Preface

The un­gen­tle laws and cus­toms touched upon in this tale are his­tor­i­cal, and the episodes which are used to il­lus­trate them are also his­tor­i­cal. It is not pre­tended that these laws and cus­toms ex­isted in Eng­land in the sixth cen­tury; no, it is only pre­tended that inas­much as they ex­isted in the English and other civ­i­liza­tions of far later times, it is safe to con­sider that it is no li­bel upon the sixth cen­tury to sup­pose them to have been in prac­tice in that day also. One is quite jus­ti­fied in in­fer­ring that what­ever one of these laws or cus­toms was lack­ing in that re­mote time, its place was com­pe­tently filled by a worse one.

The ques­tion as to whether there is such a thing as di­vine right of kings is not set­tled in this book. It was found too dif­fi­cult. That the ex­ec­u­tive head of a na­tion should be a per­son of lofty char­ac­ter and ex­tra­or­di­nary abil­ity, was man­i­fest and in­dis­putable; that none but the De­ity could se­lect that head un­err­ingly, was also man­i­fest and in­dis­putable; that the De­ity ought to make that se­lec­tion, then, was like­wise man­i­fest and in­dis­putable; con­se­quently, that He does make it, as claimed, was an un­avoid­able de­duc­tion. I mean, un­til the au­thor of this book en­coun­tered the Pom­padour, and Lady Castle­maine, and some other ex­ec­u­tive heads of that kind; these were found so dif­fi­cult to work into the scheme, that it was judged bet­ter to take the other tack in this book (which must be is­sued this fall), and then go into train­ing and set­tle the ques­tion in an­other book. It is, of course, a thing which ought to be set­tled, and I am not go­ing to have any­thing par­tic­u­lar to do next win­ter any­way.

Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

A Word of Explanation

It was in War­wick Cas­tle that I came across the cu­ri­ous stranger whom I am go­ing to talk about. He at­tracted me by three things: his can­did sim­plic­ity, his mar­velous fa­mil­iar­ity with an­cient ar­mor, and the rest­ful­ness of his com­pany—for he did all the talk­ing. We fell to­gether, as mod­est peo­ple will, in the tail of the herd that was be­ing shown through, and he at once be­gan to say things which in­ter­ested me. As he talked along, softly, pleas­antly, flow­ingly, he seemed to drift away im­per­cep­ti­bly out of this world and time, and into some re­mote era and old for­got­ten coun­try; and so he grad­u­ally wove such a spell about me that I seemed to move among the specters and shad­ows and dust and mold of a gray an­tiq­uity, hold­ing speech with a relic of it! Ex­actly as I would speak of my near­est per­sonal friends or en­e­mies, or my most fa­mil­iar neigh­bors, he spoke of Sir Be­di­vere, Sir Bors de Ga­nis, Sir Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Gala­had, and all the other great names of the Table Round—and how old, old, un­speak­ably old and faded and dry and musty and an­cient he came to look as he went on! Presently he turned to me and said, just as one might speak of the weather, or any other com­mon mat­ter—

“You know about trans­mi­gra­tion of souls; do you know about trans­po­si­tion of epochs—and bod­ies?”

I said I had not heard of it. He was so lit­tle in­ter­ested—just as when peo­ple speak of the weather—that he did not no­tice whether I made him any an­swer or not. There was half a mo­ment of si­lence, im­me­di­ately in­ter­rupted by the dron­ing voice of the salaried ci­cerone:

“An­cient hauberk, date of the sixth cen­tury, time of King Arthur and the Round Table; said to have be­longed to the knight Sir Sa­gramor le De­sirous; ob­serve the round hole through the chain-mail in the left breast; can’t be ac­counted for; sup­posed to have been done with a bul­let since in­ven­tion of firearms—per­haps ma­li­ciously by Cromwell’s sol­diers.”

My ac­quain­tance smiled—not a mod­ern smile, but one that must have gone out of gen­eral use many, many cen­turies ago—and mut­tered ap­par­ently to him­self:

“Wit ye well, I saw it done.” Then, af­ter a pause, added: “I did it my­self.”

By the time I had re­cov­ered from the elec­tric sur­prise of this re­mark, he was gone.

All that evening I sat by my fire at the War­wick Arms, steeped in a dream of the olden time, while the rain beat upon the win­dows, and the wind roared about the eaves and cor­ners. From time to time I dipped into old Sir Thomas Malory’s en­chant­ing book, and fed at its rich feast of prodi­gies and ad­ven­tures, breathed in the fra­grance of its ob­so­lete names, and dreamed again. Mid­night be­ing come at length, I read an­other tale, for a night­cap—this which here fol­lows, to wit:

As I laid the book down there was a knock at the door, and my stranger came in. I gave him a pipe and a chair, and made him wel­come. I also com­forted him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him an­other one; then still an­other—hop­ing al­ways for his story. After a fourth per­suader, he drifted into it him­self, in a quite sim­ple and nat­u­ral way:

My stranger had been show­ing signs of sleepi­ness. He caught him­self nod­ding, now, and smiled one of those pa­thetic, ob­so­lete smiles of his, and said:

“I find I can’t go on; but come with me, I’ve got it all writ­ten out, and you can read it if you like.”

In his cham­ber, he said: “First, I kept a jour­nal; then by and by, af­ter years, I took the jour­nal and turned it into a book. How long ago that was!”

He handed me his man­u­script, and pointed out the place where I should be­gin:

“Be­gin here—I’ve al­ready told you what goes be­fore.” He was steeped in drowsi­ness by this time. As I went out at his door I heard him mur­mur sleep­ily: “Give you good den, fair sir.”

I sat down by my fire and ex­am­ined my trea­sure. The first part of it—the great bulk of it—was parch­ment, and yel­low with age. I scanned a leaf par­tic­u­larly and saw that it was a palimpsest. Un­der the old dim writ­ing of the Yan­kee his­to­rian ap­peared traces of a pen­man­ship which was older and dim­mer still—Latin words and sen­tences: frag­ments from old monk­ish leg­ends, ev­i­dently. I turned to the place in­di­cated by my stranger and be­gan to read—as fol­lows.

I Camelot

“Camelot—Camelot,” said I to my­self. “I don’t seem to re­mem­ber hear­ing of it be­fore. Name of the asy­lum, likely.”

It was a soft, re­pose­ful sum­mer land­scape, as lovely as a dream, and as lone­some as Sun­day. The air was full of the smell of flow­ers, and the buzzing of in­sects, and the twit­ter­ing of birds, and there were no peo­ple, no wag­ons, there was no stir of life, noth­ing go­ing on. The road was mainly a wind­ing path with hoof-prints in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on ei­ther side in the grass—wheels that ap­par­ently had a tire as broad as one’s hand.

Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a cataract of golden hair stream­ing down over her shoul­ders, came along. Around her head she wore a hoop of flame-red pop­pies. It was as sweet an out­fit as ever I saw, what there was of it. She walked in­do­lently along, with a mind at rest, its peace re­flected in her in­no­cent face. The cir­cus man paid no at­ten­tion to her; didn’t even seem to see her. And she—she was no more star­tled at his fan­tas­tic make-up than if she was used to his like ev­ery day of her life. She was go­ing by as in­dif­fer­ently as she might have gone by a cou­ple of cows; but when she hap­pened to no­tice me, then there was a change! Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone; her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and tim­o­rously, she was the pic­ture of as­ton­ished cu­rios­ity touched with fear. And there she stood gaz­ing, in a sort of stu­pe­fied fas­ci­na­tion, till we turned a cor­ner of the wood and were lost to her view. That she should be star­tled at me in­stead of at the other man, was too many for me; I couldn’t make head or tail of it. And that she should seem to con­sider me a spec­ta­cle, and to­tally over­look her own mer­its in that re­spect, was an­other puz­zling thing, and a dis­play of mag­na­nim­ity, too, that was sur­pris­ing in one so young. There was food for thought here. I moved along as one in a dream.

