 43. In Merlin's Cave, Clarence and I, and fifty-two fresh, bright, well-educated, clean-minded young British boys. At dawn I sent an order to the factories and to all our great works to stop operations and remove all life to a safe distance as everything was going to be blown up by secret minds, and no telling at what moment therefore vacate at once. These people knew me and had confidence in my word. They would clear out without waiting to part their hair, and I could take my own time about dating the explosion. You couldn't hire one of them to go back during the century if the explosion was still impending. We had a week of waiting. It was not dull for me because I was writing all the time. During the first three days I finished turning my old diary into this narrative form. It only required a chapter or so to bring it down to date. The rest of the week I took up in writing letters to my wife. It was always my habit to write to Sandy every day, whenever we were separate, and now I kept up the habit for love of it and of her, though I couldn't do anything with the letters, of course, after I had written them. But it put in the time, you see, and was almost like talking. It was almost as if I was saying, Sandy, if you and Hello Central were here in the cave instead of only your photographs, what good times we could have. And then, you know, I could imagine the baby goo-gooing something out in reply, with its fists in its mouth and itself stretched across its mother's lap on its back, and she laughing and admiring and worshipping, and now and then tickling under the baby's chin to set it cackling, and then maybe throwing in a word of answer to me herself, and so on and so on. Well, don't you know, I could sit there in the cave with my pen and keep it up that way by the hour with them. Why, it was almost like having us all together again. I had spies out every night, of course, to get news. Every report made things look more and more impressive. The hosts were gathering, gathering. Down all the roads and paths of England the knights were riding, and priests rode with them to hearten these original crusaders, this being the church's war. All the nobilities big and little were on their way, and all the gentry. This was all as was expected. We should thin out this sort of folk to such a degree that the people would have nothing to do but just step to the front with their republic, and—ah, what a donkey I was! Toward the end of the week I began to get this large and disenchanting fact through my head that the mass of the nation had swung their caps and shouted for the republic for about one day and there an end. The church, the nobles, and the gentry then turned one grand, all disapproving frown upon them and shriveled them into sheep. From that moment the sheep had begun to gather to the fold, that is to say the camps, and offer their valueless lives and their valuable wool to the righteous cause. Why, even the very men who had lately been slaves were in the righteous cause, and glorifying it, praying for it, sentimentally slabbering over it, just like all the other commoners. Imagine such human muck as this, conceive of this folly! Yes, it was now death to the republic everywhere, not a descending voice. All England was marching against us. Truly this was more than I had bargained for. I watched my fifty-two boys narrowly, watched their faces, their walk, their unconscious attitudes. For all these are a language, a language given us purposely, that it may betray us in times of emergency when we have secrets which we want to keep. I knew that that thought would keep saying itself over and over again in their minds and hearts. All England is marching against us, and evermore strenuously imploring attention with each repetition, even more sharply realizing itself to their imaginations, until even in their sleep they would find no rest from it, but hear the vague and flitting creatures of the dream say, All England! All England is marching against you! I knew all this would happen. I knew that ultimately the pressure would become so great that it would compel utterance. Therefore I must be ready with an answer at that time, an answer well chosen and tranquilizing. I was right. The time came. They had to speak. Poor lads, it was pitiful to see. They were so pale, so worn, so troubled. At first their spokesmen could hardly find voice or words, but he presently got both. This is what he said, and he put it in the neat modern English taught him in my schools. We have tried to forget what we are, English boys. We have tried to put reason before sentiment, duty before love. Our minds approve, but our hearts reproach us. While apparently it was only the nobility, only the gentry, only the twenty-five or thirty thousand knights left alive out of the late wars, we were of one mind and undisturbed by any troubling doubt. Each and every one of these fifty-two lads who stand here before you said, They have chosen. It is their affair. But think! The matter is altered. All England is marching against us. Oh, sir, consider. Reflect. These people are our people. They are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. We love them. Do not ask us to destroy our nation. Well it shows the value of looking ahead and being ready for a thing when it happens. If I hadn't foreseen this thing and been fixed, that boy would have had me. I couldn't have