_thought_, then; I _know_, now."

I felt sarcastical, so I said:

"Oh, sapient servant of the law, condescend to tell us, then,
what you _know_."

"That ye will all be hanged _to-day_, at mid-afternoon! Oho! that
shot hit home! Lean upon me."

The fact is I did need to lean upon somebody. My knights couldn't
arrive in time. They would be as much as three hours too late.
Nothing in the world could save the King of England; nor me, which
was more important. More important, not merely to me, but to
the nation--the only nation on earth standing ready to blossom
into civilization. I was sick. I said no more, there wasn't
anything to say. I knew what the man meant; that if the missing
slave was found, the postponement would be revoked, the execution
take place to-day. Well, the missing slave was found.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

SIR LAUNCELOT AND KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE

Nearing four in the afternoon. The scene was just outside the
walls of London. A cool, comfortable, superb day, with a brilliant
sun; the kind of day to make one want to live, not die. The
multitude was prodigious and far-reaching; and yet we fifteen
poor devils hadn't a friend in it. There was something painful
in that thought, look at it how you might. There we sat, on our
tall scaffold, the butt of the hate and mockery of all those
enemies. We were being made a holiday spectacle. They had built
a sort of grand stand for the nobility and gentry, and these were
there in full force, with their ladies. We recognized a good
many of them.

The crowd got a brief and unexpected dash of diversion out of
the king. The moment we were freed of our bonds he sprang up,
in his fantastic rags, with face bruised out of all recognition, and
proclaimed himself Arthur, King of Britain, and denounced the
awful penalties of treason upon every soul there present if hair
of his sacred head were touched. It startled and surprised him
to hear them break into a vast roar of laughter. It wounded his
dignity, and he locked himself up in silence. Then, although
the crowd begged him to go on, and tried to provoke him to it
by catcalls, jeers, and shouts of:

"Let him speak! The king! The king! his humble subjects hunger
and thirst for words of wisdom out of the mouth of their master
his Serene and Sacred Raggedness!"

But it went for nothing. He put on all his majesty and sat under
this rain of contempt and insult unmoved. He certainly was great
in his