er. It would still be plenty light enough. They would see the white cloth, which I should tie around my right arm, and I would take command. We would surround that prison and have the king out in no time. It would be showy and picturesque enough, all things considered, though I would have preferred noonday on account of the more theatrical aspect the thing would have. Now then, in order to increase the strings to my bow, I thought I would look up some of those people whom I had formerly recognized and make myself known. That would help us out of our escape, without the knights. But I must proceed cautiously, for it was a risky business. I must get into sumptuous raiment, and it wouldn't do to run and jump into it. No, I must work up to it by degrees, buying suit after suit of clothes in shops wide apart, and getting a little finer article with each change until I should finally reach silk and velvet and be ready for my project. So I started. But the scheme fell through like scat. The first corner I turned, I came plump upon one of our slaves snooping around with a watchman. I coughed at the moment, and he gave me a sudden look that bit right into my marrow. I judge he thought he had heard that cough before. I turned immediately into a shop and worked along down the counter, pricing things and watching out of the corner of my eye. Those people had stopped and were talking together and looking in at the door. I made up my mind to get out the back way, if there was a back way, and I asked the shopwoman if I could step out there and look for the escaped slave who was believed to be in hiding back there somewhere, and said I was an officer in disguise, and my part was yonder at the door with one of the murderers in charge, and would she be good enough to step there and tell him he needn't wait, but had better go at once to the further end of the back alley and be ready to head him off when I rousted him out. She was blazing with eagerness to see one of those already celebrated murderers, and she started on the errand at once. I slipped out the back way, locked the door behind me, put the key in my pocket, and started off, chuckling to myself and comfortable. Well, I had gone and spoiled it again, made another mistake, a double one, in fact. There were plenty of ways to get rid of that officer by some simple and plausible device, but no, I must pick out a picturesque one. It is the crying defect of my character, and then I had ordered my procedure upon what the officer, being human, would naturally do. Whereas, when you are least expecting it, a man will now and then go and do the very thing which it's not natural for him to do. The natural thing for the officer to do, in this case, was to follow straight on my heels. He would find a stout, oaken door, securely locked between him and me. Before he could break it down, I should be far away and engaged in slipping into a succession of baffling disguises, which would soon get me into a sort of raiment, which was a sureer protection from meddling law-dogs in Britain than any amount of mere innocence and purity of character. But instead of doing the natural thing, the officer took me at my word and followed my instructions.  If I had known it was a cul-de-sac, however, there isn't any excusing a blunder like that. Let it go. Charge it up to profit and loss. Of course, I was indignant, and swore I had just come ashore from a long voyage and all that sort of thing, just to see, you know, if it would deceive that slave. But it didn't. He knew me. Then I reproached him for betraying me. He was more surprised than hurt. He stretched his eyes wide and said, What? Wouldst have me let thee of all men escape and not hang with us? When th' art the very cause of our hanging? Go to! Go to! was their way of saying I should smile, or I like that. Queer talkers, those people! Well, there was a sort of bastard justice in his view of the case, and so I dropped the matter. When you can't cure a disaster by argument, what is the use to argue? It isn't my way. So I only said, You're not going to be hanged? None of us are. Both men laughed, and the slave said, He have not ranked as a fool before. You might better keep your reputation seeing the strain would not be for long. It will stand it, I reckon. Before tomorrow we shall be out of prison and free to go where we will, besides. The witty officer lifted at his left ear with his thumb, made a rasping noise in his throat and said, Out of prison, yes, he say true, and free likewise to go where you will, so you wander not out of his grace, the devil's sultry realm. I kept my temper and said indifferently, Now I suppose you really think we are going to hang within a day or two? I thought it not many minutes ago, for so the thing was decided and proclaimed. Ah, then you've changed your mind, is that it? Even that, I only thought. Then I know now. I felt sarcastical, so I said, O sapient servant of the law, condescend to tell us then what you know, that ye will all be hanged today at mid-afternoon. Oh, that shot hit home, lean upon me. The fact is I did need to lean upon somebody. My nights couldn't arrive in time. They would be as much as three hours too late. Nothing in the world could save the King of England, nor me, which was more important. More important not merely to me, but to the nation, the only nation on earth standing ready to blossom into civilization. I was sick. I said no more, there wasn't anything to say. I knew what the man meant, that if the missing slave was found, the postponement would be revoked, the execution take place today. Well, the missing slave was found. Nearing four in the afternoon, the scene was just outside the walls of London, a cool, comfortable, superb day with a brilliant sun, the kind of day to make one want to live, not die. The multitude was prodigious and far-reaching, and yet we fifteen poor devils hadn't a friend in it. There was something painful in that thought. Look at it how you might.  We were being made a holiday spectacle. They had built a sort of grand stand for the nobility and gentry, and these were there in full force with their ladies. We recognized a good many of them. The crowd got a brief and unexpected dash of diversion out of the King. The moment we were freed of our bonds, he sprang up in his fantastic rags, with face bruised out of all recognition, and proclaimed himself Arthur King of Britain, and denounced the awful penalties of treason upon every soul there present if hair of his sacred head were touched. It startled and surprised him to hear them break into a vast roar of laughter. It wounded his dignity, and he locked himself up in silence. Then, although the crowd begged him to go on, and tried to provoke him to it, by cat-calls, jeers, and shouts of, Let him speak! The King! The King! His humble subjects hunger and thirst for words of wisdom out of the mouth of their master, his serene and sacred raggedness! But he went for nothing. He put on all his majesty, and sat under this reign of contempt and insult unmoved. He certainly was great in his way. Absently I had taken off my white bandage, and wound it about my right arm. When the crowd noticed this, they began upon me. They said, Doubtless this sailor man is his minister! Observe his costly badge of office! I let them go on until they got tired, and then I said, Yes, I am his minister, the boss, and to-morrow you will hear that from Camelot, which—I got no further. They drowned me out with joyous derision. But presently there was silence, for the sheriffs of London, in their official robes with their subordinates, began to make a stir, which indicated that business was about to begin. In the hush which followed, our crime was recited, the death warrant read, then everybody uncovered while a priest uttered a prayer. Then a slave was blindfolded. The hangman unslung his rope. There lay the smooth road below us. We upon one side of it, the banked multitude wailing its other side. A good clear road, and kept free by the police. How good it would be to see my five hundred horsemen come tearing down it! But no, it was out of the possibilities. I followed its receding thread out into the distance, not a horseman on it, or sign of one. There was a jerk, and a slave hung dangling, dangling and hideously squirming, for his limbs were not tied. A second rope was unslung. In a moment another slave was dangling. In a minute a third slave was struggling in the air. It was dreadful. I turned away my head a moment, and when I turned back I missed the king. They were blindfolding him. I was paralyzed. I couldn't move. I was choking. My tongue was petrified. They finished blindfolding him. They led him under the rope. I couldn't shake off that clinging impotence. But when I saw them put the noose around his neck. Then everything let go in me, and I made a spring to the rescue. And as I made it, I shot one more glance abroad. By George! Here they came! A tilting! Five hundred mailed and belted knights on bicycles! The grandest sight that ever was seen. Lord how the plume streamed, how the sun flamed and flashed from the endless procession of webby wheels. I waved my right arm as Lancelot swept in. He recognized my rag.  