Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

THE TALE OF THE LOST LAND 45. FINAL P.S. BY M.T. (continued)

He lay muttering incoherently some little time; then for a time he lay silent, and apparently sinking away toward death. Presently his fingers began to pick busily at the coverlet, and by that sign I knew that his end was at hand with the first suggestion of the death-rattle in his throat he started up slightly, and seemed to listen: then he said:

"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.