As we ap­proached the town, signs of life be­gan to ap­pear. At in­ter­vals we passed a wretched cabin, with a thatched roof, and about it small fields and gar­den patches in an in­dif­fer­ent state of cul­ti­va­tion. There were peo­ple, too; brawny men, with long, coarse, un­combed hair that hung down over their faces and made them look like an­i­mals. They and the women, as a rule, wore a coarse tow-linen robe that came well be­low the knee, and a rude sort of san­dal, and many wore an iron col­lar. The small boys and girls were al­ways naked; but no­body seemed to know it. All of these peo­ple stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts and fetched out their fam­i­lies to gape at me; but no­body ever no­ticed that other fel­low, ex­cept to make him hum­ble salu­ta­tion and get no re­sponse for their pains.

In the town were some sub­stan­tial win­dow­less houses of stone scat­tered among a wilder­ness of thatched cab­ins; the streets were mere crooked al­leys, and un­paved; troops of dogs and nude chil­dren played in the sun and made life and noise; hogs roamed and rooted con­tent­edly about, and one of them lay in a reek­ing wal­low in the mid­dle of the main thor­ough­fare and suck­led her fam­ily. Presently there was a dis­tant blare of mil­i­tary mu­sic; it came nearer, still nearer, and soon a no­ble cav­al­cade wound into view, glo­ri­ous with plumed hel­mets and flash­ing mail and flaunt­ing ban­ners and rich dou­blets and horse-cloths and gilded spear­heads; and through the muck and swine, and naked brats, and joy­ous dogs, and shabby huts, it took its gal­lant way, and in its wake we fol­lowed.

Fol­lowed through one wind­ing al­ley and then an­other—and climb­ing, al­ways climb­ing—till at last we gained the breezy height where the huge cas­tle stood. There was an ex­change of bu­gle blasts; then a par­ley from the walls, where men-at-arms, in hauberk and morion, marched back and forth with hal­berd at shoul­der un­der flap­ping ban­ners with the rude fig­ure of a dragon dis­played upon them; and then the great gates were flung open, the draw­bridge was low­ered, and the head of the cav­al­cade swept for­ward un­der the frown­ing arches; and we, fol­low­ing, soon found our­selves in a great paved court, with tow­ers and tur­rets stretch­ing up into the blue air on all the four sides; and all about us the dis­mount was go­ing on, and much greet­ing and cer­e­mony, and run­ning to and fro, and a gay dis­play of mov­ing and in­ter­min­gling col­ors, and an al­to­gether pleas­ant stir and noise and con­fu­sion.

II King Arthur’s Court

The mo­ment I got a chance I slipped aside pri­vately and touched an an­cient com­mon look­ing man on the shoul­der and said, in an in­sin­u­at­ing, con­fi­den­tial way:

“Friend, do me a kind­ness. Do you be­long to the asy­lum, or are you just on a visit or some­thing like that?”

He looked me over stupidly, and said:

“Marry, fair sir, me seemeth—”

“That will do,” I said; “I reckon you are a pa­tient.”

I moved away, cog­i­tat­ing, and at the same time keep­ing an eye out for any chance pas­sen­ger in his right mind that might come along and give me some light. I judged I had found one, presently; so I drew him aside and said in his ear:

“If I could see the head keeper a minute—only just a minute—”

“Prithee do not let me.”

“Let you what?”

“Hin­der me, then, if the word please thee bet­ter.” Then he went on to say he was an un­der-cook and could not stop to gos­sip, though he would like it an­other time; for it would com­fort his very liver to know where I got my clothes. As he started away he pointed and said yon­der was one who was idle enough for my pur­pose, and was seek­ing me be­sides, no doubt. This was an airy slim boy in shrimp-col­ored tights that made him look like a forked car­rot, the rest of his gear was blue silk and dainty laces and ruf­fles; and he had long yel­low curls, and wore a plumed pink satin cap tilted com­pla­cently over his ear. By his look, he was good-na­tured; by his gait, he was sat­is­fied with him­self. He was pretty enough to frame. He ar­rived, looked me over with a smil­ing and im­pu­dent cu­rios­ity; said he had come for me, and in­formed me that he was a page.

“Go ’long,” I said; “you ain’t more than a para­graph.”

It was pretty se­vere, but I was net­tled. How­ever, it never fazed him; he didn’t ap­pear to know he was hurt. He be­gan to talk and laugh, in happy, thought­less, boy­ish fash­ion, as we walked along, and made him­self old friends with me at once; asked me all sorts of ques­tions about my­self and about my clothes, but never waited for an an­swer—al­ways chat­tered straight ahead, as if he didn’t know he had asked a ques­tion and wasn’t ex­pect­ing any re­ply, un­til at last he hap­pened to men­tion that he was born in the be­gin­ning of the year 513.

It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped and said, a lit­tle faintly:

“Maybe I didn’t hear you just right. Say it again—and say it slow. What year was it?”

“513.”

“513! You don’t look it! Come, my boy, I am a stranger and friend­less; be hon­est and hon­or­able with me. Are you in your right mind?”

He said he was.

“Are these other peo­ple in their right minds?”

He said they were.

“And this isn’t an asy­lum? I mean, it isn’t a place where they cure crazy peo­ple?”

He said it wasn’t.

“Well, then,” I said, “ei­ther I am a lu­natic, or some­thing just as aw­ful has hap­pened. Now tell me, hon­est and true, where am I?”

“In King Arthur’s Court.”

I waited a minute, to let that idea shud­der its way home, and then said:

“And ac­cord­ing to your no­tions, what year is it now?”

“528—nine­teenth of June.”

I felt a mourn­ful sink­ing at the heart, and mut­tered: “I shall never see my friends again—never, never again. They will not be born for more than thir­teen hun­dred years yet.”

I seemed to be­lieve the boy, I didn’t know why. Some­thing in me seemed to be­lieve him—my con­scious­ness, as you may say; but my rea­son didn’t. My rea­son straight­way be­gan to clamor; that was nat­u­ral. I didn’t know how to go about sat­is­fy­ing it, be­cause I knew that the tes­ti­mony of men wouldn’t serve—my rea­son would say they were lu­natics, and throw out their ev­i­dence. But all of a sud­den I stum­bled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew that the only to­tal eclipse of the sun in the first half of the sixth cen­tury oc­curred on the 21st of June, AD 528, OS, and be­gan at 3 min­utes af­ter 12 noon. I also knew that no to­tal eclipse of the sun was due in what to me was the present year—i.e., 1879. So, if I could keep my anx­i­ety and cu­rios­ity from eat­ing the heart out of me for forty-eight hours, I should then find out for cer­tain whether this boy was telling me the truth or not.

