Summary
Just a few days after his return to Camelot, The Boss must fight Sir Sagramor le Desirous to give satisfaction for the supposed malediction several years earlier. In this tournament, a new rule takes effect: Each combatant can use any weapon which he chooses.
Merlin, of course, is on the side of Sir Sagramor, working to make him invisible to his opponent although visible to everyone else. Indeed, all of the knights are siding with Sir Sagramor, since The Boss has made known his anti-knighthood feelings. He is alone with his servants at his end of the field.
The two combatants meet in front of the kings stand. Sir Sagramor is in full battle regalia and is seated upon a huge, magnificent horse. The Boss is in tights and riding a medium-sized, quick horse.
The tournament begins, and the two opponents charge at each other. The Boss uses the agility of his horse to evade Sir Sagramor's lance; he does this several times, until Sir Sagramor loses his temper, and the fight turns into a game of tag. Finally, The Boss takes out a lasso; he ropes Sir Sagramor and yanks him from his saddle.
Several other knights challenge The Boss, as is their right, and each of them, including Sir Launcelot, meets the same fate. After this bout, however, Merlin manages to steal the lasso. When the bugle is blown again for yet another joust, Sir Sagramor rides out, and The Boss pretends to find him by the sound of his horse's hooves. Sir Sagramor tells The Boss that he is a dead man and that The Boss will die on Sir Sagramor's sword. When the king suggests that The Boss borrow a weapon to replace the missing rope, Sir Sagramor denies him this right.
Sir Sagramor charges, but The Boss remains unmoving. When Sir Sagramor is some fifteen paces away, The Boss pulls out a pistol, which he has made, and he shoots Sir Sagramor, killing him. The crowd is amazed, for there is no apparent reason for the man to be dead. No one else steps forward to challenge The Boss, so he challenges them all. Five hundred knights mount and charge, and when they get close enough, The Boss pulls out both of his guns and begins to shoot; nine knights fall — and then, suddenly the others stop, they stare, and they turn in flight.
In the ensuing three years, The Boss reveals the mines and factories and workshops that he had started but had kept hidden. He also continues to challenge any and all knights who wish to face him — alone or en masse. He has no takers.
Many changes have taken place in these three years. Books begin to be printed, railroads begin running, and steam and electricity become available throughout the country; machines that run on these modes of power have been introduced, telephones and telegraph lines are everywhere, steamboats are plying the Thames, and a navy has been formed. The Boss is ready to try to overthrow the Catholic Church and to introduce universal suffrage.
The Boss has also married Sandy, and they have a child — a daughter — named Hello-Central. Just as things are going entirely his way, however, The Boss's daughter, Hello-Central, becomes very ill. The Boss decides to halt all of his plans of progress in order to take care of her, and when the doctors suggest that sea air is necessary to bring her back to health, he takes a man-of-war and a party of two-hundred and sixty men and goes cruising. After two weeks of sailing, they land on the French coast, decide to stay for awhile, and send the ship back for supplies.
Shortly after the ship has sailed, Hello-Central takes a turn for the worse, and The Boss's attention is taken up with caring for her. One should note here that The Boss married Sandy for the sake of appearance. She, however, turned out to be a fine wife and an excellent mother. She chose the name
"Hello-Central" because The Boss cried it out in his dreams (his girlfriend back in Hartford had been a telephone operator); Sandy, of course, thought it was the name of a lost girlfriend.
After two and a half weeks, Hello-Central recovers, but the ship, which was supposed to be gone only three or four days, has not returned. After another two weeks without a ship, The Boss returns to England to find out what has happened. When he arrives, everything is shut down. The Church has struck back; an Interdict is in effect.
In disguise, The Boss sets out for Camelot alone. When he reaches it, the gate is wide open, and everything is silent. The Boss finds Clarence alone in his quarters, and the electric lights have been replaced by rag lamps. The whole business, Clarence tells The Boss, was caused by Launcelot and Guenever. Launcelot manipulated the stock market to undo a number of knights, including Sir Agravane and Sir Mordred, nephews of the king. As a result, twelve knights laid an ambush for Launcelot, but he killed all but Mordred. As a result of this, the country became divided; some supported the king in his grievance, while others supported Sir Launcelot.
Then the king proposed to purify the queen by fire, but Launcelot and his men came to the rescue. This, of course, intensified the lines of battle. A truce between the parties was arranged, except for Sir Gawaine, whose brothers had been slain in the fighting. He told Launcelot to expect an attack. Launcelot left for another stronghold, and Gawaine followed, luring the king with him. Unfortunately, Arthur left Mordred in charge, and Mordred used the opportunity to try to make his position permanent.
Again, a truce was arranged, but that was broken when a knight slashed at a live snake (an adder) at the treaty conference, causing a riot to break out. The king is now dead, Guenever is a nun, and the terms of the Interdict include The Boss. Indeed, he learns that the doctors who ministered to Hello-Central and who told him that sea air was needed were servants of the Church. Thus, The Boss and Clarence make plans for a last-ditch effort to hold off the forces arrayed against them. They have fifty-two boys who are faithful; all of the others whom they had trained reverted to their former superstitious ways when the Interdict was announced. Clarence has prepared a cave, fitting it with a dynamo, wires, and other similar supplies. In addition, if the end seems to be approaching, Clarence and the faithful will blow up all the factories and other institutions which The Boss has had built, so that these cannot be used against them; in addition, they have planted explosives in strategic places.
In front of the cave, they have rigged electric wire fences, and they have Gatling guns arranged to cover the entrance of the cave and the area beyond it. They also have torpedoes. Everything is ready, and so The Boss decides that they should take the offensive. He and Clarence declare the country to be a Republic, abolishing the monarchy, the nobility, and the Church. Then they head for the cave.
The first thing which they do when they reach the cave is to vacate the factories. Then they wait.
It takes a week, but a large part of England, nobility and common men alike, begins to gather near the cave. As more and more people reach the area, the boys become uneasy about the fact that they might have to kill their own people, along with the gentry. The Boss points out to them, however, that the nobility will lead the charge; they will be the only ones who are on the receiving end of what they plan to do. This reassures the boys.
Finally, the knights charge. They hit the spot where the torpedoes have been set, and they are blown to bits. At the same time, an order is given and the factories are blown up.
Then, while they wait to see what will happen next, The Boss sends engineers to divert a stream within their lines in a way that it can also be used against their attackers if needed. Then, when nothing more happens for a time, he prepares a message to "the insurgent chivalry of England," offering them their lives if they will surrender and acknowledge the Republic, but Clarence shows him that it cannot be sent to them.
During the night, the knights approached the fortified cave. As the knights crept forward, the electrified wire fries them. In their armor, the knights passed the current along to whomever touched them, so that when the mass attack occurred, all of the men who touched the fences or who touched men who had touched the fences were killed. Still, however, others crept forward, not yet having reached this point. When a large enough number of them were between the ditch and the fences, The Boss ordered the stream diverted into the ditch. The Gatling guns cut down many of the attackers, and the rest were drowned as they try to escape. In all, The Boss estimates that they kill twenty-five thousand of England's knights. He believes that they are now the masters of England.
The Boss proposes that they go out and help the wounded, if possible, and they do so, even though Clarence objects. The first man whom they try to help is Sir Meligraunce; he stabs The Boss, as The Boss leans over to help him. The wound is not serious; however, Merlin slips into the cave in the guise of an old woman and puts a spell on The Boss that will make him sleep for thirteen centuries. Clarence, unfortunately, wakes up in time to see only the end of the spell and cannot stop him. Merlin, however, gloats about what he has done, brushes up against one of the wire fences, and dies. As a last tribute to The Boss, they find a place in the cave where no one can bother his body, and they place this manuscript with it.
Then the original narrator, the one introduced in "A Word of Explanation," finishes reading this manuscript at dawn. He goes to the room of the stranger and finds him delirious, calling out for Sandy and Hello-Central. Gradually, his mutterings become more and more incoherent. As the end nears, he starts up and says, "'A bugle? . . . It is the king! The drawbridge, there! Man the battlements! — turn out the — '"
"He was getting up his last 'effect'; but he never finished it."
Analysis
Chapter 39 begins The Boss's onslaught on the entire concept of knighthood, and it also reveals his monomania to destroy all of the institutions of Camelot — not just knight-errantry — but the nobility and the Church, as well. Chapter 39 also presents The Boss's attack against the knights. First, he takes the pageantry and makes fun of it by being dressed in tights rather than in armor. Then he rides a small, fast horse with great flexibility instead of using a huge, powerful steed. Instead of attacking, as was the proper form, he subverts the entire system by dodging rather than charging, and by using a lasso rather than a lance. The undignified manner in which he downs Sir Sagramor further shows the absurdity of the entire duel or joust.
After The Boss has made a farce out of the joust by roping several more knights, and after he has been deprived of his lasso, he has to face Sir Sagramor without a weapon, a most unknightly attitude on the part of Sir Sagramor; thus, Twain inserts another undermining of the nobility of knighthood. The scene where The Boss pulls out his recently made pistol and kills Sir Sagramor, then, explains the bullet hole that was in the armor in Warwick Castle in the opening section entitled "A Word of Explanation."
The final blow to knight-errantry lies in the absurd challenge that The Boss makes to all five hundred of the knights. As they charge, and he starts shooting with both guns, we have an absurd, imaginative picture of the Western cowboy firing into the overdressed and plumed knights, and when nine of these men are killed, the others immediately make a cowardly retreat, which reveals the final indignation of knighthood. In short, knighthood is made to seem utterly and absolutely ridiculous. An entire way of life is destroyed:
"The victory is perfect — no other will venture against me — knight-errantry is dead."
Thus, with Chapter 39 and until the end of the novel, the book takes an amazing turn. In Chapter 40, for example, during the lapse of three years, The Boss is well onto his way of destroying the nobility and the Catholic Church and offering in its place democracy and universal suffrage "given to men and women alike."
Then, in Chapters 40 and 41, The Boss discovers that he has been tricked by the Church to take a voyage out of the country, thus allowing the Church to announce the Interdict. The indication, therefore, is that the Church is opposed to the advancement of civilization, and as Twain has pointed out elsewhere, the Catholic Church has often resisted advances in civilization.
Chapter 42 again tests the reader's credulity. In The Boss's absence, so much has happened in that short period that it is impossible to respond to it. The sixth-century aristocracy was made into railroad conductors, the Round Table became a stock exchange, admirable people such as the noble Sir Launcelot, the most noble of the knights of the Round Table, began to manipulate the stock market. Very shortly, jealousy and greed broke out among the knights leading to England's being divided into two warring camps — Arthur's and Launcelot's. The lovely, idyllic Camelot exists no more; instead, the greedy materialistic nineteenth-century America is now rampant throughout the country.
The last stand is made in, ironically, Merlin's cave. Here, the preparations that have been made for warfare again exceed our imaginations. In the chapter entitled "The Battle of the Sand Belt" (Chapter 43), the entire forces of The Boss consist of the fifty-two youths that The Boss has been able to train from childhood. The others that he trained were too old to withstand the superstitions of the Interdict.
Nevertheless, the scientific advancements of the nineteenth century are too powerful for the simple knights of the sixth century. They have no way of withstanding mines, electrified fences, or Gatling guns; consequently, we have a devastation and death of such magnitude that it can only be accounted for by the ingenious inventions of modern weaponry. The peaceful beauty of ancient Camelot has been destroyed by modern, destructive weapons, and at the end of the battle, "twenty-five thousand men lay dead around us." Yankee ingenuity has won over knighthood, and The Boss acknowledges that from his own men "the applause I got was very gratifying to me."
The victory, however, is a Pyrrhic victory. The dead bodies of the 25,000 slain knights form an insurmountable barrier around the cave, and they are trapped inside their magnificent victory. The bodies begin to rot and putrify and in the process, victory begins to poison the victors one by one.
In Chapter 44, it is Clarence, not The Boss, who sums up the predicament: "We had conquered; in turn we were conquered."
This same sentiment is repeated by Merlin: "Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered!" The Boss is put into a deep sleep, and in the final Post Script by Twain, we find Twain (or the original narrator) entering Hank Morgan's room to find him ranting, calling out for his lost land, his wife, and his child. Thus, in the final view, The Boss is defeated not by Merlin, but by the methods of nineteenth-century war, commerce, and destructive weapons. Ironically, in the end, The Boss is more interested in returning to his happy life in the beautiful and idyllic land of innocence that he destroyed than he is in returning to the nineteenth century.
