CHAPTER XLIV
A POSTSCRIPT BY CLARENCE
I, Clarence, must write it for him. He proposed that we twogo out and see if any help could be accorded the wounded. I wasstrenuous against the project. I said that if there were many,we could do but little for them; and it would not be wise for us totrust ourselves among them, anyway. But he could seldom be turnedfrom a purpose once formed; so we shut off the electric currentfrom the fences, took an escort along, climbed over the enclosingramparts of dead knights, and moved out upon the field. The firstwounded mall who appealed for help was sitting with his backagainst a dead comrade. When The Boss bent over him and spoketo him, the man recognized him and stabbed him. That knight wasSir Meliagraunce, as I found out by tearing off his helmet. Hewill not ask for help any more.
We carried The Boss to the cave and gave his wound, which wasnot very serious, the best care we could. In this service we hadthe help of Merlin, though we did not know it. He was disguisedas a woman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant goodwife.In this disguise, with brown-stained face and smooth shaven, hehad appeared a few days after The Boss was hurt and offered to cookfor us, saying her people had gone off to join certain new campswhich the enemy were forming, and that she was starving. The Bosshad been getting along very well, and had amused himself withfinishing up his record.
We were glad to have this woman, for we were short handed. Wewere in a trap, you see--a trap of our own making. If we stayedwhere we were, our dead would kill us; if we moved out of ourdefenses, we should no longer be invincible. We had conquered;in turn we were conquered. The Boss recognized this; we allrecognized it. If we could go to one of those new camps andpatch up some kind of terms with the enemy--yes, but The Bosscould not go, and neither could I, for I was among the first thatwere made sick by the poisonous air bred by those dead thousands.Others were taken down, and still others. To-morrow--
_To-morrow._ It is here. And with it the end. About midnightI awoke, and saw that hag making curious passes in the air aboutThe Boss's head and face, and wondered what it meant. Everybodybut the dynamo-watch lay steeped in sleep; there was no sound.The woman ceased from her mysterious foolery, and started tip-toeingtoward the door. I called out:
"Stop! What have you been doing?"
She halted, and said with an accent of malicious satisfaction:
"Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered! These others are perishing--you also. Ye shall all die in this place--every one--except _him_.He sleepeth now--and shall sleep thirteen centuries. I am Merlin!"
Then such a delirium of silly laughter overtook him that he reeledabout like a drunken man, and presently fetched up against oneof our wires. His mouth is spread open yet; apparently he is stilllaughing. I suppose the face will retain that petrified laugh untilthe corpse turns to dust.
The Boss has never stirred--sleeps like a stone. If he does notwake to-day we shall understand what kind of a sleep it is, andhis body will then be borne to a place in one of the remote recessesof the cave where none will ever find it to desecrate it. As forthe rest of us--well, it is agreed that if any one of us everescapes alive from this place, he will write the fact here, andloyally hide this Manuscript with The Boss, our dear good chief,whose property it is, be he alive or dead.
THE END OF THE MANUSCRIPT
FINAL P.S. BY M.T.
The dawn was come when I laid the Manuscript aside. The rainhad almost ceased, the world was gray and sad, the exhausted stormwas sighing and sobbing itself to rest. I went to the stranger'sroom, and listened at his door, which was slightly ajar. I couldhear his voice, and so I knocked. There was no answer, but I stillheard the voice. I peeped in. The man lay on his back in bed,talking brokenly but with spirit, and punctuating with his arms,which he thrashed about, restlessly, as sick people do in delirium.I slipped in softly and bent over him. His mutterings andejaculations went on. I spoke--merely a word, to call his attention.His glassy eyes and his ashy face were alight in an instant withpleasure, gratitude, gladness, welcome:
"Oh, Sandy, you are come at last--how I have longed for you! Sitby me--do not leave me--never leave me again, Sandy, never again.Where is your hand?--give it me, dear, let me hold it--there--now all is well, all is peace, and I am happy again--_we_ are happyagain, isn't it so, Sandy? You are so dim, so vague, you are buta mist, a cloud, but you are _here_, and that is blessedness sufficient;and I have your hand; don't take it away--it is for only a littlewhile, I shall not require it long.... Was that the child?...Hello-Central!... she doesn't answer. Asleep, perhaps? Bring herwhen she wakes, and let me touch her hands, her face, her hair,and tell her good-bye.... Sandy! Yes, you are there. I lostmyself a moment, and I thought you were gone.... Have I beensick long? It must be so; it seems months to me. And such dreams!such strange and awful dreams, Sandy! Dreams that were as realas reality--delirium, of course, but _so_ real! Why, I thoughtthe king was dead, I thought you were in Gaul and couldn't gethome, I thought there was a revolution; in the fantastic frenzyof these dreams, I thought that Clarence and I and a handful ofmy cadets fought and exterminated the whole chivalry of England!But even that was not the strangest. I seemed to be a creatureout of a remote unborn age, centuries hence, and even _that_ wasas real as the rest! Yes, I seemed to have flown back out of thatage into this of ours, and then forward to it again, and was setdown, a stranger and forlorn in that strange England, with anabyss of thirteen centuries yawning between me and you! betweenme and my home and my friends! between me and all that is dearto me, all that could make life worth the living! It was awful--awfuler than you can ever imagine, Sandy. Ah, watch by me, Sandy--stay by me every moment--_don't_ let me go out of my mind again;death is nothing, let it come, but not with those dreams, not withthe torture of those hideous dreams--I cannot endure _that_ again....Sandy?..."
He lay muttering incoherently some little time; then for a time helay silent, and apparently sinking away toward death. Presentlyhis fingers began to pick busily at the coverlet, and by that signI knew that his end was at hand with the first suggestion of thedeath-rattle in his throat he started up slightly, and seemedto listen: then he said:
"A bugle?... It is the king! The drawbridge, there! Man thebattlements!--turn out the--"
He was getting up his last "effect"; but he never finished it.
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