Where­fore, be­ing a prac­ti­cal Con­necti­cut man, I now shoved this whole prob­lem clear out of my mind till its ap­pointed day and hour should come, in or­der that I might turn all my at­ten­tion to the cir­cum­stances of the present mo­ment, and be alert and ready to make the most out of them that could be made. One thing at a time, is my motto—and just play that thing for all it is worth, even if it’s only two pair and a jack. I made up my mind to two things: if it was still the nine­teenth cen­tury and I was among lu­natics and couldn’t get away, I would presently boss that asy­lum or know the rea­son why; and if, on the other hand, it was re­ally the sixth cen­tury, all right, I didn’t want any softer thing: I would boss the whole coun­try in­side of three months; for I judged I would have the start of the best-ed­u­cated man in the king­dom by a mat­ter of thir­teen hun­dred years and up­ward. I’m not a man to waste time af­ter my mind’s made up and there’s work on hand; so I said to the page:

“Now, Clarence, my boy—if that might hap­pen to be your name—I’ll get you to post me up a lit­tle if you don’t mind. What is the name of that ap­pari­tion that brought me here?”

“My mas­ter and thine? That is the good knight and great lord Sir Kay the Se­neschal, fos­ter brother to our liege the king.”

“Very good; go on, tell me ev­ery­thing.”

He made a long story of it; but the part that had im­me­di­ate in­ter­est for me was this: He said I was Sir Kay’s pris­oner, and that in the due course of cus­tom I would be flung into a dun­geon and left there on scant com­mons un­til my friends ran­somed me—un­less I chanced to rot, first. I saw that the last chance had the best show, but I didn’t waste any bother about that; time was too pre­cious. The page said, fur­ther, that din­ner was about ended in the great hall by this time, and that as soon as the so­cia­bil­ity and the heavy drink­ing should be­gin, Sir Kay would have me in and ex­hibit me be­fore King Arthur and his il­lus­tri­ous knights seated at the Table Round, and would brag about his ex­ploit in cap­tur­ing me, and would prob­a­bly ex­ag­ger­ate the facts a lit­tle, but it wouldn’t be good form for me to cor­rect him, and not over safe, ei­ther; and when I was done be­ing ex­hib­ited, then ho for the dun­geon; but he, Clarence, would find a way to come and see me ev­ery now and then, and cheer me up, and help me get word to my friends.

Get word to my friends! I thanked him; I couldn’t do less; and about this time a lackey came to say I was wanted; so Clarence led me in and took me off to one side and sat down by me.

Well, it was a cu­ri­ous kind of spec­ta­cle, and in­ter­est­ing. It was an im­mense place, and rather naked—yes, and full of loud con­trasts. It was very, very lofty; so lofty that the ban­ners de­pend­ing from the arched beams and gird­ers away up there floated in a sort of twi­light; there was a stone-railed gallery at each end, high up, with mu­si­cians in the one, and women, clothed in stun­ning col­ors, in the other. The floor was of big stone flags laid in black and white squares, rather bat­tered by age and use, and need­ing re­pair. As to or­na­ment, there wasn’t any, strictly speak­ing; though on the walls hung some huge ta­pes­tries which were prob­a­bly taxed as works of art; bat­tle-pieces, they were, with horses shaped like those which chil­dren cut out of pa­per or cre­ate in gin­ger­bread; with men on them in scale ar­mor whose scales are rep­re­sented by round holes—so that the man’s coat looks as if it had been done with a bis­cuit-punch. There was a fire­place big enough to camp in; and its pro­ject­ing sides and hood, of carved and pil­lared stonework, had the look of a cathe­dral door. Along the walls stood men-at-arms, in breast­plate and morion, with hal­berds for their only weapon—rigid as stat­ues; and that is what they looked like.

In the mid­dle of this groined and vaulted pub­lic square was an oaken ta­ble which they called the Table Round. It was as large as a cir­cus ring; and around it sat a great com­pany of men dressed in such var­i­ous and splen­did col­ors that it hurt one’s eyes to look at them. They wore their plumed hats, right along, ex­cept that when­ever one ad­dressed him­self di­rectly to the king, he lifted his hat a tri­fle just as he was be­gin­ning his re­mark.

Mainly they were drink­ing—from en­tire ox horns; but a few were still munch­ing bread or gnaw­ing beef bones. There was about an av­er­age of two dogs to one man; and these sat in ex­pec­tant at­ti­tudes till a spent bone was flung to them, and then they went for it by brigades and di­vi­sions, with a rush, and there en­sued a fight which filled the prospect with a tu­mul­tuous chaos of plung­ing heads and bod­ies and flash­ing tails, and the storm of howl­ings and bark­ings deaf­ened all speech for the time; but that was no mat­ter, for the dog­fight 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 dog­fight­less in­ter­val. And plainly, too, they were a child­like and in­no­cent lot; telling lies of the stateliest pat­tern with a most gen­tle and win­ning naivety, and ready and will­ing to lis­ten to any­body else’s lie, and be­lieve it, too. It was hard to as­so­ciate them with any­thing cruel or dread­ful; and yet they dealt in tales of blood and suf­fer­ing with a guile­less rel­ish that made me al­most for­get to shud­der.

I was not the only pris­oner present. There were twenty or more. Poor dev­ils, many of them were maimed, hacked, carved, in a fright­ful way; and their hair, their faces, their cloth­ing, were caked with black and stiff­ened drench­ings of blood. They were suf­fer­ing sharp phys­i­cal pain, of course; and weari­ness, and hunger and thirst, no doubt; and at least none had given them the com­fort of a wash, or even the poor char­ity of a lo­tion for their wounds; yet you never heard them ut­ter a moan or a groan, or saw them show any sign of rest­less­ness, or any dis­po­si­tion to com­plain. The thought was forced upon me: “The ras­cals—they have served other peo­ple so in their day; it be­ing their own turn, now, they were not ex­pect­ing any bet­ter treat­ment than this; so their philo­soph­i­cal bear­ing is not an out­come of men­tal train­ing, in­tel­lec­tual for­ti­tude, rea­son­ing; it is mere an­i­mal train­ing; they are white In­di­ans.”

III Knights of the Table Round

Mainly the Round Table talk was mono­logues—nar­ra­tive ac­counts of the ad­ven­tures in which these pris­on­ers were cap­tured and their friends and back­ers killed and stripped of their steeds and ar­mor. As a gen­eral thing—as far as I could make out—these mur­der­ous ad­ven­tures were not for­ays un­der­taken to avenge in­juries, nor to set­tle old dis­putes or sud­den fallings out; no, as a rule they were sim­ply du­els be­tween strangers—du­els be­tween peo­ple who had never even been in­tro­duced to each other, and be­tween whom ex­isted no cause of of­fense what­ever. Many a time I had seen a cou­ple of boys, strangers, meet by chance, and say si­mul­ta­ne­ously, “I can lick you,” and go at it on the spot; but I had al­ways imag­ined un­til now that that sort of thing be­longed to chil­dren only, and was a sign and mark of child­hood; but here were these big boo­bies stick­ing to it and tak­ing pride in it clear up into full age and be­yond. Yet there was some­thing very en­gag­ing about these great sim­ple-hearted crea­tures, some­thing at­trac­tive and lov­able. There did not seem to be brains enough in the en­tire nurs­ery, so to speak, to bait a fish­hook with; but you didn’t seem to mind that, af­ter a lit­tle, be­cause you soon saw that brains were not needed in a so­ci­ety like that, and in­deed would have marred it, hin­dered it, spoiled its sym­me­try—per­haps ren­dered its ex­is­tence im­pos­si­ble.

There was a fine man­li­ness ob­serv­able in al­most ev­ery face; and in some a cer­tain lofti­ness and sweet­ness that re­buked your be­lit­tling crit­i­cisms and stilled them. A most no­ble be­nig­nity and pu­rity re­posed in the coun­te­nance of him they called Sir Gala­had, and like­wise in the king’s also; and there was majesty and great­ness in the gi­ant frame and high bear­ing of Sir Launcelot of the Lake.

