第 19 页

gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. Let

the cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave somewhere

for me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take everything

from me--loved ones, property, everything; but it can't take that.

Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart

will be at rest." He went on a-wiping.

"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you heaving

your pore broken heart at US f'r? WE hain't done nothing."

"No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought

myself down--yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer--perfectly

right--I don't make any moan."

"Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?"

"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it pass

--'tis no matter. The secret of my birth--"

"The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say--"

"Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to you,

for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"

Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.

Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?"

"Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled

to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure

air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father

dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the

titles and estates--the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal

descendant of that infant--I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and

here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by

the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the

companionship of felons on a raft!"

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but

he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we was

a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything

else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought to

bow when we spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your

Lordship"--and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain

"Bridgewater," which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and

one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for him

he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood

around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or

some o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to

him.

But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say, and

didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on

around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along in

the afternoon, he says:

"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but you

ain't the only person that's had troubles like that."

"No?"

"No you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down

wrongfully out'n a high place."

"Alas!"

"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth." And,

by jings, HE begins to cry.

"Hold! What do you mean?"

"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of sobbing.

"To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,

and says, "That secret of your being: speak!"

"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"

You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:

"You are what?"

"Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very moment

on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the

Sixteen and Marry Antonette."

"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must

be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."

"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung

these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you see

before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampled-on,

and sufferin' rightful King of France."

Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what to

do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. So

we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort HIM.

But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all

could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel easier and

better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got

down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him "Your Majesty,"

and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presence

till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this

and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might

set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and

comfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit

satisfied with the way things was going; still, the king acted real

friendly towards him, and said the duke's great-grandfather and all the

other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by HIS father, and

was allowed to come to the palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy

a good while, till by and by the king says:

"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer raft,

Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only make

things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it ain't

your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry? Make the

best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto. This ain't

no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy life--come,

give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends."

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took away

all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it

would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft;

for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be

satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no

kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I

never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way;

then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they

wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as

it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I

didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt

that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them

have their own way.

CHAPTER XX.

THEY asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we covered

up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of running

--was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:

"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run SOUTH?"

No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way, so I

says:

"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and

they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed he'd

break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little

one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa was

pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't

nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. That warn't enough

to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way. Well,

when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he ketched this

piece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans on it. Pa's luck

didn't hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard corner of the raft one

night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel; Jim and me

come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four years old, so

they never come up no more. Well, for the next day or two we had

considerable trouble, because people was always coming out in skiffs and

trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was a runaway

nigger. We don't run daytimes no more now; nights they don't bother us."

The duke says:

"Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we

want to. I'll think the thing over--I'll invent a plan that'll fix it.

We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to go by

that town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy."

Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heat

lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves was

beginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see

that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see

what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's, which

was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around about in a shuck tick,

and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the dry shucks

sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it makes such a

rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke allowed he would take my bed;

but the king allowed he wouldn't. He says:

"I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you that

a corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on. Your Grace 'll

take the shuck bed yourself."

Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was

going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when

the duke says:

"'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of

oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I

submit; 'tis my fate. I am alone in the world--let me suffer; can bear

it."

We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to stand

well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we

got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch of

lights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a half

a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a mile below we

hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to rain

and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king told us to

both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and the duke

crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It was my watch

below till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed,

because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not

by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every

second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half

a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain,

and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum!

bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumbling

and grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash and

another sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes,

but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble

about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant

that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or

that and miss them.

I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time,

so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was always

mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam, but the king

and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show for

me; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, and

the waves warn't running so high now. About two they come up again,

though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind, because he

reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm; but he was mistaken

about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular ripper

and washed me overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing. He was the

easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.

I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by the

storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that showed I

rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the day.

The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him and

the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. Then they got tired

of it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as they called it.

The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot of little

printed bills and read them out loud. One bill said, "The celebrated Dr.

Armand de Montalban, of Paris," would "lecture on the Science of

Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank day of blank, at ten

cents admission, and "furnish charts of character at twenty-five cents

apiece." The duke said that was HIM. In another bill he was the

"world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury

Lane, London." In other bills he had a lot of other names and done other

wonderful things, like finding water and gold with a "divining-rod,"

"dissipating witch spells," and so on. By and by he says:

"But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the boards,

Royalty?"