Mark
Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Chapter 38
SIR LAUNCELOT AND KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE
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. There we sat, on our tall scaffold, the butt
of the hate and mockery of all those enemies. 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 catcalls, 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 it went for nothing. He put on all his majesty and sat under
this rain 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.
Knights practising on the quiet. There was a jerk, and the 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 plumes streamed,
how the sun flamed and flashed from the endless procession of webby
wheels!
I waved my right arm as Launcelot swept in -- he recognized my rag
-- I tore away noose and bandage, and shouted:
"On your knees, every rascal of you, and salute the king! Who
fails shall sup in hell to-night!"
I always use that high style when I'm climaxing an effect. Well,
it was noble to see Launcelot and the boys swarm up onto that scaffold
and heave 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 isg something peculiarly grand about the gait and bearing
of a king, after all.
I was immensely satisfied. Take the whole situation all around,
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."
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