There was presently an in­ci­dent which cen­tered the gen­eral in­ter­est upon this Sir Launcelot. At a sign from a sort of mas­ter of cer­e­monies, six or eight of the pris­on­ers rose and came for­ward in a body and knelt on the floor and lifted up their hands to­ward the ladies’ gallery and begged the grace of a word with the queen. The most con­spic­u­ously sit­u­ated lady in that massed flowerbed of fem­i­nine show and fin­ery in­clined her head by way of as­sent, and then the spokesman of the pris­on­ers de­liv­ered him­self and his fel­lows into her hands for free par­don, ran­som, cap­tiv­ity, or death, as she in her good plea­sure might elect; and this, as he said, he was do­ing by com­mand of Sir Kay the Se­neschal, whose pris­on­ers they were, he hav­ing van­quished them by his sin­gle might and prow­ess in sturdy con­flict in the field.

Sur­prise and as­ton­ish­ment flashed from face to face all over the house; the queen’s grat­i­fied smile faded out at the name of Sir Kay, and she looked dis­ap­pointed; and the page whis­pered in my ear with an ac­cent and man­ner ex­pres­sive of ex­trav­a­gant de­ri­sion—

“Sir Kay, for­sooth! Oh, call me pet names, dear­est, call me a ma­rine! In twice a thou­sand years shall the un­holy in­ven­tion of man la­bor at odds to beget the fel­low to this ma­jes­tic lie!”

Every eye was fas­tened with se­vere in­quiry upon Sir Kay. But he was equal to the oc­ca­sion. He got up and played his hand like a ma­jor—and took ev­ery trick. He said he would state the case ex­actly ac­cord­ing to the facts; he would tell the sim­ple straight­for­ward tale, with­out com­ment of his own; “and then,” said he, “if ye find glory and honor due, ye will give it unto him who is the might­i­est man of his hands that ever bare shield or strake with sword in the ranks of Chris­tian bat­tle—even him that sit­teth there!” and he pointed to Sir Launcelot. Ah, he fetched them; it was a rat­tling good stroke. Then he went on and told how Sir Launcelot, seek­ing ad­ven­tures, some brief time gone by, killed seven gi­ants at one sweep of his sword, and set a hun­dred and forty-two cap­tive maid­ens free; and then went fur­ther, still seek­ing ad­ven­tures, and found him (Sir Kay) fight­ing a des­per­ate fight against nine for­eign knights, and straight­way took the bat­tle solely into his own hands, and con­quered the nine; and that night Sir Launcelot rose qui­etly, and dressed him in Sir Kay’s ar­mor and took Sir Kay’s horse and gat him away into dis­tant lands, and van­quished six­teen knights in one pitched bat­tle and thirty-four in an­other; and all these and the for­mer nine he made to swear that about Whit­sun­tide they would ride to Arthur’s court and yield them to Queen Guen­ever’s hands as cap­tives of Sir Kay the Se­neschal, spoil of his knightly prow­ess; and now here were these half dozen, and the rest would be along as soon as they might be healed of their des­per­ate wounds.

Well, it was touch­ing to see the queen blush and smile, and look em­bar­rassed and happy, and fling furtive glances at Sir Launcelot that would have got him shot in Arkansas, to a dead cer­tainty.

Every­body praised the valor and mag­na­nim­ity of Sir Launcelot; and as for me, I was per­fectly amazed, that one man, all by him­self, should have been able to beat down and cap­ture such bat­tal­ions of prac­ticed fight­ers. I said as much to Clarence; but this mock­ing feath­er­head only said:

“An Sir Kay had had time to get an­other skin of sour wine into him, ye had seen the ac­compt dou­bled.”

I looked at the boy in sor­row; and as I looked I saw the cloud of a deep de­spon­dency set­tle upon his coun­te­nance. I fol­lowed the di­rec­tion of his eye, and saw that a very old and white-bearded man, clothed in a flow­ing black gown, had risen and was stand­ing at the ta­ble upon un­steady legs, and fee­bly sway­ing his an­cient head and sur­vey­ing the com­pany with his wa­tery and wan­der­ing eye. The same suf­fer­ing look that was in the page’s face was ob­serv­able in all the faces around—the look of dumb crea­tures who know that they must en­dure and make no moan.

“Marry, we shall have it again,” sighed the boy; “that same old weary tale that he hath told a thou­sand times in the same words, and that he will tell till he di­eth, ev­ery time he hath got­ten his bar­rel full and feeleth his ex­ag­ger­a­tion-mill a-work­ing. Would God I had died or I saw this day!”

“Who is it?”

“Mer­lin, the mighty liar and ma­gi­cian, perdi­tion singe him for the weari­ness he wor­keth with his one tale! But that men fear him for that he hath the storms and the light­nings and all the dev­ils that be in hell at his beck and call, they would have dug his en­trails out these many years ago to get at that tale and squelch it. He tel­leth it al­ways in the third per­son, mak­ing be­lieve he is too mod­est to glo­rify him­self—male­dic­tions light upon him, mis­for­tune be his dole! Good friend, prithee call me for even­song.”

The boy nes­tled him­self upon my shoul­der and pre­tended to go to sleep. The old man be­gan his tale; and presently the lad was asleep in re­al­ity; so also were the dogs, and the court, the lack­eys, and the files of men-at-arms. The dron­ing voice droned on; a soft snor­ing arose on all sides and sup­ported it like a deep and sub­dued ac­com­pa­ni­ment of wind in­stru­ments. Some heads were bowed upon folded arms, some lay back with open mouths that is­sued un­con­scious mu­sic; the flies buzzed and bit, un­mo­lested, the rats swarmed softly out from a hun­dred holes, and pat­tered about, and made them­selves at home ev­ery­where; and one of them sat up like a squir­rel on the king’s head and held a bit of cheese in its hands and nib­bled it, and drib­bled the crumbs in the king’s face with naive and im­pu­dent ir­rev­er­ence. It was a tran­quil scene, and rest­ful to the weary eye and the jaded spirit.

This was the old man’s tale. He said:

“Right so the king and Mer­lin de­parted, and went un­til an her­mit that was a good man and a great leech. So the her­mit searched all his wounds and gave him good salves; so the king was there three days, and then were his wounds well amended that he might ride and go, and so de­parted. And as they rode, Arthur said, I have no sword. No force,2 said Mer­lin, hereby is a sword that shall be yours and I may. So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair wa­ter and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. Lo, said Mer­lin, yon­der is that sword that I spake of. With that they saw a damsel go­ing upon the lake. What damsel is that? said Arthur. That is the Lady of the lake, said Mer­lin; and within that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any on Earth, and richly be­seen, and this damsel will come to you anon, and then speak ye fair to her that she will give you that sword. Anon withal came the damsel unto Arthur and saluted him, and he her again. Dam­sel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yon­der the arm hold­eth above the wa­ter? I would it were mine, for I have no sword. Sir Arthur King, said the damsel, that sword is mine, and if ye will give me a gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it. By my faith, said Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask. Well, said the damsel, go ye into yon­der barge and row your­self to the sword, and take it and the scab­bard with you, and I will ask my gift when I see my time. So Sir Arthur and Mer­lin alight, and tied their horses to two trees, and so they went into the ship, and when they came to the sword that the hand held, Sir Arthur took it up by the han­dles, and took it with him.

