Mark
Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Chapter 37
AN AWFUL PREDICAMENT
SLEEP? It was impossible. It would naturally have been impossible
in that noisome cavern of a jail, with its mangy crowd of drunken,
quarrelsome, and song-singing rapscallions. But the thing that made
sleep all the more a thing not to be dreamed of, was my racking impatience
to get out of this place and find out the whole size of what might
have happened yonder in the slave-quarters in consequence of that
intolerable miscarriage of mine.
It was a long night, but the morning got around at last. I made
a full and frank explanation to the court. I said I was a slave, the
property of the great Earl Grip, who had arrived just after dark at
the Tabard inn in the village on the other side of the water, and
had stopped there over night, by compulsion, he being taken deadly
sick with a strange and sudden disorder. I had been ordered to cross
to the city in all haste and bring the best physician; I was doing
my best; naturally I was running with all my might; the night was
dark, I ran against this common person here, who seized me by the
throat and began to pummel me, although I told him my errand, and
implored him, for the sake of the great earl my master's mortal peril
--The common person interrupted and said it was a lie; and was going
to explain how I rushed upon him and attacked him without a word --
"Silence, sirrah!" from the court. "Take him hence
and give him a few stripes whereby to teach him how to treat the servant
of a nobleman after a different fashion another time. Go!"
Then the court begged my pardon, and hoped I would not fail to tell
his lordship it was in no wise the court's fault that this high-handed
thing had happened. I said I would make it all right, and so took
my leave. Took it just in time, too; he was starting to ask me why
I didn't fetch out these facts the moment I was arrested. I said I
would if I had thought of it -- which was true -- but that I was so
battered by that man that all my wit was knocked out of me -- and
so forth and so on, and got myself away, still mumbling. I didn't
wait for breakfast. No grass grew under my feet. I was soon at the
slave quarters. Empty -- everybody gone! That is, everybody except
one body -- the slave-master's. It lay there all battered to pulp;
and all about were the evidences of a terrific fight. There was a
rude board coffin on a cart at the door, and workmen, assisted by
the police, were thinning a road through the gaping crowd in order
that they might bring it in.
I picked out a man humble enough in life to condescend to talk with
one so shabby as I, and got his account of the matter.
"There were sixteen slaves here. They rose against their master
in the night, and thou seest how it ended."
"Yes. How did it begin?"
"There was no witness but the slaves. They said the slave that
was most valuable got free of his bonds and escaped in some strange
way -- by magic arts 'twas thought, by reason that he had no key,
and the locks were neither broke nor in any wise injured. When the
master discovered his loss, he was mad with despair, and threw himself
upon his people with his heavy stick, who resisted and brake his back
and in other and divers ways did give him hurts that brought him swiftly
to his end."
"This is dreadful. It will go hard with the slaves, no doubt,
upon the trial."
"Marry, the trial is over."
"Over!"
"Would they be a week, think you -- and the matter so simple?
They were not the half of a quarter of an hour at it."
"Why, I don't see how they could determine which were the guilty
ones in so short a time."
"Which ones? Indeed, they considered not particulars like to
that. They condemned them in a body. Wit ye not the law? -- which
men say the Romans left behind them here when they went -- that if
one slave killeth his master all the slaves of that man must die for
it."
"True. I had forgotten. And when will these die?"
"Belike within a four and twenty hours; albeit some say they
will wait a pair of days more, if peradventure they may find the missing
one meantime."
The missing one! It made me feel uncomfortable.
"Is it likely they will find him?"
"Before the day is spent -- yes. They seek him everywhere.
They stand at the gates of the town, with certain of the slaves who
will discover him to them if he cometh, and none can pass out but
he will be first examined."
"Might one see the place where the rest are confined?"
"The outside of it -- yes. The inside of it -- but ye will
not want to see that."
I took the address of that prison for future reference and then
sauntered off. At the first second-hand clothing shop I came to, up
a back street, I got a rough rig suitable for a common seaman who
might be going on a cold voyage, and bound up my face with a liberal
bandage, saying I had a toothache. This concealed my worst bruises.
It was a transformation. I no longer resembled my former self. Then
I struck out for that wire, found it and followed it to its den. It
was a little room over a butcher's shop -- which meant that business
wasn't very brisk in the telegraphic line. The young chap in charge
was drowsing at his table. I locked the door and put the vast key
in my bosom. This alarmed the young fellow, and he was going to make
a noise; but I said:
"Save your wind; if you open your mouth you are dead, sure.
Tackle your instrument. Lively, now! Call Camelot."
"This doth amaze me! How should such as you know aught of such
matters as -- "
"Call Camelot! I am a desperate man. Call Camelot, or get away
from the instrument and I will do it myself."
"What -- you?"
"Yes -- certainly. Stop gabbling. Call the palace."
He made the call.
"Now, then, call Clarence."
"Clarence who?"
"Never mind Clarence who. Say you want Clarence; you'll get
an answer."
He did so. We waited five nerve-straining minutes -- ten minutes
-- how long it did seem! -- and then came a click that was as familiar
to me as a human voice; for Clarence had been my own pupil.
"Now, my lad, vacate! They would have known MY touch, maybe,
and so your call was surest; but I'm all right now."
He vacated the place and cocked his ear to listen -- but it didn't
win. I used a cipher. I didn't waste any time in sociabilities with
Clarence, but squared away for business, straight-off -- thus:
"The king is here and in danger. We were captured and brought
here as slaves. We should not be able to prove our identity -- and
the fact is, I am not in a position to try. Send a telegram for the
palace here which will carry conviction with it."
His answer came straight back:
"They don't know anything about the telegraph; they haven't
had any experience yet, the line to London is so new. Better not venture
that. They might hang you. Think up something else."
