We carried The Boss to the cave and gave his wound,
which was not very serious, the best care we could.
In this service we had the help of Merlin, though
we did not know it. He was disguised as a woman,
and appeared to be a simple old peasant goodwife.
In this disguise, with brown-stained face and smooth
shaven, he had appeared a few days after The Boss
was hurt and offered to cook for us, saying her people
had gone off to join certain new camps which the enemy
were forming, and that she was starving. The
Boss had been getting along very well, and had amused
himself with finishing up his record.
We were glad to have this woman, for we were short
handed. We were in a trap, you see—a
trap of our own making. If we stayed where we
were, our dead would kill us; if we moved out of our
defenses, we should no longer be invincible.
We had conquered; in turn we were conquered.
The Boss recognized this; we all recognized it.
If we could go to one of those new camps and patch
up some kind of terms with the enemy—yes,
but The Boss could not go, and neither could I, for
I was among the first that were made sick by the poisonous
air bred by those dead thousands. 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
making curious passes in the air about The Boss’s
head and face, and wondered what it meant. Everybody
but the dynamo-watch lay steeped in sleep; there was
no sound. The woman ceased from her mysterious
foolery, and started tip-toeing toward the door.
I called out:
“Stop! What have you been doing?”
She halted, and said with an accent of malicious satisfaction:
“Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered!
These others are perishing —you also.
Ye shall all die in this place—every one—except
him. He sleepeth now—and shall
sleep thirteen centuries. I am Merlin!”
Then such a delirium of silly laughter overtook him
that he reeled about like a drunken man, and presently
fetched up against one of our wires. His mouth
is spread open yet; apparently he is still laughing.
I suppose the face will retain that petrified laugh
until the corpse turns to dust.
The Boss has never stirred—sleeps like
a stone. If he does not wake to-day we shall
understand what kind of a sleep it is, and his body
will then be borne to a place in one of the remote
recesses of the cave where none will ever find it
to desecrate it. As for the rest of us—well,
it is agreed that if any one of us ever escapes alive
from this place, he will write the fact here, and
loyally hide this Manuscript with The Boss, our dear
good chief, whose property it is, be he alive or dead.
