“Bosh!” broke from a leading surgeon. In this manner the astounding statement, made in all seriousness, was received by the group of scientists mingled with an astonishment that resembled stupidity. But in spite of their scoffs, the young student’s confident manner made a decided impression upon his listeners, unwilling as they were to be convinced.
Reuel went on rapidly; his eyes kindled; his whole person took on the majesty of conscious power, and pride in the knowledge he possessed. “I have found by research that life is not dependent upon organic function as a principle. It may be infused into organized bodies even after the organs have ceased to perform their legitimate offices. Where death has been due to causes which have not impaired or injured or destroyed tissue formation or torn down the structure of vital organs, life may be recalled when it has become entirely extinct, which is not so in the present case. This I have discovered by my experiments in animal magnetism.”
The medical staff was fairly bewildered. Again Dr. Hamilton spoke:
“You make the assertion that the dead can be brought to life, if I understand your drift, Dr. Briggs, and you expect us to believe such utter nonsense.” He added significantly, “My colleagues and I are here to be convinced.”
“If you will be patient for a short time longer, Doctor, I will support my assertion by action. The secret of life lies in what we call volatile magnetism—it exists in the free atmosphere. You, Dr. Livingston, understand my meaning; do you see the possibility in my words?” he questioned, appealing to Aubrey for the first time.
“I have a faint conception of your meaning, certainly,” replied his friend.
“This subtile magnetic agent is constantly drawn into the body through the lungs, absorbed and held in bounds until chemical combination has occurred through the medium of mineral agents always present in normal animal tissue When respiration ceases, this magnetism cannot be drawn into the lungs. It must be artificially supplied. This, gentlemen, is my discovery. I supply this magnetism. I have it here in the case Dr. Livingston has kindly brought me.” He held up to their gaze a small phial wherein reposed a powder. Physicians and students, now eager listeners, gazed spell-bound upon him, straining their ears to catch every tone of the low voice and every change of the luminous eyes; they pressed forward to examine the contents of the bottle. It passed from eager hand to eager hand, then back to the owner.
“This compound, gentlemen, is an exact reproduction of the conditions existing in the human body. It has common salt for its basis. This salt is saturated with oleo resin and then exposed for several hours in an atmosphere of free ammonia. The product becomes a powder, and that brings back the seeming dead to life.”
“Establish your theory by practical demonstration, Dr. Briggs, and the dreams of many eminent practitioners will be realized,” said Dr. Hamilton, greatly agitated by his words.
“Your theory smacks of the supernatural, Dr. Briggs, charlatanism, or dreams of lunacy,” said the surgeon. “We leave such assertions to quacks, generally, for the time of miracles is past.”
“The supernatural presides over man’s formation always,” returned Reuel, quietly. “Life is that evidence of supernatural endowment which originally entered nature during the formation of the units for the evolution of man. Perhaps the superstitious masses came nearer to solving the mysteries of creation than the favored elect will ever come. Be that as it may, I will not contend. I will proceed with the demonstration.”
There radiated from the speaker the potent presence of a truthful mind, a pure, unselfish nature, and that inborn dignity which repels the shafts of lower minds as ocean’s waves absorb the drops of rain. Something like respect mingled with awe hushed the sneers, changing them into admiration as he calmly proceeded to administer the so-called life-giving powder. Each man’s watch was in his hand; one minute passed—another—and still another. The body remained inanimate.
A cold smile of triumph began to dawn on the faces of the older members of the profession, but it vanished in its incipiency, for a tremor plainly passed over the rigid form before them. Another second—another convulsive movement of the chest!
“She moves!” cried Aubrey at last, carried out of himself by the strain on his nerves. “Look, gentlemen, she breathes! She is alive; Briggs is right! Wonderful! Wonderful!”
“We said there could not be another miracle, and here it is!” exclaimed Dr. Hamilton with strong emotion.
