The Complete Novels of Mark Twain and the Complete Biography of Mark Twain (215 page)

The parting—ah, 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 the wide highway of salt water all to myself.  There were ships in the harbor, 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 belfry, 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 warily.  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 traveled 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 at his heart. The Tower showed recent war-scars.  Verily, much had been happening.

Of course, I meant to take the train for 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 differed 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 sun 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 that 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 about 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.

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 milrays 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 Guenever, it wouldn't have come so early; but it would have come, anyway.  It would have come on your own account by and by; by luck, it happened to come on the queen's."

"
And
Sir Launcelot's?"

"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 askance at the queen and Sir Launcelot—"

"Yes, King Arthur's."

"—and only one heart that was without suspicion—"

"Yes—the king's; 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 stock-board.  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 give-away.  What does Sir Launcelot 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 15 and 16 and along there that wasn't worth 10.  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 283!"

"Good land!"

"He skinned them alive, and they deserved it—anyway, the whole kingdom rejoiced.  Well, among the flayed were Sir Agravaine and Sir Mordred, nephews to the king.  End of the first act.  Act second, scene first, an apartment in Carlisle castle, where the court had gone for a few days' hunting.  Persons present, the whole tribe of the king's nephews.  Mordred and Agravaine propose to call the guileless Arthur's attention to Guenever and Sir Launcelot.  Sir Gawaine, Sir Gareth, and Sir Gaheris will have nothing to do with it.  A dispute ensues, with loud talk; in the midst of it enter the king.  Mordred and Agravaine spring their devastating tale upon him.  
Tableau
.  A trap is laid for Launcelot, by the king's command, and Sir Launcelot walks into it.  He made it sufficiently uncomfortable for the ambushed witnesses—to wit, Mordred, Agravaine, and twelve knights of lesser rank, for he killed every one of them but Mordred; but of course that couldn't straighten matters between Launcelot 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 Launcelot's party."

"Yes—that was the way of it.  The king sent the queen to the stake, proposing to purify her with fire.  Launcelot and his knights rescued her, and in doing it slew certain good old friends of yours and mine—in fact, some of the best we ever had; to wit, Sir Belias le Orgulous, Sir Segwarides, Sir Griflet le Fils de Dieu, Sir Brandiles, Sir Aglovale—"

"Oh, you tear out my heartstrings."

"—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 Reynold's three brothers, Sir Damus, Sir Priamus, Sir Kay the Stranger—"

"My peerless short-stop!  I've seen him catch a daisy-cutter in his teeth.  Come, I can't stand this!"

"—Sir Driant, Sir Lambegus, Sir Herminde, Sir Pertilope, Sir Perimones, and—whom do you think?"

"Rush!  Go on."

"Sir Gaheris, and Sir Gareth—both!"

"Oh, incredible!  Their love for Launcelot 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 Launcelot smote 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 news-stand.  There—the figures nearest the queen are Sir Launcelot with his sword up, and Sir Gareth gasping his latest 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.  Launcelot retreated to his town and castle of Joyous Gard, 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 Launcelot and the queen and everybody—everybody but Sir Gawaine. He was bitter about the slaying of his brothers, Gareth and Gaheris, and would not be appeased.  He notified Launcelot to get him thence, and make swift preparation, and look to be soon attacked. So Launcelot sailed to his Duchy of Guienne with his following, and Gawaine 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 Guenever, 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.  Gawaine—Gawaine's head is at Dover Castle, he fell in the fight there—Gawaine 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 correspondents with both armies.  I will finish that battle by reading you what one of the boys says:

"That is a good piece of war correspondence, Clarence; you are a first-rate newspaper man.  Well—is the king all right?  Did he get well?"

"Poor soul, no.  He is dead."