Chapter XLIV: A Postscript by Clarence

by Mark Twain

　　I, Clarence, must write it for him. He proposedthat we two go out and see if any help could beaccorded the wounded. I was strenuous against theproject. I said that if there were many, we could dobut little for them; and it would not be wise for us totrust ourselves among them, anyway. But he couldseldom be turned from a purpose once formed; so weshut off the electric current from the fences, took anescort along, climbed over the enclosing ramparts ofdead knights, and moved out upon the field. The firstwounded mall who appealed for help was sitting withhis back against a dead comrade. When The Bossbent over him and spoke to him, the man recognizedhim and stabbed him. That knight was Sir Meliagraunce, as I found out by tearing off his helmet. Hewill not ask for help any more.We carried The Boss to the cave and gave hiswound, which was not very serious, the best care wecould. In this service we had the help of Merlin,though we did not know it. He was disguised as awoman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant goodwife. In this disguise, with brown-stained face andsmooth shaven, he had appeared a few days after TheBoss was hurt and offered to cook for us, saying herpeople had gone off to join certain new camps whichthe enemy were forming, and that she was starving.The Boss had been getting along very well, and hadamused himself with finishing up his record.We were glad to have this woman, for we were shorthanded. We were in a trap, you see -- a trap of ourown making. If we stayed where we were, our deadwould kill us; if we moved out of our defenses, weshould no longer be invincible. We had conquered;in turn we were conquered. The Boss recognizedthis; we all recognized it. If we could go to one ofthose new camps and patch up some kind of termswith the enemy -- yes, but The Boss could not go, andneither could I, for I was among the first that weremade sick by the poisonous air bred by those deadthousands. Others were taken down, and still others.To-morrow --To-morrow. It is here. And with it the end.About midnight I awoke, and saw that hag makingcurious passes in the air about The Boss's head andface, and wondered what it meant. Everybody butthe dynamo-watch lay steeped in sleep; there was nosound. The woman ceased from her mysterious foolery, and started tip-toeing toward the door. I calledout:"Stop! What have you been doing?"She halted, and said with an accent of malicioussatisfaction:"Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered! Theseothers are perishing -- you also. Ye shall all die inthis place -- every one -- except him. He sleepethnow -- and shall sleep thirteen centuries. I amMerlin!"Then such a delirium of silly laughter overtook himthat he reeled about like a drunken man, and presentlyfetched up against one of our wires. His mouth isspread open yet; apparently he is still laughing. Isuppose the face will retain that petrified laugh untilthe corpse turns to dust.The Boss has never stirred -- sleeps like a stone. Ifhe does not wake to-day we shall understand whatkind of a sleep it is, and his body will then be borneto a place in one of the remote recesses of the cavewhere none will ever find it to desecrate it. As forthe rest of us -- well, it is agreed that if any one of usever escapes alive from this place, he will write thefact here, and loyally hide this Manuscript with TheBoss, our dear good chief, whose property it is, be healive or dead.The end of the manuscript