I always use that high style when I'm climaxing in effect. Well, it was noble to see Lancelot and the boys swarm up onto that scaffold and heave the sheriffs and such overboard, and it was fine to see that astonished multitude go down on their knees and beg their lives of the king they had just been deriding and insulting. And as he stood apart there, receiving this homage in rags, I thought to myself, Well, really there is something peculiarly grand about the gate and bearing of a king after all. I was immensely satisfied. Take the whole situation all round, it was one of the gaudiest effects I ever instigated. And presently up comes Clarence, his own self, and winks and says, very modernly, Good deal of a surprise, wasn't it? I knew you'd like it. I've had the boys practicing this long time privately, and just hungry for a chance to show off. End of Chapter 38 This is Chapter 39. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Chapter 39. The Yankees Fight with the Knights Home again at Camelot. A morning or two later I found the paper damp from the press by my plate at the breakfast table. I turned to the advertising columns, knowing I should find something of personal interest to me there. It was this. De Par le Roi Know that the great Lord and illustrious knight, Sir Sagromor Le Desiris, having condescended to meet the King's minister, Hank Morgan, the which is surnamed The Boss, for satisfaction of offence anciently given, these will engage in the lists by Camelot about the fourth hour of the morning of the sixteenth day of this next succeeding month. The battle will be one outrance, sith the said offence was of a deadly sort, admitting of no composition. Clarence's editorial reference to this affair was to this effect. It will be observed by a glance at our advertising columns that the community is to be favored with a treat of unusual interest in the tournament line. The names of the artists are warrant of good entertainment. The box office will be open at noon of the thirteenth, admission three cents, reserved seats five, proceeds to go to the hospital fund. The royal pair and all the court will be present. With these exceptions and the press and the clergy, the free list is strictly suspended. Parties are hereby warned against buying tickets of speculators. They will not be good at the door. Everybody knows and likes The Boss. Everybody knows and likes Sir Sag. Come, let us give the lads a good send-off. Remember, the proceeds go to a great and free charity.  The only charity yet established in the earth, which has no politico-religious stopcock on its compassion, but says, Here flows the stream, let all come and drink. Turn out all hands, fetch along your doughnuts, and your gum drops, and have a good time. Pie for sale on the grounds, and rocks to crack it with. And circus lemonade, three drops of lime juice to a barrel of water. And B, this is the first tournament under the new law, which allow each combatant to use any weapon he may prefer. You may want to make a note of that. Up to the day set, there was no talk in all Britain of anything but this combat. All other topics sank into insignificance and passed out of men's thoughts and interest. It was not because a tournament was a great matter. It was not because Sir Sagramore had found the holy grail, for he had not, but had failed. It was not because the second official personage in the kingdom was one of the dualists. No, all these features were commonplace. Yet there was abundant reason for the extraordinary interest which this coming fight was creating. It was born of the fact that all the nation knew that this was not to be a dual between mere men, so to speak, but a dual between two mighty magicians. A dual not of muscle, but of mind. Not of human skill, but of superhuman art and craft. A final struggle for supremacy between the two master enchanters of the age. It was realized that the most prodigious achievements of the most renowned knights could not be worthy of comparison with a spectacle like this. They could be but child's play, contrasted with this mysterious and awful battle of the gods. Yes, all the world knew it was going to be in reality a dual between Merlin and me, a measuring of his magic powers against mine. It was known that Merlin had been busy whole days and nights together, imbuing Sir Sagramore's arms and armor with supernal powers of offense and defense, and that he had procured for him, from the spirits of the air, a fleecy veil which would render the wearer invisible to his antagonist, while still visible to other men. Against Sir Sagramore, so weaponed and protected, a thousand knights could accomplish nothing. Against him no known enchantments could prevail. These facts were sure. Regarding them there was no doubt, no reason for doubt. There was but one question, might there be still other enchantments unknown to Merlin which could render Sir Sagramore's veil transparent to me and make his enchanted male vulnerable to my weapons. This was the one thing to be decided in the lists. Until then, the world must remain in suspense. So the world thought there was a vast matter at stake here, and the world was right, but it was not the one they had in their minds. No, a far vaster one was upon the cast of this die, the life of knight errantry. I was a champion, it was true, but not the champion of the frivolous black arts. I was the champion of hard, unsentimental common sense and reason. I was entering the lists to either destroy knight errantry, or be its victim. Vast as the showgrounds were, there were no vacant spaces in them outside of the lists at ten o'clock on the morning of the sixteenth. The mammoth grandstand was closed in flags, streamers, and rich tapestries, and packed with several acres of small-fried tributary kings, their suites, and the British aristocracy. With our own royal gang in the chief place, and each and every individual a flashing prism of gaudy silks and velvets—well, I never saw anything to begin with it, but a fight between an upper Mississippi sunset and the aurora borealis, the huge camp of beflagged and gay-coloured tents at one end of the lists, with a stiff standing sentinel at every door in a shining shield hanging by him for challenge, was another fine sight. You see, every night was there who had any ambition or any caste feeling. For my feeling toward their order was not much of a secret, and so here was their chance. If I won my fight with Sir Sagramore, others would have the right to call me out as long as I might be willing to respond. Down at our end there were but two tents, one for me, and another for my servants. At the appointed hour the king made a sign, and the heralds in their tabards appeared and made proclamation, naming the combatants and stating the cause of quarrel. There was a pause, then a ringing bugle blast, which was the signal for us to come forth. All the multitude caught their breath, and an eager curiosity flashed into every face. Out from his tent rode great Sir Sagramore, an imposing tower of iron stately and rigid, his huge spear standing upright in its socket, and grasped in his strong hand his grand horse's face and breast cased in steel, his body clothed in rich trappings that almost dragged the ground. Oh, a most noble picture! A great shout went up of welcome and admiration. Then out I came, but I didn't get any shout. There was a wondering and eloquent silence for a moment, then a great wave of laughter began to sweep along that human sea, but a warning bugle blast cut its career short. I was in the simplest and comfort-blist of gymnast costumes, flesh-colored tights from neck to heel with blue silk puffings about my loins, and bare-headed. My horse was not above medium size, but he was alert, slender-limbed, muscled with watchsprings, and just a greyhound to go. He was a beauty-glossiest silk and naked as he was when he was born, except for bridal and ranger saddle. The iron tower and the gorgeous bed-quilt came cumbersly, but gracefully pirouetting down the lists, and we tripped lightly up to meet them. We halted, the tower saluted, I responded, then we wheeled and rode side by side to the grandstand and faced our king and queen, to whom we made abeasance. The queen exclaimed, "'A lax service! We'll fight naked, and without lance or sword or—' But the king checked her and made her understand, with a polite phrase or two, that this was none of her business. The bugles rang again, and we separated and rode to the ends of the lists, and took position. Now old Merlin stepped into view, and cast a dainty web of gossamer threads over Sir Sagramour which turned him into Hamlet's ghost. The king made a sign. The bugles blew. Sir Sagramour laid his great lance in rest, and the next moment here he came thundering down the course with his veil flying out behind, and I went whistling through the air like an arrow to meet him, cocking my ear the while, as if noting the invisible knight's position and progress by hearing, not sight. A chorus of encouraging shouts burst out for him, and one brave voice flung out a heartening word for me, said, "'Go it, Slim Jim!' It was an even bet that Clarence had procured that favour for me, and furnished the language too. When that formidable lance-point was within a yard and a half of my breast, I twitched my horse aside without an effort, and the big knight swept by, scoring a blank. I got plenty of applause that time. We turned, braced up, and