“I think you are right,” said he; “it is the obvious thing for them to try.”
“Well, then,” I said, “if they do it they are doomed.
“Certainly.”
They won’t have the slightest show in the world.”
“Of course they won’t.”
“It’s dreadful, Clarence. It seems an awful pity.”
The thing disturbed me so that I couldn’t get any peace of mind for thinking of it and worrying over it. So, at last, to quiet my conscience, I framed this message to the knights:
TO THE HONORABLE THE COMMANDER OF THE INSURGENT CHIVALRY OF ENGLAND: You fight in vain. We know your strength — mdash; if one may call it by that name. We know that at the utmost you cannot bring against us above five and twenty thousand knights. Therefore, you have no chance — mdash; none whatever. Reflect: we are well equipped, well fortified, we number 54. Fifty-four what? Men? No, minds — mdash; the capablest in the world; a force against which mere animal might may no more hope to prevail than may the idle waves of the sea hope to prevail against the granite barriers of England. Be advised. We offer you your lives; for the sake of your families, ———————————————————————— Page 420
do not reject the gift. We offer you this chance, and it is the last: throw down your arms; surrender unconditionally to the Republic, and all will be forgiven. (Signed). THE BOSS.
I read it to Clarence, and said I proposed to send it by a flag of truce. He laughed the sarcastic laugh he was born with, and said:
“Somehow it seems impossible for you to ever fully realize what these nobilities are. Now let us save a little time and trouble. Consider me the commander of the knights yonder. Now, then, you are the flag of truce; approach and deliver me your message, and I will give you your answer.”
I humored the idea. I came forward under an imaginary guard of the enemy’s soldiers, produced my paper, and read it through. For answer, Clarence struck the paper out of my hand, pursed up a scornful lip and said with lofty disdain:
“Dismember me this animal, and return him in a basket to the base-born knave who sent him; other answer have I none!”
How empty is theory in presence of fact! And this was just fact, and nothing else. It was the thing that would have happened, there was no getting around that. I tore up the paper and granted my mistimed sentimentalities a permanent rest.
Then, to business. I tested the electric signals from the gatling platform to the cave, and made sure that they were all right; I tested and retested those which commanded the fences — mdash; these were signals whereby I could break and renew the electric current in each fence independently of the others at will. I placed the brook-connection under the guard and [Image]
High church
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authority of three of my best boys, who would alternate in two-hour watches all night and promptly obey my signal, if I should have occasion to give it — mdash; three revolver-shots in quick succession. Sentry-duty was discarded for the night, and the corral left empty of life; I ordered that quiet be maintained in the cave, and the electric lights turned down to a glimmer.
As soon as it was good and dark, I shut off the current from all the fences, and then groped my way out to the embankment bordering our side of the great dynamite ditch. I crept to the top of it and lay there on the slant of the muck to watch. But it was too dark to see anything. As for sounds, there were none. The stillness was deathlike. True, there were the usual night-sounds of the country — mdash; the whir of night-birds, the buzzing of insects, the barking of distant dogs, the mellow lowing of far-off kine — mdash; but these didn’t seem to break the stillness, they only intensified it, and added a grewsome melancholy to it into the bargain.
I presently gave up looking, the night shut down so black, but I kept my ears strained to catch the least suspicious sound, for I judged I had only to wait, and I shouldn’t be disappointed. However, I had to wait a long time. At last I caught what you may call in distinct glimpses of soundСdulled metallic sound. I pricked up my ears, then, and held my breath, for this was the sort of thing I had been waiting for. This sound thickened, and approached — mdash; from toward the north. Presently, I heard it at my own level — mdash; the ridge-top of the opposite embankment, a hundred feet or more away. Then I seemed to see a row of black dots appear along that ridge — mdash; human heads? I ———————————————————————— Page 422