第 五 章 · AN INSPIRATION

AN INSPIRATION

I was so tired that even my fears were not able to keep me awake long.

When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been asleep a very

long time. My first thought was, “Well, what an astonishing dream

I've had! I reckon I've waked only just in time to keep from

being hanged or drowned or burned or something.... I'll nap again

till the whistle blows, and then I'll go down to the arms factory

and have it out with Hercules.”

But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains and bolts,

a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly, Clarence, stood

before me! I gasped with surprise; my breath almost got away from me.

“What!” I said, “you here yet? Go along with the rest of

the dream! scatter!”

But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and fell to making

fun of my sorry plight.

“All right,” I said resignedly, “let the dream go on; I'm in no hurry.”

“Prithee what dream?”

“What dream? Why, the dream that I am in Arthur's court--a person

who never existed; and that I am talking to you, who are nothing

but a work of the imagination.”

“Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you're to be burned

to-morrow? Ho-ho--answer me that!”

The shock that went through me was distressing. I now began

to reason that my situation was in the last degree serious, dream

or no dream; for I knew by past experience of the lifelike intensity

of dreams, that to be burned to death, even in a dream, would be

very far from being a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by any

means, fair or foul, that I could contrive. So I said beseechingly:

“Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I've got,--for you _are_ my

friend, aren't you?--don't fail me; help me to devise some way

of escaping from this place!”

“Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man, the corridors are

in guard and keep of men-at-arms.”

“No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? Not many, I hope?”

“Full a score. One may not hope to escape.” After a pause

--hesitatingly: “and there be other reasons--and weightier.”

“Other ones? What are they?”

“Well, they say--oh, but I daren't, indeed daren't!”

“Why, poor lad, what is the matter? Why do you blench? Why do

you tremble so?”

“Oh, in sooth, there is need! I do want to tell you, but--”

“Come, come, be brave, be a man--speak out, there's a good lad!”

He hesitated, pulled one way by desire, the other way by fear;

then he stole to the door and peeped out, listening; and finally

crept close to me and put his mouth to my ear and told me his

fearful news in a whisper, and with all the cowering apprehension

of one who was venturing upon awful ground and speaking of things

whose very mention might be freighted with death.

“Merlin, in his malice, has woven a spell about this dungeon, and

there bides not the man in these kingdoms that would be desperate

enough to essay to cross its lines with you! Now God pity me,

I have told it! Ah, be kind to me, be merciful to a poor boy who

means thee well; for an thou betray me I am lost!”

I laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had for some time;

and shouted:

“Merlin has wrought a spell! _Merlin_, forsooth! That cheap old

humbug, that maundering old ass? Bosh, pure bosh, the silliest bosh

in the world! Why, it does seem to me that of all the childish,

idiotic, chuckle-headed, chicken-livered superstitions that ev

--oh, damn Merlin!”

But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had half finished,

and he was like to go out of his mind with fright.

“Oh, beware! These are awful words! Any moment these walls

may crumble upon us if you say such things. Oh call them back

before it is too late!”

Now this strange exhibition gave me a good idea and set me to

thinking. If everybody about here was so honestly and sincerely

afraid of Merlin's pretended magic as Clarence was, certainly

a superior man like me ought to be shrewd enough to contrive

some way to take advantage of such a state of things. I went

on thinking, and worked out a plan. Then I said:

“Get up. Pull yourself together; look me in the eye. Do you

know why I laughed?”

“No--but for our blessed Lady's sake, do it no more.”

“Well, I'll tell you why I laughed. Because I'm a magician myself.”

“Thou!” The boy recoiled a step, and caught his breath, for

the thing hit him rather sudden; but the aspect which he took

on was very, very respectful. I took quick note of that; it

indicated that a humbug didn't need to have a reputation in this

asylum; people stood ready to take him at his word, without that.

I resumed.

“I've known Merlin seven hundred years, and he--”

“Seven hun--”

“Don't interrupt me. He has died and come alive again thirteen

times, and traveled under a new name every time: Smith, Jones,

Robinson, Jackson, Peters, Haskins, Merlin--a new alias every

time he turns up. I knew him in Egypt three hundred years ago;

I knew him in India five hundred years ago--he is always blethering

around in my way, everywhere I go; he makes me tired. He don't

amount to shucks, as a magician; knows some of the old common

tricks, but has never got beyond the rudiments, and never will.

He is well enough for the provinces--one-night stands and that

sort of thing, you know--but dear me, _he_ oughtn't to set up for

an expert--anyway not where there's a real artist. Now look here,

Clarence, I am going to stand your friend, right along, and in

return you must be mine. I want you to do me a favor. I want

you to get word to the king that I am a magician myself--and the

Supreme Grand High-yu-Muck-amuck and head of the tribe, at that;

and I want him to be made to understand that I am just quietly

arranging a little calamity here that will make the fur fly in these

realms if Sir Kay's project is carried out and any harm comes

to me. Will you get that to the king for me?”

The poor boy was in such a state that he could hardly answer me.

It was pitiful to see a creature so terrified, so unnerved, so

demoralized. But he promised everything; and on my side he made

me promise over and over again that I would remain his friend, and

never turn against him or cast any enchantments upon him. Then

he worked his way out, staying himself with his hand along the

wall, like a sick person.

Presently this thought occurred to me: how heedless I have been!

When the boy gets calm, he will wonder why a great magician like me

should have begged a boy like him to help me get out of this place;

he will put this and that together, and will see that I am a humbug.

I worried over that heedless blunder for an hour, and called myself

a great many hard names, meantime. But finally it occurred to me

all of a sudden that these animals didn't reason; that _they_ never

put this and that together; that all their talk showed that they

didn't know a discrepancy when they saw it. I was at rest, then.

But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes on

something else to worry about. It occurred to me that I had made

another blunder: I had sent the boy off to alarm his betters with

a threat--I intending to invent a calamity at my leisure; now

the people who are the readiest and eagerest and willingest to

swallow miracles are the very ones who are hungriest to see you

perform them; suppose I should be called on for a sample? Suppose

I should be asked to name my calamity? Yes, I had made a blunder;

I ought to have invented my calamity first. “What shall I do?

what can I say, to gain a little time?” I was in trouble again;

in the deepest kind of trouble...

“There's a footstep!--they're coming. If I had only just a moment

to think.... Good, I've got it. I'm all right.”

You see, it was