Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0127/01272.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01272}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Chapter 6}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{king
darkness
eclipse
sun
how
moment
time
world
come
like}
$Date{1889}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1889

Chapter 6

The Eclipse

     In the stillness and the darkness, realization soon began to supplement
knowledge.  The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but when you come to
realize your fact, it takes on color.  It is all the difference between
hearing of a man being stabbed to the heart, and seeing it done.  In the
stillness and the darkness, the knowledge that I was in deadly danger took to
itself deeper and deeper meaning all the time; a something which was
realization crept inch by inch through my veins and turned me cold.

     But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like these, as
soon as a man's mercury has got down to a certain point there comes a
revulsion, and he rallies.  Hope springs up, and cheerfulness along with it,
and then he is in good shape to do something for himself, if anything can be
done.  When my rally came, it came with a bound.  I said to myself that my
eclipse would be sure to save me, and make me the greatest man in the kingdom
besides; and straightway my mercury went up to the top of the tube, and my
solicitudes all vanished.  I was as happy a man as there was in the world.  I
was even impatient for tomorrow to come, I so wanted to gather in that great
triumph and be the center of all the nation's wonder and reverence.  Besides,
in a business way it would be the making of me; I knew that.

     Meantime there was one thing which had got pushed into the background of
my mind.  That was the half conviction that when the nature of my proposed
calamity should be reported to those superstitious people, it would have such
an effect that they would want to compromise.  So, by and by when I heard
footsteps coming, that thought was recalled to me, and I said to myself, "As
sure as anything, it's the compromise.  Well, if it is good, all right, I will
accept; but if it isn't, I mean to stand my ground and play my hand for all
it is worth."

     The door opened, and some men-at-arms appeared.  The leader said -

     "The stake is ready.  Come!"

     The stake!  The strength went out of me, and I almost fell down.  It is
hard to get one's breath at such a time, such lumps come into one's throat,
and such gaspings, but as soon as I could speak, I said:

     "But this is a mistake - the execution is tomorrow."

     "Order changed; been set forward a day.  Haste thee!"

     I was lost.  There was no help for me.  I was dazed, stupefied; I had no
command over myself; I only wandered purposelessly about, like one out of his
mind; so the soldiers took hold of me, and pulled me along with them, out of
the cell and along the maze of underground corridors, and finally into the
fierce glare of daylight and the upper world.  As we stepped into the vast
inclosed court of the castle I got a shock; for the first thing I saw was the
stake, standing in the center, and near it the piled fagots and a monk.  On
all four sides of the court the seated multitudes rose rank above rank,
forming sloping terraces that were rich with color.  The king and queen sat
in their thrones, the most conspicuous figures there, of course.

     To note all this, occupied but a second.  The next second Clarence had
slipped from some place of concealment and was pouring news into my ear, his
eyes beaming with triumph and gladness.  He said:

     "'Tis through me the change was wrought!  And main hard have I worked to
do it, too.  But when I revealed to them the calamity in store, and saw how
mighty was the terror it did engender, then saw I also that this was the time
to strike!  Wherefore I diligently pretended, unto this and that and the
other one, that your power against the sun could not reach its full until the
morrow; and so if any would save the sun and the world, you must be slain
today, whilst your enchantments are but in the weaving and lack potency.
Odsbodikins, it was but a dull lie, a most indifferent invention, but you
should have seen them seize it and swallow it, in the frenzy of their fright,
as it were salvation sent from heaven; and all the while was I laughing in my
sleeve the one moment, to see them so cheaply deceived, and glorifying God
the next, that He was content to let the meanest of His creatures be His
instrument to the saving of thy life.  Ah, how happy has the matter sped!
You will not need to do the sun a real hurt - ah, forget not that, on your
soul forget it not!  Only make a little darkness - only the littlest little
darkness, mind, and cease with that.  It will be sufficient.  They will see
that I spoke falsely, - being ignorant, as they will fancy - and with the
falling of the first shadow of that darkness you shall see them go mad with
fear; and they will set you free and make you great!  Go to thy triumph, now!
But remember - ah, good friendI implore thee remember my supplication, and
do the blessed sun no hurt.  For my sake, thy true friend."

     I choked out some words through my grief and misery; as much as to say I
would spare the sun; for which the lad's eyes paid me back with such deep and
loving gratitude that I had not the heart to tell him his good-hearted
foolishness had ruined me and sent me to my death.

     As the soldiers assisted me across the court the stillness was so
profound that if I had been blindfold I should have supposed I was in a
solitude instead of walled in by four thousand people.  There was not a
movement perceptible in those masses of humanity; they were as rigid as stone
images, and as pale; and dread sat upon every countenance.  This hush
continued while I was being chained to the stake; it still continued while
the fagots were carefully and tediously piled about my ankles, my knees, my
thighs, my body.  Then there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if possible, and
a man knelt down at my feet with a blazing torch; the multitude strained
forward, gazing, and parting slightly from their seats without knowing it;
the monk raised his hands above my head, and his eyes toward the blue sky,
and began some words in Latin; in this attitude he droned on and on, a little
while, and then stopped.  I waited two or three moments: then looked up; he
was standing there petrified.  With a common impulse the multitude rose
slowly up and stared into the sky.  I followed their eyes; as sure as guns,
there was my eclipse beginning!  The life went boiling through my veins; I
was a new man!  The rim of black spread slowly into the sun's disk, my heart
beat higher and higher, and still the assemblage and the priest stared into
the sky, motionless.  I knew that this gaze would be turned upon me, next.
When it was, I was ready.  I was in one of the most grand attitudes I ever
struck, with my arm stretched up pointing to the sun.  It was a noble effect.
You could see the shudder sweep the mass like a wave.  Two shouts rang out,
one close upon the heels of the other:

     "Apply the torch!"