said a word. But I was fixed. I said, My boys, your hearts are in the right place. You have thought the worthy thought. You have done the worthy thing. You are English boys. You will remain English boys. And you will keep that name unsmerched. Give yourselves no further concern. Let your minds be at ease. Consider this. While all England is marching against us, who is in the van? Who, by the commonest rules of war, will march in the front? Answer me. The mounted host of mailed knights. True. They are thirty thousand strong. Acres deep they will march. Now observe. None but they will ever strike the sand-belt. Then there will be an episode. Immediately after the civilian multitude in the rear will retire to meet business engagements elsewhere. None but nobles and gentry are knights, and none but these will remain to dance to our music after that episode. It is absolutely true that we shall have to fight nobody but these thirty thousand knights. Now speak, and it shall be as you decide. Shall we avoid the battle? Retire from the field? No! The shout was unanimous and hearty. Are you? Are you? Well, afraid of these thirty thousand knights! That joke brought out a good laugh. The boys' troubles vanished away, and they went gaily to their posts. Ah, they were a darling fifty-two. As pretty as girls, too. I was ready for the enemy now. Let the approaching big day come along. It would find us on deck. The big day arrived on time. At dawn the sentry on watch and the corral came into the cave and reported a moving black mass under the horizon, and a faint sound which he thought to be military music. Breakfast was just ready. We sat down and ate. This over I made the boys a little speech, and then sent out a detail to man the battery, with Clarence in command of it. The sun rose presently and sent its unobstructed splendors over the land, and we saw a prodigious host moving slowly toward us, with a steady drift and a lined front of a wave of the sea. Nearer and nearer it came, and more and more sublimely imposing became its aspect. Yes, all England was there, apparently. Soon we could see the innumerable banners fluttering, and then the sun struck the sea of armour and set it all aflash. Yes, it was a fine sight. I hadn't ever seen anything to beat it. At last we could make out details. All the front ranks, no telling how many acres deep, were horsemen, plumed knights in armour. Suddenly we heard the blare of trumpets, the slow walk burst into a gallop, and then—well, it was wonderful to see. Down swept that vast horseshoe wave, it approached the sand-belt, my breath stood still, nearer, nearer. The strip of green turf beyond the yellow belt grew narrow, narrower still, became a mere ribbon in front of the horses, then disappeared under their hooves. Great scot! Why, the whole front of that host shot into the air with a thunder-crash, and became a whirling tempest of rags and fragments, and along the ground lay a thick wall of smoke that hid what was left of the multitude from our sight. Time for the second step in the plan of campaign. I touched a button, and shook the bones of England loose from her spine. In that explosion all our noble civilization factories went up in the air and disappeared from the earth. It was a pity, but it was necessary. We could not afford to let the enemy turn our own weapons against us. Now ensued one of the dullest quarter-hours I had ever endured. We waited in a silent solitude, enclosed by our circles of wire, and by a circle of heavy smoke outside of these. We couldn't see over the wall a smoke, and we couldn't see through it. But at last it began to shred away lazily, and by the end of another quarter-hour the land was clear, and our curiosity was enabled to satisfy itself. No living creature was in sight. We now perceived that additions had been made to our defences. The dynamite had dug a ditch more than a hundred feet wide all around us, and cast up an embarkment some twenty-five feet high on both borders of it, as to destruction of life. It was amazing. Moreover it was beyond estimate. Of course we could not count the dead, because they did not exist as individuals but merely as homogenous protoplasm, with alloys of iron and buttons. No life was in sight, but necessarily there must have been some wounded in the rear ranks who were carried off the field under cover of the wall of smoke. There would be sickness among the others, there always is after an episode like that. But there would be no reinforcements. This was the last stand of the chivalry of England. It was all that was left of the order after the recent annihilating wars. So I felt quite safe in believing that the utmost force that could for the future be brought against us would be but small, that is, of knights. I therefore issued a congratulatory proclamation to my army in these words. Soldiers, champions of human liberty and equality, your general congratulates you. In the pride of his strength and the vanity of his renown an arrogant enemy came against you. You were ready. The conflict was brief, on your side glorious. This mighty victory, having been achieved utterly without loss, stands without example in history. So long as the planets shall continue to move in their orbits, the battle of the sand belt will not perish out of the memories of men. The boss. I read it well, and the applause I got was very gratifying to me. I then wound