“Save your wind; if you open your mouth you are dead, sure. Tackle your instrument. Lively, now! Call Camelot.”
“This doth amaze me! How should such as you know aught of such matters as — mdash; ”
“Call Camelot! I am a desperate man. Call Camelot, or get away from the instrument and I will do it myself.”
“What — mdash; you?” ———————————————————————— Page 357
“Yes — mdash; certainly. Stop gabbling. Call the palace.”
He made the call.
“Now, then, call Clarence.”
“Clarence who?”
“Never mind Clarence who. Say you want Clarence; you’ll get an answer.”
He did so. We waited five nerve-straining minutes — mdash; ten minutes — mdash; how long it did seem! — mdash; and then came a click that was as familiar to me as a human voice; for Clarence had been my own pupil.
“Now, my lad, vacate! They would have known MY touch, maybe, and so your call was surest; but I’m all right now.”
He vacated the place and cocked his ear to listen — mdash; but it didn’t win. I used a cipher. I didn’t waste any time in sociabilities with Clarence, but squared away for business, straight-off — mdash; thus:
“The king is here and in danger. We were captured and brought here as slaves. We should not be able to prove our identity — mdash; and the fact is, I am not in a position to try. Send a telegram for the palace here which will carry conviction with it.”
His answer came straight back:
“They don’t know anything about the telegraph; they haven’t had any experience yet, the line to London is so new. Better not venture that. They might hang you. Think up something else.”
Might hang us! Little he knew how closely he was crowding the facts. I couldn’t think up anything for the moment. Then an idea struck me, and I started it along:
“Send five hundred picked knights with Launcelot in the lead; and send them on the jump. Let them ———————————————————————— Page 358
enter by the southwest gate, and look out for the man with a white cloth around his right arm.”
The answer was prompt:
“They shall start in half an hour.”
“All right, Clarence; now tell this lad here that I’m a friend of yours and a dead-head; and that he must be discreet and say nothing about this visit of mine.”
The instrument began to talk to the youth and I hurried away. I fell to ciphering. In half an hour it would be nine o’clock. Knights and horses in heavy armor couldn’t travel very fast. These would make the best time they could, and now that the ground was in good condition, and no snow or mud, they would probably make a seven-mile gait; they would have to change horses a couple of times; they would arrive about six, or a little after; it would still be plenty light enough; they would see the white cloth which I should tie around my right arm, and I would take command. We would surround that prison and have the king out in no time. It would be showy and picturesque enough, all things considered, though I would have preferred noonday, on account of the more theatrical aspect the thing would have.
Now, then, in order to increase the strings to my bow, I thought I would look up some of those people whom I had formerly recognized, and make myself known. That would help us out of our scrape, without the knights. But I must proceed cautiously, for it was a risky business. I must get into sumptuous raiment, and it wouldn’t do to run and jump into it. No, I must work up to it by degrees, buying suit after suit of clothes, in shops wide apart, and getting a little finer article with each change, until I should ———————————————————————— Page 359
finally reach silk and velvet, and be ready for my project. So I started.
But the scheme fell through like scat! The first corner I turned, I came plump upon one of our slaves, snooping around with a watchman. I coughed at the moment, and he gave me a sudden look that bit right into my marrow. I judge he thought he had heard that cough before. I turned immediately into a shop and worked along down the counter, pricing things and watching out of the corner of my eye. Those people had stopped, and were talking together and looking in at the door. I made up my mind to get out the back way, if there was a back way, and I asked the shopwoman if I could step out there and look for the escaped slave, who was believed to be in hiding back there somewhere, and said I was an officer in disguise, and my pard was yonder at the door with one of the murderers in charge, and would she be good enough to step there and tell him he needn’t wait, but had better go at once to the further end of the back alley and be ready to head him off when I rousted him out.