Chapter 10 A King and a Duke Two or three days and nights went by, quiet and smooth and lovely.
It was a huge river, sometimes a mile and a half wide.
We traveled at night and hid the raft just before daylight.
Then we would have a swim and watch the daylight come.
Soon, as it was night, we took the raft out to the middle of the river and let her float wherever the current wanted.
Then we relaxed, dangled our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds of things.
We were always naked, day and night, at least whenever the mosquitoes would let us be.
The new clothes Buck's folks gave me were too good to be comfortable and besides I didn't like clothes much.
Sometimes we had that whole river to ourselves for the longest time.
Sometimes you could see a spark or two, candles or lanterns on a raft or in a cabin near the shore.
Once in a while, you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from somewhere.
It's lovely to live on a raft.
The sky was speckled with stars.
We'd lie on our backs and just look up at.
One morning I paddled upriver a bit to see if I could get some berries.
Just as I was passing a place where a path crossed the creek, a couple of men came running up the path as fast as they could.
I thought I was a goner for sure.
Whenever anybody was after anyone else, I always thought it was me or maybe Jim.
I was about to paddle away, but they were pretty close by then and they called out and begged me to save their lives.
They said they hadn't been doing anything wrong, but they were being chased.
There were men and dogs coming.
They got aboard, and in a few minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off shouting.
I paddled in among the trees and hid us from them.
One of these fellas was about 70.
He had a bald head and very gray whiskers.
He was wearing an old beaten-up slouch hat, a greasy blue shirt and ragged old blue jeans stuffed into his boot tops.
The other fella was about 30 and dressed the same.
Both the men had a big, fat, ratty-looking carpet bag.
After breakfast, we talked.
First thing that came out was that these chaps didn't know one another.
What got you into trouble? the bald-headed one asked.
Well, I've been selling an article to take the yellow off the teeth.
And it does take it off, too, but it just takes the enamel along with it.
But I stayed about one night longer than I ought to.
I was just about to get away when I ran across you on the trail.
You told me they were coming and begged me to help you get out of the way.
So I told you I was expecting trouble for myself and would scatter out with you.
That's the whole yarn.
What's yours?
Well said the bald-headed man.
I'd been running a little religious meeting there for about a week, talking to the folks about how they should behave.
I was taking in as much as five or six dollars a night, ten cents a head, when somehow a report got round last night that I'd been behaving badly on the sly.
This morning I heard the people were gathering.
They got me.
They said they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a rail.
Old man, said the young one, I reckon we might double team it together.
What do you think?
I could do that.
What's your line of work, mainly?
I'm a printer by trade, but I usually sell some medicines or work as a theater actor.
Oh, I can do lots of things, anything that comes in handy.
I've done some doctoring in my time, too.
I can tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out the facts for me.
Preaching's my line, too.
Nobody said anything for a while.
Then the young man sighed and said, Alas!
What are you alassing about? asked the bald-headed man.
To think I should be leading such a life and to be forced into such company.
He began to wipe the corner of his eye with a rag.
Ain't the company good enough for you, says the bald head.
Yes, it is good enough for me.
It's as good as I deserve.
I don't blame you, gentlemen.
Far from it.
I don't blame anybody.
I deserve it all.
I brought myself down.
Yes, I did it myself.
Brought you down from where?
Ah, you wouldn't believe me.
The secret of my birth.
The secret of your birth?
Do you mean to say Gentlemen?
Said the young man?
Very seriously, I will reveal it to you, for I feel I may have confidence in you.
By rights, I am a duke.
I am the rightful duke of Bridgewater.
He started to cry about how he was so poor now.
We tried to make him feel better, but he said he couldn't be comforted.
He said we ought to bow when we spoke to him and say, Your grace, my lord, or your lordship.
He said he wouldn't mind it if we called him Bridgewater, which was his title.
He also told us that one of us ought to wait on him at dinner and do any little thing for him that he wanted done.
Welp.
That was easy enough.
We did it and we could see it made him happier.
But the old man got pretty silent and didn't look comfortable.
He seemed to have something on his mind.
Then, in the afternoon, he said, "'Look here, Bilgewater.
I feel sorry for you, but you ain't the only person with troubles like that.'
"'Alas, no, you ain't the only person with a secret.'
And then he began to cry.
Bilgewater, you see before you in blue jeans and misery.
The wandering, exiled, trampled on and suffering, rightful king of France.
It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars weren't kings or dukes at all, but just low-down frauds.
I never said a thing to let on that I knew the truth.
I had no objections if they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, as long as they'd keep everything peaceful on the raft.
If I learned anything from Pap, it was that the best way to get along with this kind of people is to let them have their own way.
They asked us a lot of questions about why we would hide the raft during the daytime and who we were running from, so I made up a story for them.
I told them that most of my family was gone and that Jim and I had been living on the raft with my pa and my little brother, but that they had fallen off the raft when we were hit by a steamboat.
That night it started to rain.
The Duke and the King argued a bit over who would sleep in beds.
Mine was a bit better than Jim's and both were under a little wigwam that Jim had made out of some blankets.
While the two liars slept in our beds, Jim and I stayed up and kept watch during the storm.