up with these remarks. The war with the English nation as a nation is at an end. The nation has retired from the field and the war. Before it can be persuaded to return war will have ceased. This campaign is the only one that is going to be fought. It will be brief, the briefest in history. Also, the most destructive to life, considered from the standpoint of proportion of casualties to numbers engaged, we are done with the nation. Henceforth we deal only with the knights. English knights can be killed, but they cannot be conquered. We know what is before us. While one of these men remains alive, our task is not finished. The war is not ended. We will kill them all. Loud and long continued applause. I picketed the great embankments thrown up around our lines by the dynamite explosion, merely a look out of a couple of boys to announce the enemy when he should appear again. Next I sent an engineer and forty men to a point just beyond our lines on the south to turn a mountain brook that was there and bring it within our lines and under our command, arranging it in such a way that I could make instant use of it in an emergency. The forty men were divided into two shifts of twenty each and were to relieve each other every two hours. In ten hours the work was accomplished. It was nightfall now and I withdrew my pickets. The one who had had the northern outlook reported a camp in sight but visible with a glass only. He also reported that a few knights had been feeling their way toward us and had driven some cattle across our lines but that the knights themselves had not come very near. That was what I had been expecting. They were feeling us, you see. They wanted to know if we were going to play that red terror on them again. They would grow bolder in the night, perhaps. I believed I knew what project they would attempt because it was plainly the thing I would attempt myself if I were in their places and as ignorant as they were. I mentioned it to Clarence. I think you are right, said he. It is the obvious thing for them to try. Well then, I said, if they do it they are doomed. Certainly. They won't have the slightest show in the world. Of course they won't. It's dreadful, Clarence. It seems an awful pity. The thing disturbed me so that I couldn't get any peace of mind for thinking of it and worrying over it. So, at last, to quiet my conscience, I framed this message to the knights. To the Honourable, the Commander of the Insurgent Chivalry of England, you fight in vain. We know your strength, if one may call it by that name. We know that at the utmost you cannot bring against us above five and twenty thousand knights. Therefore you have no chance, none whatever. Reflect. We are well equipped, well fortified. We number fifty-four. Fifty-four what? Men? No. Minds. The Capablist in the world. A force against which mere animal might may no more hope to prevail than may the idle waves of the sea hope to prevail against the granite barriers of England. Be advised. We offer you your lives. For the sake of your families do not reject the gift. We offer you this chance, and it is the last. Throw down your arms. Surrender unconditionally to the Republic, and all will be forgiven. Signed the Boss. I read it to Clarence, and said I proposed to send it by a flag of truce. He laughed, the sarcastic laugh he was born with, and said, Somehow it seems impossible for you to ever fully realize what these nobilities are. Now let us save a little time and trouble. Consider me the Commander of the Knights, Yonder. Now then, you are the flag of truce. Approach and deliver me your message, and I will give you your answer. I humored the idea. I came forward under an imaginary guard of the enemy's soldiers, produced my paper, and read it through. For answer Clarence struck the paper out of my hand, pursed up a scornful lip, and said with lofty disdain, Dismember me this animal and return him in a basket to the base-born nave who sent him. Other answer have I done. How empty is theory and presence of fact! And this was just fact and nothing else. It was the thing that would have happened, there was no getting around that. I tore up the paper and granted my mistimed sentimentalities a permanent rest. Then to business. I tested the electric signals from the Gatling Platform to the Cave, and made sure that they were all right. I tested and retested those which commanded the fences. These were signals whereby I could break and renew the electric current in each fence independently of the others at will. I placed the brook connection under the guard and authority of three of my best boys, who would alternate in two-hour watches all night and promptly obey my signal, if I should have occasion to give it, three revolver shots in quick succession. Century duty was discarded for the night, and the corral left empty of life. I ordered that quiet be maintained in the cave, and the electric lights turned down to a glimmer. As soon as it was good and dark I shut off the current from all the fences, and then groped my way out to the embankment bordering our side of the great dynamite ditch. I crept to the top of it, and lay there on the slant of the muck to watch. But it was too dark to see anything. As for sounds, there were none. The stillness was deathlike. True, there were the usual night sounds of the country, the whir of nightbirds, the buzzing of insects, the barking of distant dogs, the mellow, lowing of far-off kind. But these didn't seem to break the stillness, they only intensified it, and added a gruesome melancholy to it into the bargain. I presently gave up looking. The night shut down so black, but I kept my ears strained to catch the least suspicious sound, for I judged I had only to wait, and I shouldn't be disappointed. However, I had to wait a long time. At last I caught what you may call indistinct glimpses of sound-dulled metallic sound. I pricked up my ears then, and held my breath, for this was the sort of thing I had been waiting for. This sound thickened and approached from toward the north. Presently I heard it at my own level, the ridge-top of the opposite embankment, a hundred feet or more away. Then I seemed to see a row of black dots appear along that ridge. Human heads? I couldn't tell. It mightn't be anything at all. You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. However, the question was soon settled. I heard that metallic noise descending into the great ditch. It augmented fast. It spread all along, and it unmistakably furnished me this fact. An armed host was taking up its quarters in the ditch. Yes, these people were arranging a little surprise party for us. We could expect entertainment about dawn, possibly earlier. I groped my way back to the corral now. I had seen enough. I went to the platform and signalled to turn the current on to the two inner fences. Then I went into the cave and found everything satisfactory there. Nobody awake but the working watch. I woke Clarence and told him the great ditch was filling up with men, and that I believed all the nights were coming for us in a body. It was my notion that as soon as dawn approached we could expect the ditch's ambuscated thousands to swarm up over the embankment and make an assault and be followed immediately by the rest of their army. Clarence said, They will be wanting to send a scout or two in the dark to make preliminary observations. Why not take the lightning off the outer fences and give them a chance? I've already done it, Clarence. Did you ever know me to be inhospitable? No, you are a good heart. I want to go and be a reception committee. I will go, too. We crossed the corral and laid down together between the two inside fences. Even the dim light of the cave had disordered our eyesight somewhat, but the focused straight way began to regulate itself, and soon it was adjusted for present circumstances. We had had to feel our way before, but we could make out to see the fence posts now. We started a whispered conversation, but suddenly Clarence broke off and said, What is that? What is what? That thing yonder. What thing? Where? There, beyond you a little piece, dark something, a dull shape of some kind, against the second fence. I gazed, and he gazed. I said, Could it be a man, Clarence? No, I think not. If you notice it looks a lit. Why, is a man leaning on the fence? I certainly believe it is. Let us go and see. We crept along on our hands and knees until we were pretty close, and then looked up. Yes, it was a man, a dim, great figure in armor standing erect, with both hands on the upper wire, and, of course, there was a smell of burning flesh. Poor fellow, dead as a doornail, and never knew what hurt him. He stood there like a statue, no motion about him, but that his plumes swished about a little in the night wind. We rose up and looked in through the bars of his visor, but couldn't make out whether we knew him or not, features too dim and shadowed. We heard muffled sounds approaching, and we sank down to the ground where we were. We made out another night vaguely. He was coming very stealthily and feeling his way. He was near enough now for us to see him put out a hand, find an upper wire, then bend and step under it and over the lower one. Now he arrived at the first night, and startled slightly when he discovered him. He stood a moment, no doubt wondering why the other night didn't move on, then he said in a low voice, Why dreams thou here, good Sir Mark? And then he laid his hand on the corpse's shoulder and just uttered a little soft moan and sunk down dead. Killed by a dead man, you see. Killed by a dead friend, in fact. There was something awful about it. These early birds came scattering along after each other about one every five minutes in our vicinity during half an hour. They brought no armour of offence but their swords. As a rule, they carried the sword ready in the hand, and put it forward and found the wires with it. We would now and then see a blue spark when the night that caused it was so far away as to be invisible to us, but we knew what had happened all the same. Poor fellow, he had touched a charged wire with his sword and been elected. We had brief intervals of grim stillness, interrupted with piteous regularity by the clash made by the falling of an iron clad, and this sort of thing was going on right along and was very creepy there in the dark and lonesomeness. We concluded to make a tour between the inner fences. We elected to walk upright for convenience's sake. We argued that if discerned we should be taken for friends rather than enemies, and in any case we should be out of reach of swords, and these gentry did not seem to have any spears along. While it was a curious trip, everywhere dead men were lying outside the second fence not plainly visible but still visible, and we counted fifteen of those pathetic statues, dead knights standing with their hands on the upper wire. One thing seemed to be sufficiently demonstrated. Our current was so tremendous that it killed before the victim could cry out. Pretty soon we detected a muffled and heavy sound, and next moment we guessed what it was. It was a surprise and force coming. Whispered Clarence to go and wake the army and notify it to wait in silence in the cave for further orders. He was soon back, and we stood by the inner fence, and watched the silent lightning do its awful work upon that swarming host. One could make out but little of detail, but he could note that a black mass was piling itself up beyond the second fence. That swelling bulk was dead men. Our camp was enclosed with a solid wall of the dead—a bulwark, a breastwork of corpses, you may say. One terrible thing about this thing was the absence of human voices. There were no cheers, no war cries. Being intent upon surprise, these men moved as noiselessly as they could. And all was when the front rank was near enough to their goal to make it proper for them to begin to get a shout ready. Of course they struck the fatal line and went down without testifying. I sent a current through the third fence now and almost immediately through the fourth and fifth so quickly were the gaps filled up. I believed the time was come now for my climax. I believed that that whole army was in our trap. Anyway, it was high time to find out, so I touched a button and set fifty electric suns aflame on the top of our precipice. Land! What a sight! We were enclosed in three walls of dead men. All the other fences were pretty nearly filled with the living who were stealthily working their way forward through the wires. The sudden glare paralyzed this host, petrified them, you may say, with astonishment. There was just one instant for me to utilize their immobility in, and I didn't lose the chance. You see, in another instant they would have recovered their faculties, then they'd have burst into a cheer and made a rush, and my wires would have gone down before it, but that lost instant lost them their opportunity forever. While even that slight fragment of time was still unspent, I shot the current through all the fences and struck the whole host dead in their tracks. There was a groan you could hear. It voiced the death-pang of eleven thousand men. It swelled out on the night with awful pathos. A glance showed that the rest of the enemy, perhaps ten thousand strong, were between us and the encircling ditch and pressing forward to the assault. Consequently we had them all, and had them past help. Time for the last act of the tragedy. I fired the three appointed revolver shots, which meant turn on the water. There was a sudden rush and roar, and in a minute the mountain brook was raging through the big ditch and creating a river a hundred feet wide and twenty-five deep. Into your guns, men, open fire! The thirteen gatlings began to vomit death into the fated ten thousand. They halted, they stood their ground a moment against that withering deluge of fire, then they broke, faced about, and swept toward the ditch like chaff before a gale. A full fourth part of their force never reached the top of the lofty embankment. The three-fourths reached it and plunged over to death by drowning. Within ten short minutes after we had opened fire armed resistance was totally annihilated. The campaign was ended. We fifty-four were masters of England. Twenty-five thousand men lay dead around us. But how treacherous is fortune! In a little while, say an hour, happened a thing by my own fault, which—but I have no heart to write that. Let the record end here. I, Clarence, must write it for him. He proposed that we, too, go out and see if any help could be accorded the wounded. I was strenuous against the project. I said that, if there were many, we could do but little for them, and it would not be wise for us to do so. I, Clarence, must write it for him. He proposed that we, too, go out and see if any help could be accorded the wounded. I was strenuous against the project. I said that if there were many we could do but little for them, and it would not be wise for us to trust ourselves among them anyway. But he could seldom be turned from a purpose once formed, so we shut off the electric current from the fences, took an escort along, climbed over the enclosing ramparts of dead knights, and moved out upon the field. The first wounded maul, who appealed for help, was sitting with his back against a dead comrade. When the boss bent over him and spoke to him, the man recognized him and stabbed him. That night was Sir Mellion Groves, as I found out by tearing off his helmet. He will not ask for help any more. We carried the boss to the cave and gave his wound, which was not very serious, the best care we could. In this service we had the help of Merlin, though we did not know it. He was disguised as a woman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant goodwife. In this disguise, with brown-stained face and smooth shaven, he had appeared a few days after the boss was hurt and offered to cook for us, saying her people had gone off to join certain new camps, which the enemy were forming, and that she was starving. The boss had been getting along very well and had amused himself with finishing up his record. We were glad to have this woman, for we were short-handed. We were in a trap, you see, a trap of our own making. If we stayed where we were, our dead would kill us. If we moved out of our defences, we should no longer be invincible. We had conquered—in turn, we were conquered. The boss recognized this. We all recognized it. If we could go to one of those new camps and patch up some kind of terms with the enemy—yes, but the boss could not go, and neither could I, for I was among the first that were made sick by the poisonous air bred by those dead thousands. Others were taken down, and still others—tomorrow—tomorrow, it is here, and with that the end. About midnight I awoke and saw that hag making curious passes in the air above the boss's head and face and wondered what it meant. Everybody but the dynamo watch lay steeped in sleep, there was no sound. The woman ceased from her mysterious foolery and started tiptoeing toward the door. I called out, Stop! What have you been doing?" She halted and said with an accent of malicious satisfaction, Ye were conquerors, ye are conquered. These others are perishing, you also. Ye shall all die in this place, every one, except him. He sleepeth now, and shall sleep 13 centuries. I am Merlin. Then such a delirium of silly laughter overtook him that he reeled about like a drunken man and presently fetched up against one of our wires. His mouth is spread open yet, apparently he is still laughing. I suppose the face will retain that petrified laugh until the corpse turns to dust. The boss has never stirred, sleeps like a stone. If he does not wake to-day we shall understand what kind of sleep it is, and his body will then be born to a place in one of the remote recesses of the cave where none will ever find it to desecrate it. As for the rest of us, well, it is agreed that if any one of us ever escapes alive from this place he will write the fact here and loyally hide this manuscript with the boss, our dear good chief, whose property it is, be he alive or dead. The End of the Manuscript Final PS by M.T. The dawn was come when I laid the manuscript aside. The rain had almost ceased. The world was gray and sad. The exhausted storm was sighing and sobbing itself to rest. I went to the stranger's room and listened at his door, which was slightly ajar. I could hear his voice, and so I knocked. There was no answer, but I still heard the voice. I peeped in. The man lay on his back in bed, talking brokenly but with spirit, and punctuating with his arms, which he thrashed about restlessly, as sick people do in delirium. I slipped in softly and bent over him. His mutterings and ejaculations went on. I spoke, merely a word, to call his attention. His glassy eyes and his ashy face were a light in an instant with pleasure, gratitude, gladness, welcome. Oh, Sandy, you are come at last! How I have longed for you! Sit by me. Do not leave me. Never leave me again, Sandy. Never again. Where is your hand? Give it me, dear. Let me hold it there. Now, all is well. All is peace, and I am happy again. We are happy again, isn't it so, Sandy? You are so dim, so vague. You are but a mist, a cloud, but you are here. And that is blessedness sufficient. And I have your hand. Don't take it away. It is for only a little while. I shall not require it long. Was that the child? Hello, Central? She doesn't answer. Asleep, perhaps? Bring her when she wakes, and let me touch her hands, her face, her hair, and tell her good-bye. Sandy? Yes, you are there. I lost myself a moment, and I thought you were gone. Have I been sick long? It must be so. It seems months to me and such dreams. Such strange and awful dreams, Sandy. Dreams that were as real as reality. Delirium, of course, but so real. Why, I thought the king was dead. I thought you were in Gaul and couldn't get home. I thought there was a revolution. In the fantastic frenzy of these dreams, I thought that Clarence and I, and a handful of my cadets, fought and exterminated the whole chivalry of England. But even that was not the strangest. I seemed to be a creature out of a remote unborn age, centuries hence, and even that was as real as the rest. Yes, I seemed to have flown back out of that age into this of ours, and then forward to it again, and was set down, a stranger and forlorn in that strange England, with an abyss of thirteen centuries yawning between me and you. Between me and my home and my friends. Between me and all that is dear to me. All that could make life worth the living. It was awful. Awfuler than you can ever imagine, Sandy. Ah, watch by me, Sandy. Stay by me every moment. Don't let me go out of my mind again. Death is nothing. Let it come. But not with those dreams, not with the torture of those hideous dreams. I cannot endure that again. Sandy!" He lay muttering, incoherently some little time. Then, for a time, he lay silent, and apparently sinking away toward death. Presently his fingers began to pick busily at the coverlet, and by that sign I knew that his end was at hand, with the first suggestion of the death-rattle in his throat. He started up slightly, and seemed to listen. Then he said, A bugle? It is the king! The drawbridge there! Man, the battlements! Turn out the— He was getting up his last effect. But he never finished it. End of chapter forty-four. And end of a Connecticut Yankee in King of— End of chapter forty-four. End of chapter forty-four.