Five minutes more and the startled doctors fell back from the bedside at a motion of Reuel’s hand. A wondering nurse, with dilated eyes, unfolded a screen, placed it in position and came and stood beside the bed opposite Reuel. Holding Dianthe’s hands, he said in a low voice: “Are you awake?” Her eyes unclosed in a cold, indifferent stare which gradually changed to one of recognition. She looked at him—she smiled, and said in a weak voice, “Oh, it is you; I dreamed of you while I slept.”
She was like a child—so trusting that it went straight to the young man’s heart, and for an instant a great lump seemed to rise in his throat and choke him. He held her hands and chafed them, but spoke with his eyes only. The nurse said in a low voice: “Dr. Briggs, a few spoonfuls of broth will help her?”
“Yes, thank you, nurse; that will be just right.” He drew a chair close beside the bed, bathed her face with water and pushed back the tangle of bright hair. He felt a great relief and quiet joy that his experiment had been successful.
“Have I been ill? Where am I?” she asked after a pause, as her face grew troubled and puzzled.
“No, but you have been asleep a long time; we grew anxious about you. You must not talk until you are stronger.”
The muse returned with the broth; Dianthe drank it eagerly and called for water, then with her hand still clasped in Reuel’s she sank into a deep sleep, breathing softly like a tired child. It was plain to the man of science that hope for the complete restoration of her faculties would depend upon time, nature and constitution. Her effort to collect her thoughts was unmistakable. In her sleep, presently, from her lips fell incoherent words and phrases; but through it all she clung to Reuel’s hand, seeming to recognize in him a friend.
A little later the doctors filed in noiselessly and stood about the bed gazing down upon the sleeper with awe, listening to her breathing, feeling lightly the fluttering pulse. Then they left the quiet house of suffering, marvelling at the miracle just accomplished in their presence. Livingston lingered with Briggs after the other physicians were gone.
“This is a great day for you, Reuel,” he said, as he laid a light caressing hand upon the other’s shoulder.
Reuel seized the hand in a quick convulsive clasp. “True and tried friend, do not credit me more than I deserve. No praise is due me. I am an instrument—how, I know not—a child of circumstances. Do you not perceive something strange in this case? Can you not deduce conclusions from your own intimate knowledge of this science?”
“What can you mean, Reuel?”
“I mean—it is a dual mesmeric trance! The girl is only partly normal now. Binet speaks at length of this possibility in his treatise. We have stumbled upon an extraordinary case. It will take a year to restore her to perfect health.”
“In the meantime we ought to search out her friends.”
“Is there any hurry, Aubrey?” pleaded Reuel, anxiously.
“Why not wait until her memory returns; it will not be long, I believe, although she may still be liable to the trances.”
“We’ll put off the evil day to any date you may name, Briggs; for my part, I would preserve her incognito indefinitely.”
Reuel made no reply. Livingston was not sure that he heard him.
CHAPTER V
THE world scarcely estimates the service rendered by those who have unlocked the gates of sensation by the revelations of science; and yet it is to the clear perception of things which we obtain by the study of nature’s laws that we ar
e enabled to appreciate her varied gifts. The scientific journals of the next month contained wonderful and wondering (?) accounts of the now celebrated case,—re-animation after seeming death. Reuel’s lucky star was in the ascendant; fame and fortune awaited him; he had but to grasp them. Classmates who had once ignored him now sought familiar association, or else gazed upon him with awe and reverence. “How did he do it?” was the query in each man’s mind, and then came a stampede for all scientific matter bearing upon animal magnetism.
How often do we look in wonder at the course of other men’s lives, whose paths have diverged so widely from the beaten track of our own, that, unable to comprehend the one spring upon which, perhaps, the whole secret of the diversity hinged, we have been fain to content ourselves with summing up our judgment in the common phrase? “Well, it’s very strange; what odd people there are in the world to be sure!”