down we came again. Another blank for the knight, a roar of applause for me. This same thing was repeated once more, and it fetched such a whirlwind of applause that Sir Sagramour lost his temper, and it once changed his tactics and set himself the task of chasing me down. Why, he hadn't any show in the world at that. It was a game of tag, with all the advantage on my side. I whirled out of his path with ease whenever I chose, and once I slapped him on the back as I went to the rear. Finally I took the chase into my own hands, and after that, turn or twist or do what he would, he was never able to get behind me again. He found himself always in front of the end of his maneuver. So he gave up that business and retired to his end of the lists. His temper was clear gone now, and he forgot himself and flung an insult at me which disposed of mine. I slipped my lasso from the horn of my saddle and grasped the coil in my right hand. This time you should have seen him come. It was a business trip, sure. By his gait there was blood in his eye. I was sitting my horse at ease, and swinging the great loop of my lasso in wide circles about my head. The moment he was under way, I started for him. When the space between us had narrowed to forty feet, I sent the snaky spirals of the rope a-cleaving through the air, then darted aside and faced about and brought my trained animal to a halt with all his feet braced under him for a surge. The next moment the rope sprang taut and yanked Sir Sagromore out of the saddle. Great scot, but there was a sensation. Unquestionably, the popular thing in this world is novelty. These people had never seen anything of that cowboy business before, and it carried them clear off their feet with delight. From all around and everywhere the shout went up, Encore! Encore! I wondered where they got the word, but there was no time to cipher on philological matters because the whole night air entry hive was just humming now, and my prospect for trade couldn't have been better. The moment my lasso was released and Sir Sagromore had been assisted to his tent, I hauled in the slack, took my station, and began to swing my loop around my head again. I was sure to have use for it as soon as they could elect a successor for Sir Sagromore, and that couldn't take long, or there were so many hungry candidates. Indeed, they elected one straight off. Sir Harvest the Revel. Bzzz! Here he came, like a house of fire. I dodged. He passed like a flash, with my horse-hair coils settling around his neck. A second or so later, pffst! The saddle was empty. I got another Encore, and another, and another, and still another. When I had snaked five men out, things began to look serious to the iron clads, and they stopped and consulted together. As a result, they decided that it was time to wave etiquette, and send their greatest and best against me. To the astonishment of that little world, I lassoed Sir Lamarac de Gallis, and after him Sir Gala had. So you see, there was simply nothing to be done now, but play their right bower, bring out the superbest of the superb, the mightiest of the mighty, the great Sir Lancelot himself. A proud moment for me? I should think so. Yonder was Arthur, king of Britain. Yonder was Guinevere, yes, and whole tribes of little provincial kings and kinglets, and in the Tented Camp Yonder renounced knights from many lands, and likewise the selectest body known to chivalry, the knights of the Table Round, the most illustrious in Christendom. And biggest fact of all, the very sun of their shining system was Yonder couching his lance, the focal point of forty thousand adoring eyes, and all by myself, here was I laying for him. Across my mind flitted the dear image of a certain hello-girl of West Hartford, and I wish she could see me now. In that moment down came the invincible, with the rush of a whirlwind. The courtly world rose to its feet and bent forward. The fateful coils went circling through the air, and before you could wink, I was towing Sir Lancelot across the field on his back, and kissing my hand to the storm of waving kerchiefs and the thunder-crash of applause that greeted me. Said I to myself, as I coiled my lariat and hung it on my saddle-horn and sat there drunk with glory, the victory is perfect, no other will venture against me. Night air entry is dead. Now imagine my astonishment and everybody else's too, to hear the peculiar bugle-call which announces that another competitor is about to enter the list. There was a mystery here. I couldn't account for this thing. Next I noticed Merlin gliding away from me, and then I noticed that my lasso was gone. The old sleight of hand expert had stolen it, sure, and slipped it under his robe. The bugle blew again.  I trotted up to meet him, and pretended to find him by the sound of his horse's hoofs, he said. Thou art quick of ear, but it will not save thee from this, and he touched the hilt of his great sword. And ye are not able to see it because of the influence of the veil, know that it is no cumbersome lance, but a sword, and I wean you will not be able to avoid it. His visor was up, and there was death in his smile. I should never be able to dodge his sword, that was plain. Somebody was going to die this time. If he got the drop on me I could name the corpse. We rode forward together and saluted the royalties. This time the king was disturbed. He said, Where is thy strange weapon? It is stolen, Sire. Hast another at hand? No, Sire, I brought only the one. Then Merlin mixed in. He brought but the one, because there was but the one to bring. There exists none other but that one. It belongeth to the king of the demons of the sea.  Else he had known that that weapon can be used in but eight bouts only, and then it vanisheth away to its home under the sea. Then he is weaponless, said the king. Sir Sagramore, ye will grant him leave to borrow. And I will lend, said Sir Lancelot, limping up, he is as brave a knight of his hands as any that be on live, and he shall have mine. He put his hand on his sword to draw it, but Sir Sagramore said, Stay, it may not be. He shall fight with his own weapons. It was his privilege to choose them and bring them, if he has aired on his head be it. Night, said the king, Thou art overwrought with passion. It disorders thy mind.  And he do it, he shall answer to me, said Sir Lancelot. I will answer it to any he that desireeth, retorted Sir Sagramore hotly. Merlin broke in, rubbing his hands and smiling his low down a smile of malicious gratification. Tis well said, right well said, and tis enough of parlaying. Let, my lord, the king deliver the battle-signal! The king had to yield. The bugle made proclamation, and we turned apart and rode to our stations. There we stood a hundred yards apart, facing each other, rigid and motionless, like hoarse statues. And so we remained in a soundless hush, as much as a full minute, everybody gazing, nobody stirring. It seemed as if the king could not take heart to give the signal. But alas he lifted his hand, the clear note of the bugle followed. Sir Sagramore's long blade described a flashing curve in the air, and it was superb to see him come. I sat still. On he came. I did not move. People got so excited that they shouted to me, Fly! Fly! Save thyself! This is Mercer! I never budged so much as an inch till that thundering apparition had got within fifteen paces of me. Then I snatched a dragoon revolver out of my holster. There was a flash and a roar, and the revolver was back in the holster before anybody could tell what had happened. Here was a riderless horse plunging by, and yonder lay, Sir Sagramore, stone dead. The people that ran to him were stricken dumb to find that the life was actually gone out of the man, and no reason for it visible.  There was a hole through the breast of his chain-mail, but they attached no importance to a little thing like that, and as a bullet wound there produced his but little blood, none came in sight because of the clothing and swaddlings under the armor. The body was dragged over to let the king and the swells look down upon it. They were stupefied with astonishment naturally. I was requested to come and explain the miracle. But I remained in my tracks like a statue and said, If it is a command I will come, but my Lord the King knows that I am where the laws of combat require me to remain while any desire to come against me. I waited. Nobody challenged. Then I said, If there are any who doubt that this field is well and fairly one, I do not wait for them to challenge me. I challenge them. It is a gallant offer, said the King, and well besiems you. Whom will you name first? I name none. I challenge all. Here I stand, and dare the chivalry of England to come against me, not by individuals, but in mass. What! shouted a score of knights. You have heard the challenge. Take it. Or I proclaim you Recreant Knights and Vanquished every one. It was a bluff, you know. At such a time it is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth. Forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call, and you rake in the chips. But just this once, well, things looked squally. In just no time five hundred knights were scrambling into their saddles, and before you could wink a widely scattering drove were under way and clattering down upon me. I snatched both revolvers from the holsters, and began to measure distances and calculate chances. Bang! one saddle empty, bang another one, bang, bang, and a bag too. Well it was nip and tuck with us, and I knew it. If I spent the eleventh shot without convincing these people, the twelfth man would kill me, sure. And so I never did feel so happy as I did when my ninth downed its man, and I detected the wavering in the crowd, which was premonitory of panic. An instant lost now could knock out my last chance. But I didn't lose it. I raised both revolvers and pointed them. The halted host stood their ground just about one good square moment, then broken fled. The day was mine. Knight air entry was a doomed institution. The march of civilization was begun. How did I feel? You never could imagine it. And Brear Merlin, his stock was flat again. Somehow every time the magic of Falderall tried conclusions with the magic of science, the magic of Falderall got left. End of Chapter 39 This is Chapter 40. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Chapter 40. Three years later. When I broke the back of Knight air entry that time, I no longer felt obliged to work in secret. So the very next day I exposed my hidden schools, my mines, and my vast system of clandestine factories and workshops to an astonished world. That is to say, I exposed the nineteenth century to the inspection of the sixth. Well, it is always a good plan to follow up an advantage promptly. The knights were temporarily down, but if I would keep them so, I must just simply paralyze them. Nothing short of that would answer. You see, I was bluffing that last time in the field. It would be natural for them to work around to that conclusion if I gave them a chance, so I must not give them time, and I didn't. I renewed my challenge, engraved it on brass, posted it up where any priest could read it to them, and also kept it standing in the advertising columns of the paper. I not only renewed it, but added to its proportions. I said, name the day, and I would take fifty assistants and stand up against the massed chivalry of the whole earth, and destroy it. I was not bluffing this time. I meant what I said. I could do what I promised. There wasn't any way to misunderstand the language of that challenge.  They were wise, and did the latter. In all the next three years they gave me no trouble worth mentioning. Consider the three years' sped. Now look around on England, a happy and prosperous country, and strangely altered. Schools everywhere and several colleges. A number of pretty good newspapers. Even authorship was taking a start. Sir Dinadon, the humorist, was first in the field with a volume of gray-headed jokes, which I had been familiar with during thirteen centuries. If he had left out that old rancid one about the lecturer, I wouldn't have said anything, but I couldn't stand that one. I suppressed the book, and hanged the author. After he was dead and gone—all men were equal before the law—taxation had been equalized. The telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the typewriter, the sewing machine, and all the thousand willing and handy servants of steam and electricity were working their way into favor. We had a steamboat or two on the Thames, we had steam warships, and the beginnings of a steam commercial marine. I was getting ready to send out an expedition to discover America. We were building several lines of railway, and our line from Camelot to London was already finished and in operation. I was shrewd enough to make all offices connected with the passenger service places of high and distinguished honor. My idea was to attract the chivalry and nobility and make them useful and keep them out of mischief. The plan worked very well. The competition for the places was hot. The conductor of the 433 Express was a Duke. There wasn't a passenger conductor on the line below the degree of Earl. They were good men, every one. But they had two defects, which I couldn't cure, so had to wink at. They wouldn't lay aside their armor, and they would knock down fair—I mean, rob the company. There was hardly a night in all the land who wasn't in some useful employment. They were going from end to end of the country in all manner of useful missionary capacities. Their penchant for wandering and their experience in it made them all together the most effective spreaders of civilization we had. They went closed in steel and equipped with sword and lance and battle-axe, and if they couldn't persuade a person to try a sewing machine on the installment plan, or a melodian, or a barbed wire fence, or a prohibition journal, or any of the other thousand and one things they canvassed for, they removed him and passed on. I was very happy. Things were working steadily toward a secretly long four-point. You see, I had two schemes in my head which were the vastest of all my projects. The one was to overthrow the Catholic Church and set up the Protestant faith on its ruins. Not as an established church, but a go-as-you-please one. And the other project was to get a decree issued by and by, commanding that upon Arthur's death unlimited suffrage should be introduced, and given to men and women alike, at any rate to all men, wise or unwise, and to all mothers who, at middle age, should be found to know nearly as much as their sons at twenty-one. Arthur was good for thirty years yet, he being about my own age, that is to say forty, and I believe that in that time I could easily have the active part of the population of that day ready and eager for an event which should be the first of its kind in the history of the world, a rounded and complete governmental revolution without bloodshed. The result to be a republic. Well, I may as well confess, though I do feel ashamed when I think of it, I was beginning to have a base hankering to be its first president myself. Yes, there was more or less human nature in me. I found that out. Clarence was with me as concerned the revolution, but in a modified way. His idea was a republic without privileged orders, but with a hereditary royal family at the head of it instead of an elective chief magistrate. He believed that no nation that had ever known the joy of worshiping a royal family could ever be robbed of it and not fade away and die of melancholy. I urged that kings were dangerous. He said, then have cats. He was sure that a royal family of cats would answer every purpose. They would be as useful as any other royal family. They would know as much. They would have the same virtues and the same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shindies with other royal cats. They would be laughably vain and absurd and never know it. They would be wholly inexpensive. Finally, they would have as sound a divine right as any other royal house, and Tom VII or Tom XI or Tom XIV by the Grace of God King would sound as well as it would when applied to the ordinary royal tomcat with tights on. And as a rule, said he in his neat modern English, the character of these cats would be considerably above the character of the average king, and this would be an immense moral advantage to the nation for the reason that a nation always models its morals after its monarchs. The worship of royalty being founded in unreason, these graceful and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as any other royalties, and indeed more so because it would presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence than the customary human king and would certainly get it. The eyes of the whole harried world would soon be fixed upon this humane and gentle system, and the royal butchers would presently begin to disappear. Their subjects would fill the vacancies with catlings from our own royal house. We should become a factory. We should supply the thrones of the world. Within forty years all Europe would be governed by cats, and we should furnish the cats. The reign of universal peace would begin, then, to end no more for ever. Me-ow-st! Wow! Hang am I, suppose he was in earnest, and was beginning to be persuaded by him until he exploded that cat-howl and startled me almost out of my clothes. But he never could be in earnest. He didn't know what it was. He had pictured a distinct and perfectly rational and feasible improvement upon constitutional monarchy, but he was too feather-headed to know it, or care anything about it either. I was going to give him a scolding, but Sandy came flying in at that moment, wild with terror, and so choked with sobs that for a minute she could not get her voice. I ran and took her in my arms, and lavished caresses upon her, and said beseechingly, Speak, darling! Speak! What is it? Her head fell limp upon my bosom, and she gasped almost inaudibly. Hello, Santru! Quick! I shouted to Clarence. Telephone the king's homey a path to come. In two minutes I was kneeling by the child's crib, and Sandy was dispatching servants here, there, and everywhere all over the palace. I took in the situation almost at a glance. Membranas croop. I bent down and whispered, Wake up, sweetheart! Hello, Santru! She opened her soft eyes languidly, and made out to say, Papa! That was a comfort. She was far from dead yet. I sent for preparations of sulfur. I roasted out the croup kettle myself, for I don't sit down and wait for doctors when Sandy or