الفصل الفصل 44 · A POSTSCRIPT BY CLARENCE

A POSTSCRIPT BY CLARENCE

I, Clarence, must write it for him. He proposed that we two

go out and see if any help could be accorded the wounded. I was

strenuous 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 to

trust ourselves among them, anyway. But he could seldom be turned

from a purpose once formed; so we shut off the electric current

from the fences, took an escort along, climbed over the enclosing

ramparts of dead knights, and moved out upon the field. The first

wounded man who appealed for help was sitting with his back

against a dead comrade. When The Boss bent over him and spoke

to him, the man recognized him and stabbed him. That knight was

Sir Meliagraunce, as I found out by tearing off his helmet. He

will not ask for help any more.

We carried The Boss to the cave and gave his wound, which was

not very serious, the best care we could. In this service we had

the help of Merlin, though we did not know it. He was disguised

as a woman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant goodwife.

In this disguise, with brown-stained face and smooth shaven, he

had appeared a few days after The Boss was hurt and offered to cook

for us, saying her people had gone off to join certain new camps

which the enemy were forming, and that she was starving. The Boss

had been getting along very well, and had amused himself with

finishing up his record.

We were glad to have this woman, for we were short handed. We

were in a trap, you see--a trap of our own making. If we stayed

where we were, our dead would kill us; if we moved out of our

defenses, we should no longer be invincible. We had conquered;

in turn we were conquered. The Boss recognized this; we all

recognized it. If we could go to one of those new camps and

patch up some kind of terms with the enemy--yes, but The Boss

could not go, and neither could I, for I was among the first that

were 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 midnight

I awoke, and saw that hag making curious passes in the air about

The Boss's head and face, and wondered what it meant. Everybody

but the dynamo-watch lay steeped in sleep; there was no sound.

The woman ceased from her mysterious foolery, and started tip-toeing

toward 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 reeled

about like a drunken man, and presently fetched up against one

of our wires. His mouth is spread open yet; apparently he is still

laughing. I suppose the face will retain that petrified laugh until

the corpse turns to dust.

The Boss has never stirred--sleeps like a stone. If he does not

wake to-day we shall understand what kind of a sleep it is, and

his body will then be borne to a place in one of the remote recesses

of the cave where none will ever find it to desecrate it. As for

the rest of us--well, it is agreed that if any one of us ever

escapes alive from this place, he will write the fact here, and

loyally 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 rain

had almost ceased, the world was gray and sad, the exhausted storm

was sighing and sobbing itself to rest. I went to the stranger's

room, and listened at his door, which was slightly ajar. I could

hear his voice, and so I knocked. There was no answer, but I still

heard 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 and

ejaculations went on. I spoke--merely a word, to call his attention.

His glassy eyes and his ashy face were alight in an instant with

pleasure, gratitude, gladness, welcome:

“Oh, Sandy, you are come at last--how I have longed for you! Sit

by 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 happy

again, isn't it so, Sandy? You are so dim, so vague, you are but

a 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 little

while, I shall not require it long.... Was that the child?...

Hello-Central!... she doesn't answer. Asleep, perhaps? Bring her

when she wakes, and let me touch her hands, her face, her hair,

and tell her good-bye.... Sandy! Yes, you are there. I lost

myself a moment, and I thought you were gone.... Have I been

sick long? It must be so; it seems months to me. And such dreams!

such strange and awful dreams, Sandy! Dreams that were as real

as reality--delirium, of course, but _so_ real! Why, I thought

the king was dead, I thought you were in Gaul and couldn't get

home, I thought there was a revolution; in the fantastic frenzy

of these dreams, I thought that Clarence and I and a handful of

my cadets fought and exterminated the whole chivalry of England!

But even that was not the strangest. I seemed to be a creature

out of a remote unborn age, centuries hence, and even _that_ was

as real as the rest! Yes, I seemed to have flown back out of that

age into this of ours, and then forward to it again, and was set

down, a stranger and forlorn in that strange England, with an

abyss of thirteen centuries yawning between me and you! between

me and my home and my friends! between me and all that is dear

to 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 with

the torture of those hideous dreams--I cannot endure _that_ again....

Sandy?...”

He lay muttering incoherently some little time; then for a time he

lay silent, and apparently sinking away toward death. Presently

his fingers began to pick busily at the coverlet, and by that sign

I knew that his end was at hand. With the first suggestion of the

death-rattle in his throat he started up slightly, and seemed

to listen: then he said:

“A bugle?... It is the king! The drawbridge, there! Man the

battlements!--turn out the--”

He was getting up his last “effect”; but he never finished it.