happen so. I kept secluded, and watched the weather.
Clarence dropped in from time to time and said the
public excitement was growing and growing all the
time, and the whole country filling up with human
masses as far as one could see from the battlements.
At last the wind sprang up and a cloud appeared -- in
the right quarter, too, and just at nightfall. For a
little while I watched that distant cloud spread and
blacken, then I judged it was time for me to appear.
I ordered the torch-baskets to be lit, and Merlin liber-
ated and sent to me. A quarter of an hour later I
ascended the parapet and there found the king and the
court assembled and gazing off in the darkness toward
Merlin's Tower. Already the darkness was so heavy
that one could not see far; these people and the old