the child is sick. I knew how to nurse both of them, and had had experience. This little chap had lived in my arms a good part of its small life, and often I could soothe away its troubles, and get it to laugh through the tear-dos on its eyelashes, when even its mother couldn't. Sir Lancelot, in his richest armor, came striding along the great hall now, on his way to the stockboard. He was president of the stockboard, and occupied the siege perilous, which he had bought of Sir Gallahad, where the stockboard consisted of the knights of the round table, and they used the round table for business purposes now. Seats at it were worth, well, you would never believe the figure, so it is no use to state it. Sir Lancelot was a bear, and he had put up a corner in one of the new lines, and was just getting ready to squeeze the shorts to-day. But what of that? He was the same old Lancelot, and when he glanced in as he was passing the door and found out that his pet was sick, that was enough for him. Bulls and bears might fight it out their own way, for all of him. He would come right in here and stand by a little hello central for all he was worth, and that was what he did. He shied his helmet into the corner, and in half a minute he had a new wick in the alcohol lamp, and was firing up the Krupp Kettle. By this time Sandy had built a blanket canopy over the crib, and everything was ready. Sir Lancelot got up steam, he and I loaded up the kettle with unslaked lime and carbolic acid, with a touch of lactic acid added there too, then filled the thing up with water and inserted the steam-pout under the canopy. Everything was ship-shaped now, and we sat down on either side of the crib to stand our watch. Sandy was so grateful and so comforted that she charged a couple of church wardens with Willowbark and Sumac Tobacco for us, and told us to smoke as much as we pleased. It couldn't get under the canopy, and she was used to smoke, being the first lady in the land who had ever seen a cloud blown. Well, there couldn't be a more contented or comfortable sight than Sir Lancelot in his noble armor, sitting in gracious serenity at the end of a yard of snowy church warden. He was a beautiful man, a lovely man, and was just intended to make a wife and children happy. But of course Guinevere—however, it's no use to cry over what's done and can't be helped. Well, he stood watch and watch with me, right straight through for three days and nights till the child was out of danger. Then he took her up in his great arms and kissed her, with his plumes falling about her golden head. Then laid her softly in Sandy's lap again and took his stately way down the vast hall between the ranks of admiring men-at-arms and menials, and so disappeared. And no instinct warned me that I should never look upon him again in this world.  The doctors said we must take the child away if we would coax her back to health and strength again. And she must have sea air. So we took a man of war and a suite of two hundred and sixty persons and went cruising about, and after a fortnight of this we stepped ashore on the French coast, and the doctors thought it would be a good idea to make something of a stay there. The little king of that region offered us his hospitalities, and we were glad to accept. If we had had as many conveniences as he lacked, we should have been plenty comfortable enough. Even as it was we made out very well in his queer old castle, by the help of comforts and luxuries from the ship. At the end of a month I sent the vessel home for fresh supplies and for news. We expected her back in three or four days. She would bring me, along with other news, the result of a certain experiment which I had been starting. It was a project of mine to replace the tournament with something which might furnish an escape for the extra steam of the chivalry, keep those bucks entertained and out of mischief, and at the same time preserve the best thing in them which was their hearty spirit of emulation. I had had a choice band of them in private training for some time, and the date was now arriving for their first public effort. This experiment was baseball. In order to give the thing vogue from the start, and place it out of the reach of criticism, I chose my nines by rank, not capacity. There wasn't a knight in either team who wasn't decepted sovereign. As for material of this sort, there was a glut of it always around, Arthur. You couldn't throw a brick in any direction and not cripple a king. Of course, I couldn't get these people to leave off their armor, and they wouldn't do that when they bathed. They consented to differentiate the armor so that a body could tell one team from the other, but that was the most they would do. So one of the teams wore chainmail ulsters, and the other wore plate armor made of my new decimer steel. Their practice in the field was the most fantastic thing I ever saw. Being ball-proof, they never skipped out of the way, but stood still and took the result. When a Bessemer was at the bat and a ball hit him, it would bound a hundred and fifty yards sometimes, and when a man was running and threw himself on a stomach to slide to his base, it was like an iron clad coming into port. At first I appointed men of no rank to act as umpires, but I had to discontinue that. These people were no easier to please than other nines. The umpire's first decision was usually his last. They broke him in two with a bat, and his friends toted him home on a shutter. When it was noticed that no umpire ever survived a game, umpiring got to be unpopular. So I was obliged to appoint somebody whose rank and lofty position under the government would protect him. Here are the names of the nines. Bessemers, King Arthur, King Lot of Lothian, King of North Gallus, King Marcel, King of Little Britain, King Labour, King Pelham of Lysingies, King Bagdemagus, King Ptolemy Lafaintis, Ulsters, Emperor Lucius, King Logris, King Markle of Ireland, King Morgennor, King Mark of Cornwall, King Nentris of Garlot, King Melodius of Lannis, King of the Lake, the Soudan of Syria. Umpire, Clarence. The first public game would certainly draw fifty thousand people, and for solid fun would be worth going round the world to see. Everything would be favourable. It was balmy and beautiful spring weather now, and nature was all tailored out in her new clothes. End of Chapter 40 This is Chapter 41. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Chapter 41. The Interdict. However, my attention was suddenly snatched from such matters. Our child began to lose ground again, and we had to go to sitting up with her, her case became so serious. We couldn't bear to allow anybody to help in this service, so we too stood watch and watch, day in and day out. Ah, Sandy, what a right heart she had, how simple and genuine and good she was. She was a flawless wife and mother, and yet I had married her for no other particular reasons, except that by the customs of chivalry she was my property until some night should win her from me in the field. She had hunted Britain over for me, had found me at the hanging bout outside of London, and had straightway resumed her old place at my side in the Placidus way and as of right. I was a New Englander, and in my opinion this sort of partnership would compromise her sooner or later. She couldn't see how, but I cut argument short, and we had a wedding. Now, I didn't know I was drawing a prize, yet that was what I did draw. Within the twelfth month I became her worshipper, and ours was the dearest and perfectest comradeship that ever was. People talk about beautiful friendships between two persons of the same sex. What is the best of that sort, as compared with the friendship of man and wife, where the best impulses and highest ideals of both are the same? There is no place for comparison between the two friendships, the one is earthly, the other divine. In my dreams, along at first, I still wandered thirteen centuries away, and my unsatisfied spirit went calling and harking all up and down the unreplying vacancies of a vanished world. Many a time Sandy heard that imploring cry come from my lips in my sleep. With a grand magnanimity she saddled that cry of mine upon our child, conceiving it to be the name of some lost darling of mine. It touched me to tears, and also nearly knocked me off my feet, too, when she smiled up in my face for an earned reward, and played her quaint and pretty surprise upon me. The name of one who was dear to thee is here preserved, here made holy, and the music of it will abide always in our ears. Now thou dost kiss me, as knowing the name I have given the child. But I didn't know it all the same. I hadn't an idea in the world, but it would have been cruel to confess it and spoil her pretty game, so I never let on, but said, Yes, I know, sweetheart, how dear and good it is of you, too. But I want to hear these lips of yours, which are also mine, utter at first. Then its music will be perfect. Pleased to the marrow, she murmured, Hello, Central! I didn't laugh. I'm always thankful for that. But the strain ruptured every cartilage in me, and for weeks afterward I could hear my bones clack when I walked. She never found out her mistake. The first time she heard that form of salute used at the telephone she was surprised, and not pleased. But I