A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain [little readers .TXT] 📗

We stood there awhile, in the thick darkness and stillness, looking toward the red blur in the distance, and trying to make out the meaning of a far-away murmur that rose and fell fitfully on the night.  Sometimes it swelled up and for a moment seemed less remote; but when we were hopefully expecting it to betray its cause and nature, it dulled and sank again, carrying its mystery with it. We started down the hill in its direction, and the winding road plunged us at once into almost solid darkness—darkness that was packed and crammed in between two tall forest walls.  We groped along down for half a mile, perhaps, that murmur growing more and more distinct all the time.  The coming storm threatening more and more, with now and then a little shiver of wind, a faint show of lightning, and dull grumblings of distant thunder.  I was in the lead.  I ran against something—a soft heavy something which gave, slightly, to the impulse of my weight; at the same moment the lightning glared out, and within a foot of my face was the writhing face of a man who was hanging from the limb of a tree!  That is, it seemed to be writhing, but it was not.  It was a grewsome sight. Straightway there was an ear-splitting explosion of thunder, and the bottom of heaven fell out; the rain poured down in a deluge. No matter, we must try to cut this man down, on the chance that there might be life in him yet, mustn’t we?  The lightning came quick and sharp now, and the place was alternately noonday and midnight.  One moment the man would be hanging before me in an intense light, and the next he was blotted out again in the darkness. I told the king we must cut him down.  The king at once objected.

“If he hanged himself, he was willing to lose his property to his lord; so let him be.  If others hanged him, belike they had the right—let him hang.”

“But—”

“But me no buts, but even leave him as he is.  And for yet another reason.  When the lightning cometh again—there, look abroad.”

Two others hanging, within fifty yards of us!

“It is not weather meet for doing useless courtesies unto dead folk. They are past thanking you.  Come—it is unprofitable to tarry here.”

There was reason in what he said, so we moved on.  Within the next mile we counted six more hanging forms by the blaze of the lightning, and altogether it was a grisly excursion.  That murmur was a murmur no longer, it was a roar; a roar of men’s voices.  A man came flying by now, dimly through the darkness, and other men chasing him. They disappeared.  Presently another case of the kind occurred, and then another and another.  Then a sudden turn of the road brought us in sight of that fire—it was a large manor-house, and little or nothing was left of it—and everywhere men were flying and other men raging after them in pursuit.

I warned the king that this was not a safe place for strangers. We would better get away from the light, until matters should improve.  We stepped back a little, and hid in the edge of the wood.  From this hiding-place we saw both men and women hunted by the mob.  The fearful work went on until nearly dawn.  Then, the fire being out and the storm spent, the voices and flying footsteps presently ceased, and darkness and stillness reigned again.

We ventured out, and hurried cautiously away; and although we were worn out and sleepy, we kept on until we had put this place some miles behind us.  Then we asked hospitality at the hut of a charcoal burner, and got what was to be had.  A woman was up and about, but the man was still asleep, on a straw shake-down, on the clay floor. The woman seemed uneasy until I explained that we were travelers and had lost our way and been wandering in the woods all night. She became talkative, then, and asked if we had heard of the terrible goings-on at the manor-house of Abblasoure.  Yes, we had heard of them, but what we wanted now was rest and sleep.  The king broke in:

“Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for we be perilous company, being late come from people that died of the Spotted Death.”

It was good of him, but unnecessary.  One of the commonest decorations of the nation was the waffle-iron face.  I had early noticed that the woman and her husband were both so decorated.  She made us entirely welcome, and had no fears; and plainly she was immensely impressed by the king’s proposition; for, of course, it was a good deal of an event in her life to run across a person of the king’s humble appearance who was ready to buy a man’s house for the sake of a night’s lodging.  It gave her a large respect for us, and she strained the lean possibilities of her hovel to the utmost to make us comfortable.

We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up hungry enough to make cotter fare quite palatable to the king, the more particularly as it was scant in quantity.  And also in variety; it consisted solely of onions, salt, and the national black bread made out of horse-feed.  The woman told us about the affair of the evening before.  At ten or eleven at night, when everybody was in bed, the manor-house burst into flames.  The country-side swarmed to the rescue, and the family were saved, with one exception, the master.  He did not appear.  Everybody was frantic over this loss, and two brave yeomen sacrificed their lives in ransacking the burning house seeking that valuable personage.  But after a while he was found—what was left of him—which was his corpse.  It was in a copse three hundred yards away, bound, gagged, stabbed in a dozen places.

Who had done this?  Suspicion fell upon a humble family in the neighborhood who had been lately treated with peculiar harshness by the baron; and from these people the suspicion easily extended itself to their relatives and familiars.  A suspicion was enough; my lord’s liveried retainers proclaimed an instant crusade against these people, and were promptly joined by the community in general. The woman’s husband had been active with the mob, and had not returned home until nearly dawn.  He was gone now to find out what the general result had been.  While we were still talking he came back from his quest.  His report was revolting enough.  Eighteen persons hanged or butchered, and two yeomen and thirteen prisoners lost in the fire.

“And how many prisoners were there altogether in the vaults?”

“Thirteen.”

“Then every one of them was lost?”

“Yes, all.”

“But the people arrived in time to save the family; how is it they could save none of the prisoners?”

The man looked puzzled, and said:

“Would one unlock the vaults at such a time?  Marry, some would have escaped.”

“Then you mean that nobody did unlock them?”

“None went near them, either to lock or