And the arm and the hand went un­der the wa­ter; and so they came unto the land and rode forth. And then Sir Arthur saw a rich pavil­ion. What sig­ni­fi­eth yon­der pavil­ion? It is the knight’s pavil­ion, said Mer­lin, that ye fought with last, Sir Pelli­nore, but he is out, he is not there; he hath ado with a knight of yours, that hight Eg­glame, and they have fought to­gether, but at the last Eg­glame fled, and else he had been dead, and he hath chased him even to Car­lion, and we shall meet with him anon in the high­way. That is well said, said Arthur, now have I a sword, now will I wage bat­tle with him, and be avenged on him. Sir, ye shall not so, said Mer­lin, for the knight is weary of fight­ing and chas­ing, so that ye shall have no wor­ship to have ado with him; also, he will not lightly be matched of one knight liv­ing; and there­fore it is my coun­sel, let him pass, for he shall do you good ser­vice in short time, and his sons, af­ter his days. Also ye shall see that day in short space ye shall be right glad to give him your sis­ter to wed. When I see him, I will do as ye ad­vise me, said Arthur. Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it pass­ing well. Whether liketh you bet­ter, said Mer­lin, the sword or the scab­bard? Me liketh bet­ter the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more un­wise, said Mer­lin, for the scab­bard is worth ten of the sword, for while ye have the scab­bard upon you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded; there­fore, keep well the scab­bard al­ways with you. So they rode into Car­lion, and by the way they met with Sir Pelli­nore; but Mer­lin had done such a craft that Pelli­nore saw not Arthur, and he passed by with­out any words. I mar­vel, said Arthur, that the knight would not speak. Sir, said Mer­lin, he saw you not; for and he had seen you ye had not lightly de­parted. So they came unto Car­lion, whereof his knights were pass­ing glad. And when they heard of his ad­ven­tures they mar­veled that he would jeop­ard his per­son so alone. But all men of wor­ship said it was merry to be un­der such a chief­tain that would put his per­son in ad­ven­ture as other poor knights did.”

IV Sir Dinadan the Humorist

It seemed to me that this quaint lie was most sim­ply and beau­ti­fully told; but then I had heard it only once, and that makes a dif­fer­ence; it was pleas­ant to the oth­ers when it was fresh, no doubt.

Sir Di­nadan the Hu­morist was the first to awake, and he soon roused the rest with a prac­ti­cal joke of a suf­fi­ciently poor qual­ity. He tied some metal mugs to a dog’s tail and turned him loose, and he tore around and around the place in a frenzy of fright, with all the other dogs bel­low­ing af­ter him and bat­ter­ing and crash­ing against ev­ery­thing that came in their way and mak­ing al­to­gether a chaos of con­fu­sion and a most deaf­en­ing din and tur­moil; at which ev­ery man and woman of the mul­ti­tude laughed till the tears flowed, and some fell out of their chairs and wal­lowed on the floor in ec­stasy. It was just like so many chil­dren. Sir Di­nadan was so proud of his ex­ploit that he could not keep from telling over and over again, to weari­ness, how the im­mor­tal idea hap­pened to oc­cur to him; and as is the way with hu­morists of his breed, he was still laugh­ing at it af­ter ev­ery­body else had got through.

He was so set up that he con­cluded to make a speech—of course a hu­mor­ous speech. I think I never heard so many old played-out jokes strung to­gether in my life. He was worse than the min­strels, worse than the clown in the cir­cus. It seemed pe­cu­liarly sad to sit here, thir­teen hun­dred years be­fore I was born, and lis­ten again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the dry gripes when I was a boy thir­teen hun­dred years af­ter­wards. It about con­vinced me that there isn’t any such thing as a new joke pos­si­ble. Every­body laughed at these an­tiq­ui­ties—but then they al­ways do; I had no­ticed that, cen­turies later. How­ever, of course the scoffer didn’t laugh—I mean the boy. No, he scoffed; there wasn’t any­thing he wouldn’t scoff at. He said the most of Sir Di­nadan’s jokes were rot­ten and the rest were pet­ri­fied. I said “pet­ri­fied” was good; as I be­lieved, my­self, that the only right way to clas­sify the ma­jes­tic ages of some of those jokes was by ge­o­logic pe­ri­ods. But that neat idea hit the boy in a blank place, for ge­ol­ogy hadn’t been in­vented yet. How­ever, I made a note of the re­mark, and cal­cu­lated to ed­u­cate the com­mon­wealth up to it if I pulled through. It is no use to throw a good thing away merely be­cause the mar­ket isn’t ripe yet.

Now Sir Kay arose and be­gan to fire up on his his­tory-mill with me for fuel. It was time for me to feel se­ri­ous, and I did. Sir Kay told how he had en­coun­tered me in a far land of bar­bar­ians, who all wore the same ridicu­lous garb that I did—a garb that was a work of en­chant­ment, and in­tended to make the wearer se­cure from hurt by hu­man hands. How­ever he had nul­li­fied the force of the en­chant­ment by prayer, and had killed my thir­teen knights in a three hours’ bat­tle, and taken me pris­oner, spar­ing my life in or­der that so strange a cu­rios­ity as I was might be ex­hib­ited to the won­der and ad­mi­ra­tion of the king and the court. He spoke of me all the time, in the bland­est way, as “this prodi­gious gi­ant,” and “this hor­ri­ble sky-tow­er­ing mon­ster,” and “this tusked and taloned man-de­vour­ing ogre,” and ev­ery­body took in all this bosh in the naivest way, and never smiled or seemed to no­tice that there was any dis­crep­ancy be­tween these wa­tered sta­tis­tics and me. He said that in try­ing to es­cape from him I sprang into the top of a tree two hun­dred cu­bits high at a sin­gle bound, but he dis­lodged me with a stone the size of a cow, which “all-to brast” the most of my bones, and then swore me to ap­pear at Arthur’s court for sen­tence. He ended by con­demn­ing me to die at noon on the 21st; and was so lit­tle con­cerned about it that he stopped to yawn be­fore he named the date.

I was in a dis­mal state by this time; in­deed, I was hardly enough in my right mind to keep the run of a dis­pute that sprung up as to how I had bet­ter be killed, the pos­si­bil­ity of the killing be­ing doubted by some, be­cause of the en­chant­ment in my clothes. And yet it was noth­ing but an or­di­nary suit of fif­teen-dol­lar slop-shops. Still, I was sane enough to no­tice this de­tail, to wit: many of the terms used in the most mat­ter-of-fact way by this great as­sem­blage of the first ladies and gen­tle­men in the land would have made a Co­manche blush.

In­del­i­cacy is too mild a term to con­vey the idea. How­ever, I had read Tom Jones, and Rod­er­ick Ran­dom, and other books of that kind, and knew that the high­est and first ladies and gen­tle­men in Eng­land had re­mained lit­tle or no cleaner in their talk, and in the morals and con­duct which such talk im­plies, clear up to a hun­dred years ago; in fact clear into our own nine­teenth cen­tury—in which cen­tury, broadly speak­ing, the ear­li­est sam­ples of the real lady and real gen­tle­man dis­cov­er­able in English his­tory—or in Euro­pean his­tory, for that mat­ter—may be said to have made their ap­pear­ance. Sup­pose Sir Wal­ter, in­stead of putting the con­ver­sa­tions into the mouths of his char­ac­ters, had al­lowed the char­ac­ters to speak for them­selves? We should have had talk from Re­becca and Ivan­hoe and the soft lady Rowena which would em­bar­rass a tramp in our day. How­ever, to the un­con­sciously in­del­i­cate all things are del­i­cate. King Arthur’s peo­ple were not aware that they were in­de­cent and I had pres­ence of mind enough not to men­tion it.