told her I'd give an order for it, that henceforth and forever the telephone must always be invoked with that reverent formality, in perpetual honour and remembrance of my lost friend and her small namesake. This was not true, but it answered. Well, during two weeks and a half we watched by the crib, and in our deep solicitude we were unconscious of any world outside of that sick room. Then our reward came. The center of the universe turned the corner and began to mend. Grateful? It isn't the term. There isn't any term for it. You know that yourself, if you've watched your child through the valley of the shadow, and seen it come back to life and sweep night out of the earth with one all-illuminating smile that you could cover with your hand. Why, we were back in this world in one instant. Then we looked the same startled thought into each other's eyes at the same moment, more than two weeks gone, and that ship not back yet. In another minute I appeared in the presence of my train. They had been steeped in troubled boatings all this time, their faces showed it. I called an escort, and we galloped five miles to a hilltop overlooking the sea. Where was my great commerce that so lately had made these glistening expanses populous and beautiful with its white-winged flocks? Vanished, every one, not a sail from verge to verge, not a smoke-bank, just a dead and empty solitude in place of all that brisk and breezy life. I went swiftly back, saying not a word to anybody. I told Sandy this ghastly news. We could imagine no explanation that would begin to explain. Had there been an invasion, an earthquake, a pestilence? Had the nation been swept out of existence? But guessing was profitless. I must go, at once. I borrowed the king's navy, a ship no bigger than a steam-launch, and was soon ready. The parting—yes, that was hard. As I was devouring the child with last kisses, it brisked up and jabbered out its vocabulary, the first time in more than two weeks, and it made fools of us for joy. The darling mispronunciations of childhood, dear me, there's no music that can touch it, and how one grieves when it wastes away and dissolves into correctness, knowing it will never visit his bereaved ear again. Well, how good it was to be able to carry that gracious memory away with me. I approached England the next morning, with a wide highway of salt water all to myself. There were ships in the harbour at Dover, but they were naked as to sails, and there was no sign of life about them. It was Sunday, yet at Canterbury the streets were empty. Strangest of all, there was not even a priest in sight, and no stroke of a bell fell upon my ear. The mournfulness of death was everywhere. I couldn't understand it. At last, in the further edge of that town, I saw a small funeral procession, just a family and a few friends following a coffin—no priest. A funeral without bell, book, or candle. There was a church there, close at hand, but they passed it by, weeping, and did not enter it. I glanced up at the bell free, and there hung the bell, shrouded in black, and its tongue tied back. Now I knew. Now I understood the stupendous calamity that had overtaken England. Invasion? Invasion is a triviality to it. It was the interdict. I asked no questions. I didn't need to ask any. The church had struck. The thing for me to do was to get into a disguise and go wherely. One of my servants gave me a suit of clothes, and when we were safe beyond the town I put them on, and from that time I travelled alone. I could not risk the embarrassment of company. A miserable journey, a desolate silence everywhere, even in London itself. Traffic had ceased. Men did not talk or laugh, or go in groups, or even in couples. They moved aimlessly about each man by himself, with his head down, and woe and terror in his heart. The tower showed recent war scars. Early much had been happening. Of course I meant to take the train to Camelot. Train? Why? The station was as vacant as a cavern. I moved on. The journey to Camelot was a repetition of what I had already seen. The Monday and the Tuesday different in no way from the Sunday. I arrived far in the night. From being the best electric lighted town in the kingdom and the most like a recumbent son of anything you ever saw, it was become simply a blot. A blot upon darkness. That is to say it was darker and solider than the rest of the darkness. And so you could see it a little better. It made me feel as if—maybe—it was symbolical. A sort of sign, but the church was going to keep the upper hand now, and snuff out all my beautiful civilization just like that. I found no life stirring in the somber streets. I groped my way with a heavy heart. The vast castle loomed black upon the hilltop, not a spark visible upon it. The drawbridge was down. The great gate stood wide. I entered without challenge, my own heels making the only sound I heard, and it was sepulchral enough in those huge vacant courts. End of Chapter 41 This is Chapter 42. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Chapter 42. War I found Clarence alone in his quarters drowned in melancholy, and in place of the electric light he had reinstituted the ancient rag lamp and sat there in a grisly twilight with all curtains drawn tight. He sprang up and rushed for me eagerly, saying, Oh, it's worth a billion mill-rays to look upon a live person again. He knew me as easily as if I hadn't been disguised at all, which frightened me one may easily believe that. Quick now, tell me the meaning of this fearful disaster, I said. How did it come about? Well, if there hadn't been any Queen Guinevere, it wouldn't have come so early. But it would have come anyway. It would have come on our own account by and by, by luck it happened to come on the Queens. And, Sir Lancelots? Just so. Give me the details. I reckon you will grant that during some years there has been only one pair of eyes in these kingdoms that has not been looking steadily a scance at the Queen and Sir Lancelot. Yes, King Arthur's. And only one heart that was without suspicion. Yes, the Kings. A heart that isn't capable of thinking evil of a friend. Well, the King might have gone on still happy and unsuspecting to the end of his days but for one of your modern improvements, the Stockboard. When you left, three miles of the London, Canterbury and Dover were ready for the rails, and also ready and ripe for manipulation in the stock market. It was Wildcat and everybody knew it. The stock was for sale at a giveaway. What does Sir Lancelot do? But yes, I know. He quietly picked up nearly all of it for a song. Then he bought about twice as much more, deliverable upon call. And he was about to call when I left. Very well, he did call. The boys couldn't deliver. Oh, he had them. And he just settled his grip and squeezed them. They were laughing in their sleeves over their smartness in selling stock to him at fifteen and sixteen and along there that wasn't worth ten. Well, when they had laughed long enough on that side of their mouths, they rested up that side by shifting the laugh to the other side. That was when they compromised with the Invincible at two hundred and eighty three. Good land! He skinned them alive and they deserved it. Anyway, the whole kingdom rejoiced. Well, among the flade were Sir Agrivene and Sir Mordred, nephews to the king. End of the first act. Act second, seen first, an apartment in Carlyle Castle where the court had gone for a few days hunting. Person's present, the whole tribe of the king's nephews. Mordred and Agrivene proposed to call the guile as Arthur's attention to Gwynevere and Sir Lancelot. Sir Gwywayne, Sir Gareth, and Sir Gaharis will have nothing to do with it. A dispute ensues with loud talk. In the midst of it enter the king. Mordred and Agrivene spring their devastating tale upon him. Tableau. A trap is laid for Lancelot by the king's command and Sir Lancelot walks into it. He made it sufficiently uncomfortable for the ambushed witnesses to it, Mordred, Agrivene, and twelve knights of Lesser Rank, for he killed every one of them but Mordred. But, of course, that couldn't straighten matters between Lancelot and the king, and didn't. Oh, dear! Only one thing could result, I see that. War! And the knights of the realm divided into a king's party and a Sir Lancelot's party. Yes, that was the way of it. The king sent the queen to the stake, proposing to purify her with fire. And Lancelot and his knights rescued her, and in doing it slew certain good old friends of yours in mind. In fact, some of the best we ever had, to it Sir Bellius Leorgolus, Sir Seguaredus, Sir Gryfflé Le Fice de Dieu, Sir Brandolus, Sir Aglival.  