, and just at nightfall. For a little while I watched that distant cloud spread and blackened. Then I judged it was time for me to appear. I ordered the torch baskets to be lit, and Merlin liberated and sent to me. A quarter of an hour later I ascended the parapet, and there found the king and the court assembled and gazing off in the darkness toward Merlin's tower. Already the darkness was so heavy that one could not see far. These people and the old turrets being partly in deep shadow and partly in the red glow from the great torch baskets overhead made a good deal of a picture. Merlin arrived in a gloomy mood. I said, You wanted to burn me alive when I had not done you any harm, and latterly you have been trying to injure my professional reputation. Therefore I am going to call down fire and blow up your tower. But it is only fair to give you a chance. Now, if you think you can break my enchantments and ward off the fire, step to the bat. It's your innings. I can, fair sir, and I will. Doubt it not. He drew an imaginary circle on the stones of the roof and burnt a pinch of powder in it which sent up a small cloud of aromatic smoke where at everybody fell back and began to cross themselves and get uncomfortable. Then he began to mutter and make passes in the air with his hands. He worked himself up slowly and gradually into a sort of frenzy and got to thrashing around with his arms like the sails of a windmill. By this time the storm had about reached us. The gusts of wind were flaring the torches and making the shadows swash about. The first heavy drops of rain were falling. The world abroad was black as pitch. The lightning began to wink fitfully. Of course, my rod would be loading itself now. In fact, things were imminent. So I said, You have had time enough. I have given you every advantage and not interfered. It is plain your magic is weak. It is only fair that I begin now. I made about three passes in the air and then there was an awful crash and that old tower leapt into the sky in chunks along with a vast volcanic fountain of fire that turned night to noonday and showed a thousand acres of human beings groveling on the ground in a general collapse of consternation. Well, it rained mortar and masonry the rest of the week. This was the report, but probably the facts would have modified it. It was an effective miracle. The great bothersome temporary population vanished. There were a good many thousand tracks in the mud the next morning, but they were all outward bound. If I had advertised another miracle I couldn't have raised an audience with a sheriff. Merlin's stock was flat. The king wanted to stop his wages. He even wanted to banish him, but I interfered. I said he would be useful to work the weather and attend to small matters like that. And I would give him a lift now and then when his poor little parlor magic soured on him. There wasn't a rag of his tower left, but I had the government rebuild it for him and advised him to take borders, but he was too high toned for that. And as for being grateful he never even said thank you. He was a rather hard lot, take him how you might. But then you couldn't fairly expect a man to be sweet that had been sent back, so. CHAPTER VIII. To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing, but to have the on-looking world consent to it is a finer. The tower episode solidified my power and made it impregnable. If any were per chance disposed to be jealous and critical before that, they experienced a change of heart now. There was not any one in the kingdom who would have considered it good judgment to meddle with my matters. I was fast getting adjusted to my situation in circumstances, for a time I used to wake up mornings and smile at my dream and listen for the Colt's factory whistle, but that sort of thing played itself out gradually, and at last I was fully able to realize that I was actually living in the sixth century and, in Arthur's court, not a lunatic asylum. After that I was just as much at home in that century as I could have been in any other, and as for preference I wouldn't have traded it for the twentieth. Look at the opportunities here for a man of knowledge, brains, pluck, and enterprise to sail in and grow up in the country, the grandest field that ever was, and all my own, not a competitor, not a man who wasn't a baby to me in acquirements and capacities, whereas what would I amount to in the twentieth century? I should be a foreman of a factory, that is about all, and could drag a sane down street any day and catch a hundred better men than myself. What a jump I had made! I couldn't keep from thinking about it and contemplating it just as one does who has struck oil. There was nothing back of me that could approach it unless it might be Joseph's case, and Joseph's only approached it and didn't equal it quite. For it stands to reason that as Joseph's splendid financial ingenuities advantaged nobody but the king, the general public must have regarded him with a good deal of disfavor, whereas I had done my entire public a kindness in sparing the sun, and was popular by reason of it. I was no shadow of a king, I was the substance, the king himself was the shadow, my power was colossal, and it was not a mere name, as such things have generally been, it was the genuine article. I stood here at the very spring and source of the second great period of the world's history, and could see the trickling stream of that history gather and deepen and broaden, and roll its mighty tides down the far centuries, and I could note the up- springing of adventures like myself in the shelter of its long array of thrones, de Montforte's, Gavinston's, Mortimer's, Villiers's, the war-making, campaign directing wantons of France, and Charles II's scepter-wielding drabs, but nowhere in the procession was my full-sized fellow visible, I was a unique, and glad to know that that fact could not be dislodged or challenged for thirteen centuries and a half, for sure. Yes, in power I was equal to the king. At the same time there was another power that was a trifle stronger than both of us put together, but that was the church. I do not wish to disguise that fact. I couldn't if I wanted to, but never mind about that now. It will show up in its proper place later on. It didn't cause me any trouble in the beginning, at least any of consequence. Well, it was a curious country and full of interest, and the people. They were the quaintest and simplest and trustingest race, why they were nothing but rabbits. It was pitiful for a person born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and church and nobility, as if they had any more occasion to love and honor king and church and noble than a slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him. Why, dear me, any kind of royalty, how so ever modified, any kind of aristocracy, how so ever pruned, is rightly an insult, but if you are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always figured as its aristocracies, a company of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and obscurity of left, like their betters, to their own exertions. The most of King Arthur's British nation were slaves, pure and simple, and bore that name, and wore the iron collar on their necks, and the rest were slaves in fact, but without the same. They imagined themselves men and free men, and called themselves so. The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object and one only, to grovel before king and church and noble, to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs, that they might be happy, go naked, that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes, that they might be spared from paying them, and be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt, and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honour. Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting to observe and examine. I had mine, the king and his people had theirs. In both cases they flowed in ruts worn deep by time and habit, and a man who should have proposed to divert them by reason and argument would have had a long contract on his hands. For instance, those people had inherited the idea that all men without title and a long pedigree, whether they had great natural gifts and acquirements or hadn't, were creatures of no more consideration than so many animals, bugs, insects, whereas I had inherited the idea that human daws who can consent to masquerade in the peacock shams of inherited dignities and unearned titles are of no good but to be laughed at. The way I was looked upon was odd, but it was natural. You know how the keeper and the public regard the elephant in the menagerie. Well, that is the idea. They are full of admiration of his vast bulk and his prodigious strength. They speak with pride of the fact that he can do a hundred marvels which are far and away beyond their own powers. And they speak with the same pride of the fact that in his wrath he is able to drive a thousand men before him. But does that make him one of them? No. The raggedest tramp in the pit would smile at the idea. He couldn't comprehend it, couldn't take it in, couldn't in any remote way conceive of it. Well, to the king, the nobles, and all the nation down to the very slaves and tramps, I was just that kind of an elephant. And nothing more. I was admired, also feared. But it was as an animal is admired and feared. The animal is not reverenced. Neither was I. I was not even respected. I had no pedigree, no inherited title. So in the kings and nobles' eyes I was mere dirt. The people regarded me with wonder and awe, but there was no reverence mixed with it. Through the force of inherited ideas they were not able to conceive of anything being entitled to that except pedigree and lordship. There you see the hand of that awful power, the Roman Catholic Church. In two or three little centuries it had converted a nation of men to a nation of worms. Before the day of the Church's supremacy in the world men were men and held their heads up and had a man's pride and spirit and independence. And what of greatness and position a person got he got mainly by achievement, not by birth. But then the Church came to the front with an axe to grind, and she was wise and subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat or a nation. She invented divine right of kings, and propped it all round brick by brick with the beatitudes, wrenching them from their good purpose to make them fortify an evil one. She preached to the commoner humility, obedience to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice. She preached to the commoner meekness under insult, preached still to the commoner always to the commoner patience, meanness of spirit, non-resistance under oppression. And she introduced heritable ranks and aristocracies and taught all the Christian populations of the earth to bow down to them and worship them. Even down to my birth-century that poison was still in the blood of Christendom, and the best of English commoners was still content to see his inferiors impudently continuing to hold a number of positions such as lordships and the throne to which the grotesque laws of his country did not allow him to aspire. In fact he was not merely contented with this strange condition of things, he was even able to persuade himself that he was proud of it. It seems to show that there isn't anything you can't stand if you are only born and bred to it. Of course that taint, that reverence for rank and title, had been in our American blood too, I know that. But when I left America it had disappeared, at least to all intents and purposes. The remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and dudises. When a disease has worked its way down to that level it may fairly be said to be out of the system. But to return to my anomalous position in King Arthur's kingdom. Here I was, a giant among pygmies, a man among children, a master intelligence among intellectual moles, by all rational measurement the one and only actual great man in that whole British world, and yet there and then, just as in the remote England of my birth-time, the sheep-witted earl, who could claim long descent from a king's layman, acquired at second hand from the slums of London, was a better man than I was. Such a personage was fond upon in Arthur's realm and reverently looked up to by everybody, even though his dispositions were as mean as his intelligence and his morals as base as his lineage. There were times when he could sit down in the king's presence, but I couldn't. I could have got a title easily enough, and that would have raised me a large step in everybody's eyes, even in the king's, the giver of it. But I didn't ask for it, and I declined it when it was offered. I couldn't have enjoyed such a thing with my notions, and it wouldn't have been fair, anyway, because as far back as I could go our tribe had always been short of the bar sinister. I couldn't have felt really unsatisfactorily fine and proud and set up over any title, except one that should come from the nation itself, the only legitimate source, and such and one I hoped to win. And in the course of years of honest and honourable endeavour, I did win it, and did wear it, with a high and clean pride. This title fell casually from the lips of a blacksmith, one day, in a village, was caught up as a happy thought and tossed from mouth to mouth with a laugh and an affirmative vote. In ten days it had swept the kingdom and was become as familiar as the king's name. I was never known by any other designation afterward, whether in the nation's talk or in grave debate upon matters of state at the Council Board of the Sovereign. This title, translated into modern speech, would be The Boss. Elected by the nation. That suited me, and it was a pretty high title. There were very few thes, and I was one of them. If you spoke of the Duke or the Earl or the Bishop, how could anybody tell which one you meant? But if you spoke of the King or the Queen or the Boss, it was different. Well, I liked the King, and as King I respected him, respected the office. At least respected it as much as I was capable of respecting any unearned supremacy. But as men, I looked down upon him and his nobles privately, and he and they liked me, and respected my office. But as an animal, without birth or sham title, they looked down upon me, and were not particularly private about it, either. I didn't charge for my opinion about them, and they didn't charge for their opinion about me. The count was square, the books balanced, everybody was satisfied.