I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I was hardly enough in my right mind to keep the run of a dispute that sprung up as to how I had better be killed, the possibility of the killing being doubted by some, be cause of the enchantment in my clothes. And yet it was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop-shops. Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail, to wit: many of the terms used in the most matter-of-fact way by this great assemblage of the first ladies and gentlemen in the land would have made a Comanche[27] blush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey the idea. However, I had read “Tom Jones,” and “Roderick Random,”[28] and other books of that kind, and knew that the first ladies and gentlemen in England had remained little or no cleaner in their talk, and in the morals and conduct which such talk implies, clear up to a hundred years ago; in fact, clear into our own nineteenth century – in which century, broadly speaking, the earliest samples of the real lady and real gentleman discoverable in English history – or in European history, for that matter – may be said to have made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, instead of putting the conversations into the mouths of his characters, had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We should have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft Lady Rowena[29] which would embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the unconsciously indelicate, all things are delicate. King Arthur’s people were not aware that they were indecent, and I had presence of mind enough not to mention it.
They were so troubled about my enchanted clothes that they were mightily relieved, at last, when old Merlin swept the difficulty away for them with a common-sense hint. He asked them why they were so dull – why didn’t it occur to them to strip me. In half a minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear, dear, to think of it: I was the only embarrassed person there. Everybody discussed me; and did it as unconcernedly as if I had been a cabbage. Queen Guenever was as naively interested as the rest, and said she had never seen anybody with legs just like mine before. It was the only compliment I got – if it was a compliment.
Finally, I was carried off in one direction, and my perilous clothes in another. I was shoved into a dark and narrow cell in a dungeon, with some scant remnants for dinner, some mouldy straw for a bed, and no end of rats for company.
Chapter 5
An Inspiration
I was so tired that even my fears were not able to keep me awake long.
When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been asleep a very long time. My first thought was, “Well, what an astonishing dream I’ve had! I reckon I’ve waked only just in time to keep from being hanged or drowned or burned, or something. …I’ll nap again till the whistle blows, and then I’ll go down to the arms-factory and have it out with Hercules.”
But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains and bolts, a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly, Clarence, stood before me! I gasped with surprise; my breath almost got away from me.
“What!” I said, “you here yet? Go along with the rest of the dream! scatter!”
But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and fell to making fun of my sorry plight.
“All right,” I said resignedly, “let the dream go on; I’m in no hurry.”
“Prithee what dream?”
“What dream? Why, the dream that I am in Arthur’s court – a person who never existed; and that I am talking to you, who are nothing but a work of imagination.”
“Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you’re to be burned to-morrow? Ho-ho – answer me that!”
The shock that went through me was distressing. I now began to reason that my situation was in the last degree serious, dream or no dream; for I knew by past experience of the life-like intensity of dreams, that to be burned to death, even in a dream, would be very far from being a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by any means, fair or foul, that I could contrive. So I said beseechingly:
“Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I’ve got, – for you are my friend, aren’t you? – don’t fail me; help me to devise some way of escaping from this place!”
“Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man, the corridors are in guard and keep of men-at-arms.”
“No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? Not many, I hope?”
“Full a score. One may not hope to escape.” After a pause – hesitatingly: “and there be other reasons – and weightier.”
“Other ones? What are they?”
“Well, they say – oh, but I daren’t, indeed I daren’t!”
“Why, poor lad, what is the matter? Why do you blench? why do you tremble so?”
“Oh, in sooth there is need! I do want to tell you, but…”
“Come, come, be brave, be a man – speak out, there’s a good lad!”
He hesitated, pulled one way by desire, the other way by fear; then he stole to the door and peeped out, listening; and finally crept close to me and put his mouth to my ear and told me his fearful news in a whisper, and with all the cowering apprehension of one who was venturing upon awful ground and speaking of things whose very mention might be freighted with death:
“Merlin, in his malice, has woven a spell about this dungeon, and there bides not the man in these kingdoms that would be desperate enough to essay to cross its lines with you! Now God pity me, I have told it! Ah, be kind to me, be merciful to a poor boy who means thee well; for an thou betray me I am lost!”
I laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had for some time; and shouted:
“Merlin has wrought a spell! Merlin, forsooth![30] That cheap old humbug, that maundering old ass? Bosh, pure bosh, the silliest bosh in the world! Why it does seem to me that of all the childish, idiotic, chuckleheaded, chicken-livered superstitions that ev – oh, damn Merlin!”
But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had half finished, and he was like to go out of his mind with fright.
“Oh, beware! these are awful words! Any moment these walls may crumble upon us if you say such things. Oh call them back before it is too late!”
Now this strange exhibition gave me a good idea and set me to thinking. If everybody about here was so honestly and sincerely afraid of Merlin’s pretended magic as Clarence was, certainly a superior man like me ought to be shrewd enough to contrive some way to take advantage of such a state of things. I went on thinking, and worked out plan. Then I said:
“Get up. Pull yourself together; look me in the eye. Do you know why I laughed?”
“No – but for our blessed Lady’s sake, do it no more.”
“Well, I’ll tell you why I laughed. Because I’m a magician myself.”
“Thou!” The boy recoiled a step, and caught his breath, for the thing hit him rather sudden; but the aspect which he took on was very, very respectful. I took quick note of that; it indicated that a humbug didn’t need to have