Wait, I'm not done yet. Sir Tor, Sir Gauter, Sir Gillimer, the very best man in my subordinate nine, what a handy right-fielder he was. Sir Reynolds, three brothers, Sir Daimus, Sir Priamus, Sir Kay, the stranger. My peerless shortstop. I've seen him catch a daisy-cutter in his teeth. Come, I can't stand this. Sir Adrien, Sir Lambagus, Sir Hermendy, Sir Perthelope, Sir Perimonus, and whom do you think? Rush, go on. Sir Geharus and Sir Gareth, both. Oh, incredible! Their love for Lancelot was indestructible. Well, it was an accident. They were simply onlookers. They were unarmed, and were merely there to witness the Queen's punishment. Sir Lancelot smoked down whoever came in the way of his blind fury, and he killed these without noticing who they were. Here is an instantaneous photograph one of our boys got of the battle. It's for sale on every newsstand. There, the figures nearest the Queen are Sir Lancelot, with his sword up, and Sir Gareth gasping his last breath. You can catch the agony in the Queen's face through the curling smoke. It's a rattling battle-picture. Indeed it is. We must take good care of it. Its historical value is incalculable. Go on. Well, the rest of the tale is just war, pure and simple. Lancelot retreated to his town and castle of joyous guard, and gathered there a great following of knights. The King, with a great host, went there, and there was desperate fighting during several days, and, as a result, all the plain around was paved with corpses and cast iron. Then the Church patched up a peace between Arthur and Lancelot, and the Queen, and everybody—everybody but Sir Gawain. He was bitter about the slaying of his brothers Gareth and Gareth, and would not be appeased. He notified Lancelot to get him thence, and make swift preparation, and look to be soon attacked. So Lancelot sailed to his duchy of Guyane with his following, and Gawain soon followed with an army, and he beguiled Arthur to go with him. Arthur left the Kingdom in Sir Mordred's hands until you should return. Ah, a King's customary wisdom. Yes, Sir Mordred set himself at once to work to make his kingship permanent. He was going to marry Guinevere as a first move, but she fled and shut herself up in the Tower of London. Mordred attacked. The Bishop of Canterbury dropped down on him with the interdict. The King returned. Mordred fought him at Dover, at Canterbury, and again at Barham Down. Then there was talk of peace and a composition. Terms? Mordred to have Cornwall and Kent during Arthur's life, and the whole Kingdom afterward. Well, upon my word. My dream of a Republic to be a dream, and so remain. Yes, the two armies lay near Salisbury. Gawain—Gawain's head is at Dover Castle. He fell in the fight there. Gawain appeared to Arthur in a dream, at least his ghost did, and warned him to refrain from conflict for a month, let the delay cost what it might. But battle was precipitated by an accident. Arthur had given order that if a sword was raised during the consultation over the proposed treaty with Mordred, sound the trumpet and fall on, for he had no confidence in Mordred. Mordred had given a similar order to his people. Well, by and by an adder bit a knight's heel. The knight forgot all about the order and made a slash at the adder with his sword. Inside of half a minute those two prodigious hosts came together with a crash. They butchered away all day. Then the king—however, we have started something fresh since you left. Our paper has— No. What is that? War correspondence. Why, that's good. Yes, the paper was booming right along, for the interdict made no impression, got no grip, while the war lasted. I had war correspondence with both armies. I will finish that battle by reading you what one of the boys says. Then the king looked about him, and then was he aware of all his hosts and all of his good knights, were left no more on live but two knights, that was Sir Lucan de Butler and his brother Sir Bedivere, and they were full sore wounded. Ye zoom, mercy, said the king, where are all my noble knights becoming? Alas, that ever I should see this doleful day. For now, said Arthur, I am coming to my end, but would to God I wished where were that traitor and Sir Mordred that had cost all this mischief. Then was King Arthur where, where Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among a great heap of dead men. Now give me my spear, said Arthur unto Sir Lucan, for yonder I have aspired the traitor that all this woe hath wrought. Sir, let him be, said Sir Lucan, for he is unhappy. If he pass this unhappy day, he shall be right well revenged upon him.   For blessed be God ye have won the field, for here we be three on live, and with Sir Mordred is none on live. And if ye leave off now, this wicked day of destiny is past. Tide me death, betide me life, said the king. Now I see him yonder alone. He shall never escape mine hands, for at a better veil shall I never have him. God speed ye well, said Sir Bedivere. Then the king got his spear in both his hands, and ran towards Sir Mordred, crying, Traitor, now is thy death day come. And when Sir Mordred heard Sir Arthur, he ran until him with his sword drawn in his hand. And then King Arthur smote Sir Mordred under the shield, with a foine of his spear throughout the body more than a fathom. And when Sir Mordred felt that he had his death wound, he thrust himself with the might that he had up to the butt of King Arthur's spear. And right so he smote his father Arthur with his sword holding in both his hands, on the side of the head, that the sword pierced the helmet and the brain pan, and there with also Mordred fell stark dead to the earth, and the noble Arthur fell in a swoon to the earth, and there he swooned off times. That is a good piece of war correspondence, Clarence.  Well, is the king all right? Did he get well? Poor soul, no, he is dead. I was utterly stunned. It had not seemed to me that any wound could be mortal to him. And the queen, Clarence. She is a nun in Omsbury. What changes? In such a short while. It is inconceivable. What next, I wonder? I can tell you what next. Well, stake our lives and stand by them. What do you mean by that? The church is master now. The interdict included you with Mordred. It is not to be removed while you remain alive. The clans are gathering. The church has gathered all the knights that are left alive, and as soon as you are discovered we shall have business on our hands. Stuff. With our deadly scientific war material, with our hosts of trained, save your breath we haven't sixty faithful left. What are you saying? Our schools? Our colleges? Our vast workshops? When those knights come, those establishments will empty themselves and go over to the enemy. Did you think you had educated the superstition out of those people? I certainly did think it. Well, then you may unthink it. They stood every strain easily until the interdict. Since then they merely put on a bold outside. At heart they are quaking. Make up your mind to it when the armies come the mask will fall. It's hard news. We are lost. They will turn our own science against us. No they won't. Why? Because I and a handful of the faithful have blocked that game. I'll tell you what I've done and what moved me to it. Smart as you are the church was smarter. It was the church that sent you cruising through her servants the doctors. Clarence! It is the truth. I know it. Every officer of your ship was the church's picked servant, and so was every man of the crew. Oh, come! It is just as I tell you. I did not find out these things at once, but I found them out finally. Did you send me verbal information by the commander of the ship to the effect that upon his return to you, with supplies, you were going to leave Cadiz? Cadiz? I haven't been at Cadiz at all. Going to leave Cadiz and crews in distances indefinitely for the health of your family? Did you send me that word? Of course not. I would have written, wouldn't I? Naturally. I was troubled and suspicious. When the commander sailed again I managed to ship a spy with him. I have never heard a vessel or spy since. I gave myself two weeks to hear from you in. Then I resolved to send a ship to Cadiz. There was a reason why I didn't. Why was that? Our navy had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Also, as suddenly and as mysteriously, the railway and telegraph and telephone service ceased. The men all deserted. Polls were cut down. The church laid a ban upon the electric light. I had to be up and doing and straight off. Your life was safe. Nobody in these kingdoms but Merlin would venture to touch such a magician as you without ten thousand men at his back. I had nothing to think of but how to put preparations in the best trim against your coming. I felt safe myself. Nobody would be anxious to touch a pet of yours. So this is what I did. From our various works I selected all the men, boys I mean, whose faithfulness under whatsoever pressure I could swear to, and I called them together secretly and gave them their instructions. There are fifty-two of them, none younger than fourteen, and none above seventeen years old. Why did you select boys? Because all the others were born in an atmosphere of superstition and reared in it. It is in their blood and bones. We imagined we had educated it out of them. They thought so, too. The interdict woke them up like a thunder clap. It revealed them to themselves, and it revealed them to me, too. With boys it was different. Such as have been under our training from seven to ten years have had no acquaintance with the church's terrors, and it was among these that I found my fifty-two. As a next move I paid a private visit to that old cave of Merlin's, not the small one, the big one. Yes, the one where we secretly established our first great electric plant when I was projecting a miracle. Just so. And as that miracle hadn't become necessary then, I thought it might be a good idea to utilize the plant now. I've provisioned the cave for a siege. A good