     "I forbid it!"

     The one was from Merlin, the other from the king.  Merlin started from
his place - to apply the torch himself, I judged.  I said:

     "Stay where you are.  If any man moves - even the king - before I give
him leave, I will blast him with thunder, I will consume him with lightnings!"

     The multitude sank meekly into their seats, and I was just expecting
they would.  Merlin hesitated a moment or two, and I was on pins and needles
during that little while.  Then he sat down, and I took a good breath; for I
knew I was master of the situation now.  The king said:

     "Be merciful, fair sir, and essay no further in this perilous matter,
lest disaster follow.  It was reported to us that your powers could not
attain unto their full strength until the morrow; but" -

     "Your Majesty thinks the report may have been a lie?  It was a lie."

     That made an immense effect; up went appealing hands everywhere, and the
king was assailed with a storm of supplications that I might be bought off at
any price, and the calamity stayed.  The king was eager to comply.  He said:

     "Name any terms, reverend sir, even to the halving of my kingdom; but
banish this calamity, spare the sun!"

     My fortune was made.  I would have taken him up in a minute, but I
couldn't stop an eclipse; the thing was out of the question.  So I asked time
to consider.  The king said -

     "How long - ah, how long, good sir?  Be merciful; look, it groweth
darker, moment by moment.  Prithee how long?"

     "Not long.  Half an hour - maybe an hour."

     There were a thousand pathetic protests, but I couldn't shorten up any,
for I couldn't remember how long a total eclipse lasts.  I was in a puzzled
condition, anyway, and wanted to think.  Something was wrong about that
eclipse, and the fact was very unsettling.  If this wasn't the one I was
after, how was I to tell whether this was the sixth century, or nothing but a
dream?  Dear me, if I could only prove it was the latter!  Here was a glad
new hope.  If the boy was right about the date, and this was surely the
twentieth, it wasn't the sixth century.  I reached for the monk's sleeve, in
considerable excitement, and asked him what day of the month it was.

     Hang him, he said it was the twenty-first!  It made the turn cold to
hear him.  I begged him not to make any mistake about it; but he was sure; he
knew it was the twenty-first.  So, that featherheaded boy had botched things
again!  The time of the day was right for the eclipse; I had seen that for
myself, in the beginning, by the dial that was nearby.  Yes, I was in King
Arthur's court, and I might as well make the most out of it I could.

     The darkness was steadily growing, the people becoming more and more
distressed.  I now said:

     "I have reflected, Sir King.  For a lesson, I will let this darkness
proceed, and spread night in the world; but whether I blot out the sun for
good, or restore it, shall rest with you.  These are the terms, to wit: You
shall remain king over all your dominions, and receive all the glories and
honors that belong to the kingship; but you shall appoint me your perpetual
minister and executive, and give me for my services one per cent of such
actual increase of revenue over and above its present amount as I may succeed
in creating for the state.  If I can't live on that, I shan't ask anybody to
give me a lift.  Is it satisfactory?"

     There was a prodigious roar of applause, and out of the midst of it the
king's voice rose, saying:

     "Away with his bonds, and set him free! and do him homage, high and low,
rich and poor, for he is become the king's right hand, is clothed with power
and authority, and his seat is upon the highest step of the throne!  Now
sweep away this creeping night, and bring the light and cheer again, that all
the world may bless thee."

     But I said:

     "That a common man should be shamed before the world, is nothing; but it
were dishonor to the king if any that saw his minister naked should not also
see him delivered from his shame.  If I might ask that my clothes be brought
again "

     "They are not meet," the king broke in.  "Fetch raiment of another sort;
clothe him like a prince!"

     My idea worked.  I wanted to keep things as they were till the eclipse
was total, otherwise they would be trying again to get me to dismiss the
darkness, and of course I couldn't do it.  Sending for the clothes gained
some delay, but not enough.  So I had to make another excuse.  I said it
would be but natural if the king should change his mind and repent to some
extent of what he had done under excitement; therefore I would let the
darkness grow a while, and if at the end of a reasonable time the king had
kept his mind the same, the darkness should be dismissed.  Neither the king
nor anybody else was satisfied with that arrangement, but I had to stick to
my point.

     It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I struggled
with those awkward sixth-century clothes.  It got to be pitch dark, at last,
and the multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold uncanny night breezes
fan through the place and see the stars come out and twinkle in the sky.  At
last the eclipse was total, and I was very glad of it, but everybody else was
in misery; which was quite natural.  I said:

     "The king, by his silence, still stands to the terms."  Then I lifted up
my hands - stood just so a moment - then I said, with the most awful
solemnity: "Let the enchantment dissolve and pass harmless away!"

     "There was no response, for a moment, in that deep darkness and that
graveyard hush.  But when the silver rim of the sun pushed itself out a
moment or two later, the assemblage broke loose with a vast shout and came
pouring down like a deluge to smother me with blessings and gratitude; and
Clarence was not the last of the wash, be sure.