Many times this trite sentence was uttered during the next few months, generally terminating every debate among medical students in various colleges.
Unmindful of his growing popularity. Reuel devoted every moment of his spare time to close study of his patient. Although but a youth, the scientist might have passed for any age under fifty, and life for him seemed to have taken on a purely mechanical aspect since he had become first in this great cause. Under pretended indifference to public criticism, throbbed a heart of gold, sensitive to a fault; desiring above all else the well-being of all humanity; his faithfulness to those who suffered amounted to complete self-sacrifice. Absolutely free from the vices which beset most young men of his age and profession, his daily life was a white, unsullied page to the friend admitted to unrestricted intercourse, and gave an irresistible impetus to that friendship, for Livingston could not but admire the newly developed depths of nobility which he now saw unfolding day by day in Reuel’s character. Nor was Livingston far behind the latter in his interest in all that affected Dianthe. Enthused by its scientific aspect, he vied with Reuel in close attention to the medical side of the case, and being more worldly did not neglect the material side.
He secretly sought out and obtained the address of the manager of the jubilee singers and to his surprise received the information that Miss Lusk had left the troupe to enter the service of a traveling magnetic physician—a woman—for a large salary. They (the troupe) were now in Europe and had heard nothing of Miss Lusk since.
After receiving this information by cable, Livingston sat a long time smoking and thinking: people often disappeared in a great city, and the police would undoubtedly find the magnetic physician if he applied to them. Of course that was the sensible thing to do, but then the publicity, and he hated that for the girl’s sake. Finally he decided to compromise the matter by employing a detective. With him to decide that it was expedient to do a certain thing was the same as to act; before night the case was in the hands of an expert detective who received a goodly retainer. Two weeks from that day—it was December twenty-fourth—before he left his boarding place, the detective was announced. He had found the woman in a small town near Chicago. She said that she had no knowledge of Miss Lusk’s whereabouts. Dianthe had remained with her three weeks, and at the end of that time had mysteriously disappeared; she had not heard of her since.
Livingston secured the woman’s name and address, gave the man a second check together with an admonition to keep silence concerning Miss Lusk. That closed the episode. But of his observations and discoveries, Aubrey said nothing, noting every phase of this strange happening in silence.
Strangely enough, none of the men that had admired the colored artist who had enthralled their senses by her wonderful singing a few weeks before, recognized her in the hospital waif consecrated to the service of science. Her incognito was complete.
The patient was now allowed the freedom of the corridors for exercise, and was about her room during the day. The returns of the trance-state were growing less regular, although she frequently fell into convulsions, thereby enduring much suffering, sometimes lying for hours in a torpid state. Livingston had never happened to be present on these occasions, but he had heard of them from eye-witnesses. One day he entered the room while one was occurring. His entrance was unnoticed as he approached lightly over the uncarpeted floor, and stood transfixed by the scene before him.
Dianthe stood upright, with closed eyes, in the middle of the room. Only the movement of her bosom betrayed breath. The other occupants of the room preserved a solemn silence. She addressed Reuel, whose outstretched arms were extended as if in blessing over her head.
“Oh! Dearest friend! Hasten to cure me of my sufferings. Did you not promise at that last meeting? You said to me, ‘You are in trouble and I can help you.’ And I answered, ‘The time is not yet.’ Is it not so?”
“Yes,” replied Reuel. “Patience a while longer; all will be well with you.”
“Give me the benefit of your powerful will,” she continued. “I know much but as yet have not the power to express it: I see much clearly, much dimly, of the powers and influences behind the Veil, and yet I cannot name them. Some time the full power will be mine; and mine shall be thine. In seven months the sick will be restored—she will awake to worldly cares once more.” Her voice ceased; she sank upon the cot in a recumbent position. Her face was pale; she appeared to sleep. Fifteen minutes passed in death-like stillness, then she extended her arms, stretched, yawned, rubbed her eyes—awoke.