They were so trou­bled about my en­chanted clothes that they were might­ily re­lieved, at last, when old Mer­lin swept the dif­fi­culty away for them with a com­mon­sense hint. He asked them why they were so dull—why didn’t it oc­cur to them to strip me. In half a minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear, dear, to think of it: I was the only em­bar­rassed per­son there. Every­body dis­cussed me; and did it as un­con­cernedly as if I had been a cab­bage. Queen Guen­ever was as naively in­ter­ested as the rest, and said she had never seen any­body with legs just like mine be­fore. It was the only com­pli­ment I got—if it was a com­pli­ment.

Fi­nally I was car­ried off in one di­rec­tion, and my per­ilous clothes in an­other. I was shoved into a dark and nar­row cell in a dun­geon, with some scant rem­nants for din­ner, some moldy straw for a bed, and no end of rats for com­pany.

V An Inspiration

I was so tired that even my fears were not able to keep me awake long.

When I next came to my­self, I seemed to have been asleep a very long time. My first thought was, “Well, what an as­ton­ish­ing dream I’ve had! I reckon I’ve waked only just in time to keep from be­ing hanged or drowned or burned or some­thing. … I’ll nap again till the whis­tle blows, and then I’ll go down to the arms fac­tory and have it out with Her­cules.”

But just then I heard the harsh mu­sic of rusty chains and bolts, a light flashed in my eyes, and that but­ter­fly, Clarence, stood be­fore me! I gasped with sur­prise; my breath al­most got away from me.

“What!” I said, “you here yet? Go along with the rest of the dream! scat­ter!”

But he only laughed, in his light­hearted way, and fell to mak­ing fun of my sorry plight.

“All right,” I said re­signedly, “let the dream go on; I’m in no hurry.”

“Prithee what dream?”

“What dream? Why, the dream that I am in Arthur’s court—a per­son who never ex­isted; and that I am talk­ing to you, who are noth­ing but a work of the imag­i­na­tion.”

“Oh, la, in­deed! and is it a dream that you’re to be burned to­mor­row? Ho-ho—an­swer me that!”

The shock that went through me was dis­tress­ing. I now be­gan to rea­son that my sit­u­a­tion was in the last de­gree se­ri­ous, dream or no dream; for I knew by past ex­pe­ri­ence of the life­like in­ten­sity of dreams, that to be burned to death, even in a dream, would be very far from be­ing a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by any means, fair or foul, that I could con­trive. So I said be­seech­ingly:

“Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I’ve got—for you are my friend, aren’t you?—don’t fail me; help me to de­vise some way of es­cap­ing from this place!”

“Now do but hear thy­self! Es­cape? Why, man, the cor­ri­dors are in guard and keep of men-at-arms.”

“No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? Not many, I hope?”

“Full a score. One may not hope to es­cape.” After a pause—hes­i­tat­ingly: “and there be other rea­sons—and weight­ier.”

“Other ones? What are they?”

“Well, they say—oh, but I daren’t, in­deed daren’t!”

“Why, poor lad, what is the mat­ter? Why do you blench? Why do you trem­ble so?”

“Oh, in sooth, there is need! I do want to tell you, but—”

“Come, come, be brave, be a man—speak out, there’s a good lad!”

He hes­i­tated, pulled one way by de­sire, the other way by fear; then he stole to the door and peeped out, lis­ten­ing; and fi­nally crept close to me and put his mouth to my ear and told me his fear­ful news in a whis­per, and with all the cow­er­ing ap­pre­hen­sion of one who was ven­tur­ing upon aw­ful ground and speak­ing of things whose very men­tion might be freighted with death.

“Mer­lin, in his mal­ice, has wo­ven a spell about this dun­geon, and there bides not the man in these king­doms that would be des­per­ate enough to es­say to cross its lines with you! Now God pity me, I have told it! Ah, be kind to me, be mer­ci­ful to a poor boy who means thee well; for an thou be­tray me I am lost!”

I laughed the only re­ally re­fresh­ing laugh I had had for some time; and shouted:

“Mer­lin has wrought a spell! Mer­lin, for­sooth! That cheap old hum­bug, that maun­der­ing old ass? Bosh, pure bosh, the sil­li­est bosh in the world! Why, it does seem to me that of all the child­ish, id­i­otic, chuckle-headed, chicken-liv­ered su­per­sti­tions that ev—oh, damn Mer­lin!”

But Clarence had slumped to his knees be­fore I had half fin­ished, and he was like to go out of his mind with fright.

“Oh, be­ware! Th­ese are aw­ful words! Any mo­ment these walls may crum­ble upon us if you say such things. Oh call them back be­fore it is too late!”

Now this strange ex­hi­bi­tion gave me a good idea and set me to think­ing. If ev­ery­body about here was so hon­estly and sin­cerely afraid of Mer­lin’s pre­tended magic as Clarence was, cer­tainly a su­pe­rior man like me ought to be shrewd enough to con­trive some way to take ad­van­tage of such a state of things. I went on think­ing, and worked out a plan. Then I said:

“Get up. Pull your­self to­gether; look me in the eye. Do you know why I laughed?”

“No—but for our blessed Lady’s sake, do it no more.”

“Well, I’ll tell you why I laughed. Be­cause I’m a ma­gi­cian my­self.”

“Thou!” The boy re­coiled a step, and caught his breath, for the thing hit him rather sud­den; but the as­pect which he took on was very, very re­spect­ful. I took quick note of that; it in­di­cated that a hum­bug didn’t need to have a rep­u­ta­tion in this asy­lum; peo­ple stood ready to take him at his word, with­out that. I re­sumed.

“I’ve known Mer­lin seven hun­dred years, and he—”

“Seven hun—”

“Don’t in­ter­rupt me. He has died and come alive again thir­teen times, and trav­eled un­der a new name ev­ery time: Smith, Jones, Robin­son, Jack­son, Peters, Hask­ins, Mer­lin—a new alias ev­ery time he turns up. I knew him in Egypt three hun­dred years ago; I knew him in In­dia five hun­dred years ago—he is al­ways blether­ing around in my way, ev­ery­where I go; he makes me tired. He don’t amount to shucks, as a ma­gi­cian; knows some of the old com­mon tricks, but has never got be­yond the rudi­ments, and never will. He is well enough for the prov­inces—one-night stands and that sort of thing, you know—but dear me, he oughtn’t to set up for an ex­pert—any­way not where there’s a real artist. Now look here, Clarence, I am go­ing to stand your friend, right along, and in re­turn you must be mine. I want you to do me a fa­vor. I want you to get word to the king that I am a ma­gi­cian my­self—and the Supreme Grand High-yu-Muck-amuck and head of the tribe, at that; and I want him to be made to un­der­stand that I am just qui­etly ar­rang­ing a lit­tle calamity here that will make the fur fly in these realms if Sir Kay’s project is car­ried out and any harm comes to me. Will you get that to the king for me?”

The poor boy was in such a state that he could hardly an­swer me. It was piti­ful to see a crea­ture so ter­ri­fied, so un­nerved, so de­mor­al­ized. But he promised ev­ery­thing; and on my side he made me prom­ise over and over again that I would re­main his friend, and never turn against him or cast any en­chant­ments upon him. Then he worked his way out, stay­ing him­self with his hand along the wall, like a sick per­son.

Presently this thought oc­curred to me: how heed­less I have been! When the boy gets calm, he will won­der why a great ma­gi­cian like me should have begged a boy like him to help me get out of this place; he will put this and that to­gether, and will see that I am a hum­bug.

