of a subordinate rank, had traditions about these poor
old human ruins, but nothing more. These traditions
went but little way, for they concerned the length
of the incarceration only, and not the names of the
offenses. And even by the help of tradition
the only thing that could be proven was that none of
the five had seen daylight for thirty-five years:
how much longer this privation has lasted was not
guessable. The king and the queen knew nothing
about these poor creatures, except that they were
heirlooms, assets inherited, along with the throne,
from the former firm. Nothing of their history
had been transmitted with their persons, and so the
inheriting owners had considered them of no value,
and had felt no interest in them. I said to the
queen:
“Then why in the world didn’t you set
them free?”
The question was a puzzler. She didn’t
know why she hadn’t, the thing had never
come up in her mind. So here she was, forecasting
the veritable history of future prisoners of the Castle
d’If, without knowing it. It seemed plain
to me now, that with her training, those inherited
prisoners were merely property—nothing
more, nothing less. Well, when we inherit property,
it does not occur to us to throw it away, even when
we do not value it.
When I brought my procession of human bats up into
the open world and the glare of the afternoon sun—previously
blindfolding them, in charity for eyes so long untortured
by light—they were a spectacle to look
at. Skeletons, scarecrows, goblins, pathetic
frights, every one; legitimatest possible children
of Monarchy by the Grace of God and the Established
Church. I muttered absently:
“I wish I could photograph them!”
You have seen that kind of people who will never let
on that they don’t know the meaning of a new
big word. The more ignorant they are, the more
pitifully certain they are to pretend you haven’t
shot over their heads. The queen was just one
of that sort, and was always making the stupidest
blunders by reason of it. She hesitated a moment;
then her face brightened up with sudden comprehension,
and she said she would do it for me.
I thought to myself: She? why what can she know
about photography? But it was a poor time to
be thinking. When I looked around, she was moving
on the procession with an axe!
Well, she certainly was a curious one, was Morgan
le Fay. I have seen a good many kinds of women
in my time, but she laid over them all for variety.
And how sharply characteristic of her this episode
was. She had no more idea than a horse of how
to photograph a procession; but being in doubt, it
was just like her to try to do it with an axe.
KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE
Sandy and I were on the road again, next morning,
bright and early. It was so good to open up one’s
lungs and take in whole luscious barrels-ful of the
blessed God’s untainted, dew-fashioned, woodland-scented
air once more, after suffocating body and mind for
two days and nights in the moral and physical stenches
of that intolerable old buzzard-roost! I mean,
for me: of course the place was all right and
agreeable enough for Sandy, for she had been used to
high life all her days.