Livingston listened and looked in a trance of delight, his keen artistic sense fully aroused and appreciative, feeling the glamour of her presence and ethereal beauty like a man poring over a poem that he has unexpectedly stumbled upon, losing himself in it, until it becomes, as it were, a part of himself. He felt as he watched her that he was doing a foolish thing in thus exposing himself to temptation while his honor and faith were pledged to another. But then, foolishness is so much better than wisdom, particularly to a man in certain stages of life. And then he fell to questioning if there could be temptation for him through this girl—he laughed at the thought and the next instant dismay covered him with confusion, for like a flash he realized that the mischief was already done.
As we have already hinted, Aubrey was no saint; he knew that fickleness was in his blood; he had never denied himself anything that he wanted very much in his whole life. Would he grow to want this beautiful woman very much? Time would tell.
* * *
It was Christmas-time—a good, sensible seasonable day before Christmas, with frost and ice in abundance, and a clear, bright, wintry sky above. Boston was very full of people—mostly suburban visitors—who were rushing here and there bent on emptying their purses on the least provocation. Good-nature prevailed among the pedestrians; one poor wretch stood shivering, with blue, wan face, on the edge of the sidewalk, his sightless eyes staring straight before him, trying to draw a tune from a consumptive violin—the embodiment of despair. He was, after all, in the minority, to judge by the hundreds of comfortably-clad forms that hurried past him, breathing an atmosphere of peace and prosperity.
Tomorrow the church bells would ring out tidings that another Christmas was born, bidding all rejoice.
This evening, at six o’clock, the two friends went to dine in a hotel in a fashionable quarter. They were due to spend the night and Christmas day at the Vance house. As they walked swiftly along with the elastic tread of youth, they simultaneously halted before the blind musician and pressed into his trembling hand a bountiful gift; then they hurried away to escape his thanks.
At the hotel Livingston called for a private dining room, and after the coffee was served, he said:
“Tell me, Briggs, what is the link between you and your patient? There is a link, I am sure. Her words while in the trance made a great impression upon me.”
There was a pause before Reuel replied in a low tone, as he rested his arm on the opposite side of the table and propped his head up on his hand:
“For
give me, Aubrey!”
“For what?”
“This playing with your confidence. I have not been entirely frank with you.”
“Oh, well! You are not bound to tell me everything you know. You surely have the right to silence about your affairs, if you think best.”
“Listen, Aubrey. I should like to tell you all about it. I would feel better. What you say is true; there is a link; but I never saw her in the flesh before that night at the Temple. With all our knowledge, Aubrey, we are but barbarians in our ideas of the beginning, interim and end of our creation. Why were we created? For whose benefit? Can anyone answer that satisfactorily?”
“‘Few things are hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and seriously to the solution of a mystery,’7 Hawthorne tells us,” replied Aubrey. “Have not you proved this, Reuel?”
“Well, yes—or, we prove rather, that our solution but deepens the mystery or mysteries. I have surely proved the last. Aubrey, I look natural, don’t I? There is nothing about me that seems wrong?”
“Wrong! No.”
“Well, if I tell you the truth you will call me a lunatic. You have heard of people being haunted by hallucinations?”
Aubrey nodded. “I am one of those persons. Seven weeks ago I saw Dianthe first, but not in the flesh. Hallow-eve I spoke to her in the garden of the haunted house, but not in the flesh. I thought it strange to be sure, that this face should lurk in my mind so much of the time; but I never dreamed what a crisis it was leading up to. The French and German schools of philosophy have taught us that going to places and familiar passages in books, of which we have had no previous knowledge, is but a proof of Plato’s doctrine—the soul’s transmigration, and reflections from the invisible world surrounding us.
“Finally a mad desire seized me to find that face a living reality that I might love and worship it. Then I saw her at the Temple—I found her at the hospital—in the flesh! My desire was realized.”
Of One Blood Page 4