Might hang us! Little he knew how closely he was crowding the facts.
I couldn't think up anything for the moment. Then an idea struck me,
and I started it along:
"Send five hundred picked knights with Launcelot in the lead;
and send them on the jump. Let them enter by the southwest gate, and
look out for the man with a white cloth around his right arm."
The answer was prompt:
"They shall start in half an hour."
"All right, Clarence; now tell this lad here that I'm a friend
of yours and a dead-head; and that he must be discreet and say nothing
about this visit of mine."
The instrument began to talk to the youth and I hurried away. I
fell to ciphering. In half an hour it would be nine o'clock. Knights
and horses in heavy armor couldn't travel very fast. These would make
the best time they could, and now that the ground was in good condition,
and no snow or mud, they would probably make a seven-mile gait; they
would have to change horses a couple of times; they would arrive about
six, or a little after; it would still be plenty light enough; they
would see the white cloth which I should tie around my right arm,
and I would take command. We would surround that prison and have the
king out in no time. It would be showy and picturesque enough, all
things considered, though I would have preferred noonday, on account
of the more theatrical aspect the thing would have.
Now, then, in order to increase the strings to my bow, I thought
I would look up some of those people whom I had formerly recognized,
and make myself known. That would help us out of our scrape, without
the knights. But I must proceed cautiously, for it was a risky business.
I must get into sumptuous raiment, and it wouldn't do to run and jump
into it. No, I must work up to it by degrees, buying suit after suit
of clothes, in shops wide apart, and getting a little finer article
with each change, until I should finally reach silk and velvet, and
be ready for my project. So I started.
But the scheme fell through like scat! The first corner I turned,
I came plump upon one of our slaves, snooping around with a watchman.
I coughed at the moment, and he gave me a sudden look that bit right
into my marrow. I judge he thought he had heard that cough before.
I turned immediately into a shop and worked along down the counter,
pricing things and watching out of the corner of my eye. Those people
had stopped, and were talking together and looking in at the door.
I made up my mind to get out the back way, if there was a back way,
and I asked the shopwoman if I could step out there and look for the
escaped slave, who was believed to be in hiding back there somewhere,
and said I was an officer in disguise, and my pard was yonder at the
door with one of the murderers in charge, and would she be good enough
to step there and tell him he needn't wait, but had better go at once
to the further end of the back alley and be ready to head him off
when I rousted him out.
She was blazing with eagerness to see one of those already celebrated
murderers, and she started on the errand at once. I slipped out the
back way, locked the door behind me, put the key in my pocket and
started off, chuckling to myself and comfortable.
Well, I had gone and spoiled it again, made another mistake. A double
one, in fact. There were plenty of ways to get rid of that officer
by some simple and plausible device, but no, I must pick out a picturesque
one; it is the crying defect of my character. And then, I had ordered
my procedure upon what the officer, being human, would naturally do;
whereas when you are least expecting it, a man will now and then go
and do the very thing which it's not natural for him to do. The natural
thing for the officer to do, in this case, was to follow straight
on my heels; he would find a stout oaken door, securely locked, between
him and me; before he could break it down, I should be far away and
engaged in slipping into a succession of baffling disguises which
would soon get me into a sort of raiment which was a surer protection
from meddling law-dogs in Britain than any amount of mere innocence
and purity of character. But instead of doing the natural thing, the
officer took me at my word, and followed my instructions. And so,
as I came trotting out of that cul de sac, full of satisfaction with
my own cleverness, he turned the corner and I walked right into his
handcuffs. If I had known it was a cul de sac -- however, there isn't
any excusing a blunder like that, let it go. Charge it up to profit
and loss.
Of course, I was indignant, and swore I had just come ashore from
a long voyage, and all that sort of thing -- just to see, you know,
if it would deceive that slave. But it didn't. He knew me. Then I
reproached him for betraying me. He was more surprised than hurt.
He stretched his eyes wide, and said:
"What, wouldst have me let thee, of all men, escape and not
hang with us, when thou'rt the very cause of our hanging? Go to!"
"Go to" was their way of saying "I should smile!"
or "I like that!" Queer talkers, those people.
Well, there was a sort of bastard justice in his view of the case,
and so I dropped the matter. When you can't cure a disaster by argument,
what is the use to argue? It isn't my way. So I only said:
"You're not going to be hanged. None of us are."
Both men laughed, and the slave said:
"Ye have not ranked as a fool -- before. You might better keep
your reputation, seeing the strain would not be for long."
"It will stand it, I reckon. Before to-morrow we shall be out
of prison, and free to go where we will, besides."
The witty officer lifted at his left ear with his thumb, made a
rasping noise in his throat, and said:
"Out of prison -- yes -- ye say true. And free likewise to
go where ye will, so ye wander not out of his grace the Devil's sultry
realm."
I kept my temper, and said, indifferently:
"Now I suppose you really think we are going to hang within
a day or two."
"I thought it not many minutes ago, for so the thing was decided
and proclaimed."
"Ah, then you've changed your mind, is that it?"
"Even that. I only thought, then; I know, now."
I felt sarcastical, so I said:
"Oh, sapient servant of the law, condescend to tell us, then,
what you know."
"That ye will all be hanged to-day, at mid-afternoon! Oho!
that shot hit home! Lean upon me."
The fact is I did need to lean upon somebody. My knights couldn't
arrive in time. They would be as much as three hours too late. Nothing
in the world could save the King of England; nor me, which was more
important. More important, not merely to me, but to the nation --
the only nation on earth standing ready to blossom into civilization.
I was sick. I said no more, there wasn't anything to say. I knew what
the man meant; that if the missing slave was found, the postponement
would be revoked, the execution take place to-day. Well, the missing
slave was found.
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