A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, page 269 by Mark Twain
<< Return to Title Details & Download
Purchase this title in paperback at Amazon.com
270
range way--by magic arts 'twas thought, by reason that he had no key, and the locks were neither broke nor in any wise injured. When the master discovered his loss, he was mad with despair, and threw himself upon his people with his heavy stick, who resisted and brake his back and in other and divers ways did give him hurts that brought him swiftly to his end."
"This is dreadful. It will go hard with the slaves, no doubt, upon the trial."
"Marry, the trial is over."
"Over!"
"Would they be a week, think you--and the matter so simple? They were not the half of a quarter of an hour at it."
"Why, I don't see how they could determine which were the guilty ones in so short a time."
"Which ones? Indeed, they considered not particulars like to that. They condemned them in a body. Wit ye not the law?--which men say the Romans left behind them here when they went--that if one slave killeth his master all the slaves of that man must die for it."
"True. I had forgotten. And when will these die?"
"Belike within a four and twenty hours; albeit some say they will wait a pair of days more, if peradventure they may find the missing one meantime."
The missing one! It made me feel uncomfortable.
"Is it likely they will find him?"
"Before the day is spent--yes. They seek him everywhere. They stand at the gates of the town, with certain of the slaves who will discover him to them if he cometh, and none can pass out but he will be first examined."
"Might one see the place where the rest are confined?"
"The outside of it--yes. The inside of it--but ye will not want to see that."
I took the address of that prison for future reference and then sauntered off. At the first second-hand clothing shop I came to, up a back street, I got a rough rig suitable for a common seaman who might be going on a cold voyage, and bound up my face with a liberal bandage, saying I had a toothache. This concealed my worst bruises. It was a transformation