idea, first rate idea. I think so. I placed four of my boys there as a guard, inside and out of sight. Nobody was to be hurt, while outside, but any attempt to enter. Well, we said just let anybody try it. Then I went out into the hills, and uncovered and cut the secret wires which connected your bedroom with the wires that go to the dynamite deposits, under all our vast factories, mills, workshops, magazines, etc., and about midnight I and my boys turned out and connected that wire with the cave. And nobody but you and I suspects where the other end of it goes to. We laid it underground, of course, and it was all finished in a couple of hours or so. We shan't have to leave our fortress now when we want to blow up our civilization. It was the right move and the natural one, military necessity, and the changed condition of things. Well, what changes have come? We expected to be besieged in the palace some time or other, but however, go on. Next we built a wire fence. Wire fence? Yes, you dropped the hint of it yourself two or three years ago. Oh, I remember, the time the church tried her strength against us the first time, and presently thought it wise to wait for a hopefuler season. Well, how have you arranged the fence? I start twelve immensely strong wires, naked, not insulated, from a big dynamo in the cave, dynamo with no brushes except a positive and a negative one. Yes, that's right. The wires go out from the cave and fence in a circle of level ground a hundred yards in diameter. They make twelve independent fences, ten feet apart, that is to say, twelve circles within circles, and their ends come into the cave again. Right. Go on. The fences are fastened to heavy, oaken posts only three feet apart, and these posts are sunk five feet in the ground. That is good and strong. Yes, the wires have no ground connection outside the cave. They go out from the positive brush of the dynamo. There is a ground connection through the negative brush, the other ends of the wire return to the cave, and each is grounded independently. No, no, that won't do. Why? It's too expensive, uses up force for nothing. You don't want any ground connection except the one through the negative brush. The other end of every wire must be brought back into the cave and fastened independently, and without any ground connection. Now then, observe the economy of it. A cavalry charge hurls itself against the fence. You are using no power. You are spending no money. For there is only one ground connection till those horses come against the wire. The moment they touch it they form a connection with a negative brush through the ground and drop dead. Don't you see? You are using no energy until it is needed.  Oh yes, the single ground connection. Of course! I don't know how I overlooked that. It's not only cheaper, but it's more effectual than the other way, for if wires break or get tangled, no harm is done. No, especially if we have a tell-tale in the cave and disconnect the broken wire. Well, go on, the gatlings. Yes, that's arranged. In the center of the inner circle on a spacious platform six feet high I've grouped a battery of thirteen gatling guns and provided plenty of ammunition. That's it. They command every approach, and when the church's knights arrive there's going to be music. The brow of the precipice over the cave. I've got a wire fence there and a gatling. They won't drop any rocks down on us. Well, and the glass cylinder dynamite torpedoes? That's attended to. It's the prettiest garden that was ever planted. It's a belt forty feet wide and goes around the outer fence. Distance between it and the fence one hundred yards. Kind of neutral ground that space is. There isn't a single square yard of that whole belt but is equipped with a torpedo. We laid them on the surface of the ground and sprinkled a layer of sand over them. It's an innocent looking garden, but you let a man start in to hoe it once, and you'll see. You tested the torpedoes? Well, I was going to, but—but what? Why, it's an immense oversight not to apply a test? Yes, I know. But they're all right. I laid a few in the public road beyond our lines, and they've been tested. Oh, that alters the case. Who did it? A church committee? How kind. Yes, they came to command us to make submission. You see, they didn't really come to test the torpedoes. That was merely an incident. Did the committee make a report? Yes, they made one. You could have heard it a mile. Unanimous? That was the nature of it. After that I put up some signs for the protection of future committees, and we've had no intruders since. Clarence, you've done a world of work and done it perfectly. We had plenty of time for it. There wasn't any occasion for hurry. We sat silent a while, thinking. Then my mind was made up, and I said, Yes, everything is ready. Everything is ship-shape. No detail is wanting. I know what to do now. So do I. Sit down and wait. No, sir. Rise up and strike. Do you mean it? Yes, indeed. The D-fensive isn't in my line, and the off-fensive is. That is, when I hold a fair hand, two-thirds as good a hand as the enemy, oh, yes, we'll rise up and strike. That's our game. A hundred one, you are right. When does the performance begin? Now we'll proclaim the Republic. Well, that will precipitate things, sure enough. It will make them buzz, I tell you. England will be a hornet's nest before noon tomorrow, if the church's hand hasn't lost its cunning, and we know it hasn't. Now you write, and I'll dictate thus. Proclamation. Be it known unto all, whereas the king, having died and left no air, it becomes my duty to continue the executive authority vested in me, until a government shall have been created and set in motion. The monarchy has lapsed. It no longer exists. By consequence all political power has reverted to its original source, the people of the nation. With the monarchy, its several adjuncts died also. Wherefore there is no longer a nobility, no longer a privileged class, no longer an established church. All men are become exactly equal. They are upon one common level, and religion is free. A republic is hereby proclaimed, as being the natural estate of a nation when other authority has ceased. It is the duty of the British people to meet together immediately and by their votes elect representatives and deliver into their hands the government. I signed it, the boss, and dated it from Merlin's Cave. Clarence said, Why, that tells where we are, and invites them to call right away. That is the idea. We strike, by the proclamation. Then it's their innings. Now have the thing set up and printed and posted, right off. That is, give the order. Then, if you've got a couple of bicycles handy at the foot of the hill, hold for Merlin's Cave. I shall be ready in ten minutes. What a cyclone there is going to be to-morrow when this piece of paper gets to work. It's a pleasant old palace this is. I wonder if we shall ever again—but never mind about that. CHAPTER XIV 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!  All England was marching against us. Truly this was more than I had bargained for.  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 armor 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 armor. 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 hoofs. Great Scott! 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 of 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 defenses. 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.  Loud and long continued applause. I picketed the great embankments thrown up around our lines by the dynamite explosion, merely a lookout 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. Mines. The capableest 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 in 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 humoured 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 none. 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 of permanent rest. Then to business. I tested the electric signals from the gotling 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. They were 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 focus straightway 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?  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, it 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, except 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?   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 armor of offense 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.  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 for ever. 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. Stand to 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. END OF CHAPTER 43 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 Malian 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 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, thirteen centuries. I am Merlin.  His mouth is spread open yet, apparently, he is still laughing.  The boss has never stirred, sleeps like a stone. If he does not wake today 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!  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. A sleep, 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.  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 44 and End of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain