IN THE DARK CASTLE WHEN the meal (which igeon pie, cold ham, salad, and cakes) had been brought, and all had drawn their chairs up to the table and begun, the Knight tinued: "You must uand, friends, that I know nothing of who I was and whence I came into this Dark World. I remember no time when I was not dwelling, as now, at the court of this all but heavenly Queen; but my thought is that she saved me from some evil entment and brought me hither of her exceeding bounty. (Ho Frogfoot, your cup is empty. Suffer me to refill it.) And this seems to me the likelier because even now I am
bound by a spell, from which my Lady alone free me. Every night there es an hour when my mind is most horribly ged, and, after my mind, my body. For first I bee furious and wild and would rush upon my dearest friends to kill them, if I were not bound. And soon after that, I turn into the likeness of a great serpent, hungry, fierce, and deadly. (Sir, be pleased to take another breast of pigeon, I e you.) So they tell me, and they certainly speak truth, for my Lady says the same. I myself know nothing of it, for when my hour is past I awake fetful of all that vile fit and in my proper shape and sound mind - saving that I am somewhat wearied. (Little lady, eat one of these honey cakes, which are brought for me from some barbarous land in the far south of the world.)
Now the Queens majesty knows by her art that I shall be freed from this entment when once she has made me king of a land in the Overworld as upon my head. The land is already chosen and the very place of our breaking out. Her Earthmen have worked day and night digging a way beh it, and have now gone so far and so high that they tunnel not a score of feet beh the very grass on which the Updwellers of that try walk. It will be very soon now that those Uplanders fate will e upon them. She herself is at the diggings tonight, and I expect a message to go to her. Thehin roof of earth which still keeps me from my kingdom will be broken through, and with her to guide me and a thousahmen at my back, I shall ride forth in arms, fall suddenly on our enemies, slay their chief men, cast down their strong places, and doubtless be their ed king within four and twenty hours.」
"Its a bit rough lu them, isnt it?" said Scrubb.
"Thou art a lad of a wondrous, quick-w wit!" exclaimed the Knight. "For, on my honour, I had hought of it so before. I see your meaning." He looked slightly, very slightly troubled for a moment or two; but his face soon cleared and he broke out, with another of his loud laughs, "But fie on gravity! Is it not the most ical and ridiculous thing in the world to think of them all going about their business and never dreaming that uheir peaceful fields and floors, only a fathom down, there is a great army ready to break out upon them like a fountain! And they o have suspected! Why, they themselves, when ohe first smart of their defeat is over, hardly choose but laugh at the thought!」
"I dont think its funny at all," said Jill. "I think youll be a wicked tyrant.」
"What?" said the Knight, still laughing and patting her head in a quite infuriating fashion.
"Is our little maid a deep politi? But never fear, sweetheart. In ruling that land, I shall do all by the sel of my Lady, who will then be my Queen too. Her word shall be my law, even as my word will be law to the people we have quered.」
"Where I e from," sai