I wor­ried over that heed­less blun­der for an hour, and called my­self a great many hard names, mean­time. But fi­nally it oc­curred to me all of a sud­den that these an­i­mals didn’t rea­son; that they never put this and that to­gether; that all their talk showed that they didn’t know a dis­crep­ancy when they saw it. I was at rest, then.

But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes on some­thing else to worry about. It oc­curred to me that I had made an­other blun­der: I had sent the boy off to alarm his bet­ters with a threat—I in­tend­ing to in­vent a calamity at my leisure; now the peo­ple who are the read­i­est and ea­ger­est and will­ingest to swal­low mir­a­cles are the very ones who are hun­gri­est to see you per­form them; sup­pose I should be called on for a sam­ple? Sup­pose I should be asked to name my calamity? Yes, I had made a blun­der; I ought to have in­vented my calamity first. “What shall I do? what can I say, to gain a lit­tle time?” I was in trou­ble again; in the deep­est kind of trou­ble …

“There’s a foot­step!—they’re com­ing. If I had only just a mo­ment to think. … Good, I’ve got it. I’m all right.”

You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind in the nick of time, how Colum­bus, or Cortez, or one of those peo­ple, played an eclipse as a sav­ing trump once, on some sav­ages, and I saw my chance. I could play it my­self, now, and it wouldn’t be any pla­gia­rism, ei­ther, be­cause I should get it in nearly a thou­sand years ahead of those par­ties.

Clarence came in, sub­dued, dis­tressed, and said:

“I hasted the mes­sage to our liege the king, and straight­way he had me to his pres­ence. He was frighted even to the mar­row, and was minded to give or­der for your in­stant en­large­ment, and that you be clothed in fine rai­ment and lodged as be­fit­ted one so great; but then came Mer­lin and spoiled all; for he per­suaded the king that you are mad, and know not whereof you speak; and said your threat is but fool­ish­ness and idle va­por­ing. They dis­puted long, but in the end, Mer­lin, scoff­ing, said, ‘Where­fore hath he not named his brave calamity? Ver­ily it is be­cause he can­not.’ This thrust did in a most sud­den sort close the king’s mouth, and he could of­fer naught to turn the ar­gu­ment; and so, re­luc­tant, and full loth to do you the dis­cour­tesy, he yet prayeth you to con­sider his per­plexed case, as not­ing how the mat­ter stands, and name the calamity—if so be you have de­ter­mined the na­ture of it and the time of its com­ing. Oh, prithee de­lay not; to de­lay at such a time were to dou­ble and tre­ble the per­ils that al­ready com­pass thee about. Oh, be thou wise—name the calamity!”

I al­lowed si­lence to ac­cu­mu­late while I got my im­pres­sive­ness to­gether, and then said:

“How long have I been shut up in this hole?”

“Ye were shut up when yes­ter­day was well spent. It is nine of the morn­ing now.”

“No! Then I have slept well, sure enough. Nine in the morn­ing now! And yet it is the very com­plex­ion of mid­night, to a shade. This is the 20th, then?”

“The 20th—yes.”

“And I am to be burned alive to­mor­row.” 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.

VI The Eclipse

In the still­ness and the dark­ness, re­al­iza­tion soon be­gan to sup­ple­ment knowl­edge. The mere knowl­edge of a fact is pale; but when you come to re­al­ize your fact, it takes on color. It is all the dif­fer­ence be­tween hear­ing of a man be­ing stabbed to the heart, and see­ing it done. In the still­ness and the dark­ness, the knowl­edge that I was in deadly dan­ger took to it­self deeper and deeper mean­ing all the time; a some­thing which was re­al­iza­tion crept inch by inch through my veins and turned me cold.

But it is a blessed pro­vi­sion of na­ture that at times like these, as soon as a man’s mer­cury has got down to a cer­tain point there comes a re­vul­sion, and he ral­lies. Hope springs up, and cheer­ful­ness along with it, and then he is in good shape to do some­thing for him­self, if any­thing can be done. When my rally came, it came with a bound. I said to my­self that my eclipse would be sure to save me, and make me the great­est man in the king­dom be­sides; and straight­way my mer­cury went up to the top of the tube, and my so­lic­i­tudes all van­ished. I was as happy a man as there was in the world. I was even im­pa­tient for to­mor­row to come, I so wanted to gather in that great tri­umph and be the cen­ter of all the na­tion’s won­der and rev­er­ence. Be­sides, in a busi­ness way it would be the mak­ing of me; I knew that.

Mean­time there was one thing which had got pushed into the back­ground of my mind. That was the half-con­vic­tion that when the na­ture of my pro­posed calamity should be re­ported to those su­per­sti­tious peo­ple, it would have such an ef­fect that they would want to com­pro­mise. So, by and by when I heard foot­steps com­ing, that thought was re­called to me, and I said to my­self, “As sure as any­thing, it’s the com­pro­mise. Well, if it is good, all right, I will ac­cept; but if it isn’t, I mean to stand my ground and play my hand for all it is worth.”

The door opened, and some men-at-arms ap­peared. The leader said:

“The stake is ready. Come!”

The stake! The strength went out of me, and I al­most fell down. It is hard to get one’s breath at such a time, such lumps come into one’s throat, and such gasp­ings; but as soon as I could speak, I said:

“But this is a mis­take—the ex­e­cu­tion is 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 en­closed court of the cas­tle I got a shock; for the first thing I saw was the stake, stand­ing in the cen­ter, and near it the piled fagots and a monk. On all four sides of the court the seated mul­ti­tudes rose rank above rank, form­ing slop­ing ter­races that were rich with color. The king and the queen sat in their thrones, the most con­spic­u­ous fig­ures there, of course.

To note all this, oc­cu­pied but a sec­ond. The next sec­ond Clarence had slipped from some place of con­ceal­ment and was pour­ing news into my ear, his eyes beam­ing with tri­umph and glad­ness. He said:

“ ’Tis through me the change was wrought! And main hard have I worked to do it, too. But when I re­vealed to them the calamity in store, and saw how mighty was the ter­ror it did en­gen­der, then saw I also that this was the time to strike! Where­fore I dili­gently pre­tended, unto this and that and the other one, that your power against the sun could not reach its full un­til the mor­row; and so if any would save the sun and the world, you must be slain to­day, while your en­chant­ments are but in the weav­ing and lack po­tency. Ods­bodikins, it was but a dull lie, a most in­dif­fer­ent in­ven­tion, but you should have seen them seize it and swal­low it, in the frenzy of their fright, as it were sal­va­tion sent from heaven; and all the while was I laugh­ing in my sleeve the one mo­ment, to see them so cheaply de­ceived, and glo­ri­fy­ing God the next, that He was con­tent to let the mean­est of His crea­tures be His in­stru­ment to the sav­ing of thy life. Ah how happy has the mat­ter sped! You will not need to do the sun a real hurt—ah, for­get not that, on your soul for­get it not! Only make a lit­tle dark­ness—only the lit­tlest lit­tle dark­ness, mind, and cease with that. It will be suf­fi­cient. They will see that I spoke falsely—be­ing ig­no­rant, as they will fancy—and with the fall­ing of the first shadow of that dark­ness you shall see them go mad with fear; and they will set you free and make you great! Go to thy tri­umph, now! But re­mem­ber—ah, good friend, I im­plore thee re­mem­ber my sup­pli­ca­tion, and do the blessed sun no hurt. For my sake, thy true friend.”

