CHAPTER XIV
"DEFEND THEE, LORD"
I paid three pennies for my breakfast, and a most extravagantprice it was, too, seeing that one could have breakfasted a dozenpersons for that money; but I was feeling good by this time, andI had always been a kind of spendthrift anyway; and then thesepeople had wanted to give me the food for nothing, scant astheir provision was, and so it was a grateful pleasure to emphasizemy appreciation and sincere thankfulness with a good big financiallift where the money would do so much more good than it wouldin my helmet, where, these pennies being made of iron and notstinted in weight, my half-dollar's worth was a good deal of aburden to me. I spent money rather too freely in those days,it is true; but one reason for it was that I hadn't got theproportions of things entirely adjusted, even yet, after so longa sojourn in Britain--hadn't got along to where I was able toabsolutely realize that a penny in Arthur's land and a couple ofdollars in Connecticut were about one and the same thing: justtwins, as you may say, in purchasing power. If my start fromCamelot could have been delayed a very few days I could have paidthese people in beautiful new coins from our own mint, and thatwould have pleased me; and them, too, not less. I had adoptedthe American values exclusively. In a week or two now, cents,nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, and also a trifle ofgold, would be trickling in thin but steady streams all throughthe commercial veins of the kingdom, and I looked to see thisnew blood freshen up its life.
The farmers were bound to throw in something, to sort of offsetmy liberality, whether I would or no; so I let them give me a flintand steel; and as soon as they had comfortably bestowed Sandyand me on our horse, I lit my pipe. When the first blast of smokeshot out through the bars of my helmet, all those people brokefor the woods, and Sandy went over backwards and struck the groundwith a dull thud. They thought I was one of those fire-belchingdragons they had heard so much about from knights and otherprofessional liars. I had infinite trouble to persuade those peopleto venture back within explaining distance. Then I told them thatthis was only a bit of enchantment which would work harm to nonebut my enemies. And I promised, with my hand on my heart, thatif all who felt no enmity toward me would come forward and passbefore me they should see that only those who remained behind wouldbe struck dead. The procession moved with a good deal of promptness.There were no casualties to report, for nobody had curiosity enoughto remain behind to see what would happen.
I lost some time, now, for these big children, their fears gone,became so ravished with wonder over my awe-compelling fireworksthat I had to stay there and smoke a couple of pipes out beforethey would let me go. Still the delay was not wholly unproductive,for it took all that time to get Sandy thoroughly wonted to the newthing, she being so close to it, you know. It plugged up herconversation mill, too, for a considerable while, and that wasa gain. But above all other benefits accruing, I had learnedsomething. I was ready for any giant or any ogre that might comealong, now.
We tarried with a holy hermit, that night, and my opportunitycame about the middle of the next afternoon. We were crossinga vast meadow by way of short-cut, and I was musing absently,hearing nothing, seeing nothing, when Sandy suddenly interrupteda remark which she had begun that morning, with the cry:
"Defend thee, lord!--peril of life is toward!"
And she slipped down from the horse and ran a little way and stood.I looked up and saw, far off in the shade of a tree, half a dozenarmed knights and their squires; and straightway there was bustleamong them and tightening of saddle-girths for the mount. My pipewas ready and would have been lit, if I had not been lost inthinking about how to banish oppression from this land and restoreto all its people their stolen rights and manhood without disobliginganybody. I lit up at once, and by the time I had got a good headof reserved steam on, here they came. All together, too; none ofthose chivalrous magnanimities which one reads so much about--one courtly rascal at a time, and the rest standing by to see fairplay. No, they came in a body, they came with a whirr and a rush,they came like a volley from a battery; came with heads low down,plumes streaming out behind, lances advanced at a level. It wasa handsome sight, a beautiful sight--for a man up a tree. I laidmy lance in rest and waited, with my heart beating, till the ironwave was just ready to break over me, then spouted a column ofwhite smoke through the bars of my helmet. You should have seenthe wave go to pieces and scatter! This was a finer sight thanthe other one.
But these people stopped, two or three hundred yards away, andthis troubled me. My satisfaction collapsed, and fear came;I judged I was a lost man. But Sandy was radiant; and was goingto be eloquent--but I stopped her, and told her my magic hadmiscarried, somehow or other, and she must mount, with all despatch,and we must ride for life. No, she wouldn't. She said that myenchantment had disabled those knights; they were not riding on,because they couldn't; wait, they would drop out of their saddlespresently, and we would get their horses and harness. I could notdeceive such trusting simplicity, so I said it was a mistake; thatwhen my fireworks killed at all, they killed instantly; no, the menwould not die, there was something wrong about my apparatus,I couldn't tell what; but we must hurry and get away, for thosepeople would attack us again, in a minute. Sandy laughed, and said:
"Lack-a-day, sir, they be not of that breed! Sir Launcelot willgive battle to dragons, and will abide by them, and will assailthem again, and yet again, and still again, until he do conquerand destroy them; and so likewise will Sir Pellinore and Sir Aglovaleand Sir Carados, and mayhap others, but there be none else thatwill venture it, let the idle say what the idle will. And, la,as to yonder base rufflers, think ye they have not their fill,but yet desire more?"
"Well, then, what are they waiting for? Why don't they leave?Nobody's hindering. Good land, I'm willing to let bygones bebygones, I'm sure."
"Leave, is it? Oh, give thyself easement as to that. They dreamnot of it, no, not they. They wait to yield them."
"Come--really, is that 'sooth'--as you people say? If they want to,why don't they?"
"It would like them much; but an ye wot how dragons are esteemed,ye would not hold them blamable. They fear to come."
"Well, then, suppose I go to them instead, and--"
"Ah, wit ye well they would not abide your coming. I will go."
And she did. She was a handy person to have along on a raid.I would have considered this a doubtful errand, myself. I presentlysaw the knights riding away, and Sandy coming back. That wasa relief. I judged she had somehow failed to get the first innings--I mean in the conversation; otherwise the interview wouldn't havebeen so short. But it turned out that she had managed the businesswell; in fact, admirably. She said that when she told those peopleI was The Boss, it hit them where they lived: "smote them sorewith fear and dread" was her word; and then they were ready toput up with anything she might require. So she swore them to appearat Arthur's court within two days and yield them, with horse andharness, and be my knights henceforth, and subject to my command.How much better she managed that thing than I should have doneit myself! She was a daisy.