As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people
were gracious and courtly; and I noticed that they
were good and serious listeners when anybody was telling
anything—I mean in a dog-fightless interval.
And plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent
lot; telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a
most gentle and winning naivety, and ready and willing
to listen to anybody else’s lie, and believe
it, too. It was hard to associate them with
anything cruel or dreadful; and yet they dealt in tales
of blood and suffering with a guileless relish that
made me almost forget to shudder.
I was not the only prisoner present. There were
twenty or more. Poor devils, many of them were
maimed, hacked, carved, in a frightful way; and their
hair, their faces, their clothing, were caked with
black and stiffened drenchings of blood. They
were suffering sharp physical pain, of course; and
weariness, and hunger and thirst, no doubt; and at
least none had given them the comfort of a wash, or
even the poor charity of a lotion for their wounds;
yet you never heard them utter a moan or a groan, or
saw them show any sign of restlessness, or any disposition
to complain. The thought was forced upon me:
“The rascals—they have served
other people so in their day; it being their own turn,
now, they were not expecting any better treatment
than this; so their philosophical bearing is not an
outcome of mental training, intellectual fortitude,
reasoning; it is mere animal training; they are white
Indians.”
CHAPTER III
KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND
Mainly the Round Table talk was monologues—narrative
accounts of the adventures in which these prisoners
were captured and their friends and backers killed
and stripped of their steeds and armor. As a
general thing—as far as I could make out—these
murderous adventures were not forays undertaken to
avenge injuries, nor to settle old disputes or sudden
fallings out; no, as a rule they were simply duels
between strangers—duels between people who
had never even been introduced to each other, and
between whom existed no cause of offense whatever.
Many a time I had seen a couple of boys, strangers,
meet by chance, and say simultaneously, “I can
lick you,” and go at it on the spot; but I had
always imagined until now that that sort of thing
belonged to children only, and was a sign and mark
of childhood; but here were these big boobies sticking
to it and taking pride in it clear up into full age
and beyond. Yet there was something very engaging
about these great simple-hearted creatures, something
attractive and lovable. There did not seem to
be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak,
to bait a fish-hook with; but you didn’t seem
to mind that, after a little, because you soon saw
that brains were not needed in a society like that,
and indeed would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled
its symmetry—perhaps rendered its existence
impossible.