I choked out some words through my grief and mis­ery; as much as to say I would spare the sun; for which the lad’s eyes paid me back with such deep and lov­ing grat­i­tude that I had not the heart to tell him his good-hearted fool­ish­ness had ru­ined me and sent me to my death.

As the sol­diers as­sisted me across the court the still­ness was so pro­found that if I had been blind­fold I should have sup­posed I was in a soli­tude in­stead of walled in by four thou­sand peo­ple. There was not a move­ment per­cep­ti­ble in those masses of hu­man­ity; they were as rigid as stone im­ages, and as pale; and dread sat upon ev­ery coun­te­nance. This hush con­tin­ued while I was be­ing chained to the stake; it still con­tin­ued while the fagots were care­fully and te­diously piled about my an­kles, my knees, my thighs, my body. Then there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if pos­si­ble, and a man knelt down at my feet with a blaz­ing torch; the mul­ti­tude strained for­ward, gaz­ing, and part­ing slightly from their seats with­out know­ing it; the monk raised his hands above my head, and his eyes to­ward the blue sky, and be­gan some words in Latin; in this at­ti­tude he droned on and on, a lit­tle while, and then stopped. I waited two or three mo­ments; then looked up; he was stand­ing there pet­ri­fied. With a com­mon im­pulse the mul­ti­tude rose slowly up and stared into the sky. I fol­lowed their eyes, as sure as guns, there was my eclipse be­gin­ning! The life went boil­ing through my veins; I was a new man! The rim of black spread slowly into the sun’s disk, my heart beat higher and higher, and still the as­sem­blage and the priest stared into the sky, mo­tion­less. I knew that this gaze would be turned upon me, next. When it was, I was ready. I was in one of the most grand at­ti­tudes I ever struck, with my arm stretched up point­ing to the sun. It was a no­ble ef­fect. You could see the shud­der sweep the mass like a wave. Two shouts rang out, one close upon the heels of the other:

“Ap­ply the torch!”

“I for­bid it!”

The one was from Mer­lin, the other from the king. Mer­lin started from his place—to ap­ply the torch him­self, I judged. I said:

“Stay where you are. If any man moves—even the king—be­fore I give him leave, I will blast him with thun­der, I will con­sume him with light­nings!”

The mul­ti­tude sank meekly into their seats, and I was just ex­pect­ing they would. Mer­lin hes­i­tated a mo­ment or two, and I was on pins and nee­dles dur­ing that lit­tle while. Then he sat down, and I took a good breath; for I knew I was mas­ter of the sit­u­a­tion now. The king said:

“Be mer­ci­ful, fair sir, and es­say no fur­ther in this per­ilous mat­ter, lest dis­as­ter fol­low. It was re­ported to us that your pow­ers could not at­tain unto their full strength un­til the mor­row; but—”

“Your Majesty thinks the re­port may have been a lie? It was a lie.”

That made an im­mense ef­fect; up went ap­peal­ing hands ev­ery­where, and the king was as­sailed with a storm of sup­pli­ca­tions that I might be bought off at any price, and the calamity stayed. The king was ea­ger to com­ply. He said:

“Name any terms, rev­erend sir, even to the halv­ing of my king­dom; but ban­ish this calamity, spare the sun!”

My for­tune was made. I would have taken him up in a minute, but I couldn’t stop an eclipse; the thing was out of the ques­tion. So I asked time to con­sider. The king said:

“How long—ah, how long, good sir? Be mer­ci­ful; look, it groweth darker, mo­ment by mo­ment. Prithee how long?”

“Not long. Half an hour—maybe an hour.”

There were a thou­sand pa­thetic protests, but I couldn’t shorten up any, for I couldn’t re­mem­ber how long a to­tal eclipse lasts. I was in a puz­zled con­di­tion, any­way, and wanted to think. Some­thing was wrong about that eclipse, and the fact was very un­set­tling. If this wasn’t the one I was af­ter, how was I to tell whether this was the sixth cen­tury, or noth­ing but a dream? Dear me, if I could only prove it was the lat­ter! Here was a glad new hope. If the boy was right about the date, and this was surely the 20th, it wasn’t the sixth cen­tury. I reached for the monk’s sleeve, in con­sid­er­able ex­cite­ment, and asked him what day of the month it was.

Hang him, he said it was the twenty-first! It made me turn cold to hear him. I begged him not to make any mis­take about it; but he was sure; he knew it was the 21st. So, that feather-headed boy had botched things again! The time of the day was right for the eclipse; I had seen that for my­self, in the be­gin­ning, by the dial that was near by. Yes, I was in King Arthur’s court, and I might as well make the most out of it I could.

The dark­ness was steadily grow­ing, the peo­ple be­com­ing more and more dis­tressed. I now said:

“I have re­flected, Sir King. For a les­son, I will let this dark­ness pro­ceed, and spread night in the world; but whether I blot out the sun for good, or re­store it, shall rest with you. Th­ese are the terms, to wit: You shall re­main king over all your do­min­ions, and re­ceive all the glo­ries and hon­ors that be­long to the king­ship; but you shall ap­point me your per­pet­ual min­is­ter and ex­ec­u­tive, and give me for my ser­vices one 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 sha’n’t ask any­body to give me a lift. Is it sat­is­fac­tory?”

There was a prodi­gious roar of ap­plause, and out of the midst of it the king’s voice rose, say­ing:

“Away with his bonds, and set him free! and do him homage, high and low, rich and poor, for he is be­come the king’s right hand, is clothed with power and au­thor­ity, and his seat is upon the high­est step of the throne! Now sweep away this creep­ing night, and bring the light and cheer again, that all the world may bless thee.”

But I said:

“That a com­mon man should be shamed be­fore the world, is noth­ing; but it were dis­honor to the king if any that saw his min­is­ter naked should not also see him de­liv­ered from his shame. If I might ask that my clothes be brought again—”

“They are not meet,” the king broke in. “Fetch rai­ment of an­other sort; clothe him like a prince!”

My idea worked. I wanted to keep things as they were till the eclipse was to­tal, oth­er­wise they would be try­ing again to get me to dis­miss the dark­ness, and of course I couldn’t do it. Send­ing for the clothes gained some de­lay, but not enough. So I had to make an­other ex­cuse. I said it would be but nat­u­ral if the king should change his mind and re­pent to some ex­tent of what he had done un­der ex­cite­ment; there­fore I would let the dark­ness grow a while, and if at the end of a rea­son­able time the king had kept his mind the same, the dark­ness should be dis­missed. Nei­ther the king nor any­body else was sat­is­fied with that ar­range­ment, but I had to stick to my point.

It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I strug­gled with those awk­ward sixth-cen­tury clothes. It got to be pitch dark, at last, and the mul­ti­tude groaned with hor­ror to feel the cold un­canny night breezes fan through the place and see the stars come out and twin­kle in the sky. At last the eclipse was to­tal, and I was very glad of it, but ev­ery­body else was in mis­ery; which was quite nat­u­ral. I said:

“The king, by his si­lence, still stands to the terms.” Then I lifted up my hands—stood just so a mo­ment—then I said, with the most aw­ful solem­nity: “Let the en­chant­ment dis­solve and pass harm­less away!”

There was no re­sponse, for a mo­ment, in that deep dark­ness and that grave­yard hush. But when the sil­ver rim of the sun pushed it­self out, a mo­ment or two later, the as­sem­blage broke loose with a vast shout and came pour­ing down like a del­uge to smother me with bless­ings and grat­i­tude; and Clarence was not the last of the wash, to be sure.