already netted them ten times what they had ever expected to get out of
it. And, remembering how tame had been the original snake-eater when he
first took the part, they gave Stetson _carte blanche_ in the matter of
gin, and trusted that, perhaps, in time the precedent which Bosko had
established might be repeated.
THE FALSE PROPHET.
THE FALSE PROPHET.[5]
I met him the first time in a low _cabaret_ in the Rivola, the cheapest
quarter of Paris. How did I come there? Perhaps I am a student of the
lower classes, and was pursuing my study there. Perhaps--but never
mind, it makes no difference how I came there or who or what I am. This
is not my story, it concerns the Prophet only.
As I sat watching the changing crowd I heard some men at the next table
talking of a man sitting over in a corner who once had a fortune that
he had won by forecasting events, but whose gift had left him suddenly,
and now his money was gone and he was without a friend.
I looked over toward the corner curiously. Leaning against one of the
supporting pillars of the low-studded room, I saw a pale, weary-looking
man. I did not need to look at the glass on the table to learn what
he was drinking. I recognized by that sallow skin, the frequent
convulsive starts, and the little catch in his breathing, an habitual
_absintheur_.
He sat apart from the others, and no one spoke to him during the
evening. Occasionally he ordered drink, and then sat for several
minutes watching lovingly the green, opalescent lights in the liquid
before him.
I had forgotten all about him, when, chancing to glance in his
direction a few minutes later, I saw that an altercation was taking
place. The Prophet was having an argument with the waiter over the
payment of his bill. I saw him thrust his hand in his pockets,
searching desperately for a coin, but in vain.
Hoping that perhaps I might learn something of the man’s story, I
arose, and, sitting down opposite him, I threw out a few coins, telling
the waiter to take out the payment of my friend’s bill, and to bring us
a bottle of Vie de Anise.
Do you think he was offended? You do not know the action of that
insidious poison. Honor, ambition, everything, are but as baubles to
the devotee of absinthe.
“Vie de Anise, did you say?” he asked, eagerly, leaning over the table.
“It is years since I have tasted any of that.”
I sat with him until nearly midnight; but try as I would I could not
draw the man out. Several times I skillfully directed the conversation
in the desired channel, but each time he as skillfully eluded me.
He was in terrible condition. His nerves were completely shattered. He
could scarcely sit still for a minute; and his hand shook so, as he
raised the glass to his lips, that the green liquor spilled and ran
over on to the sawdust floor. At last, as it was nearly time for the
place to close, I asked him point-blank to tell me the story of his
life.
He looked at me strangely. I do not know, it may have been the drink,
but someway he did not look like the man I had sat down with a few
hours before. The tired, weary look had completely disappeared, his
face was flushed, and his eyes were as bright as a child’s.
“Not to-night,” he said, in answer to my request, “but sometime.
Sometime when I can prove to you my right to the title, I will tell you
why they used to call me The Prophet. For, sometime, the gift will come
back to me again.” He leaned over the table and looked me full in the
face with those unnaturally bright eyes as he whispered: “It is coming
back soon, I can feel it. The false prophet shall redeem himself.”
I did not see the man again for many weeks, for I was busy with other
things. One night, however, I dropped into the place and seated myself
in a corner. I had scarcely taken off my gloves when I felt some one
touch me on the shoulder, and, as I looked up, I saw the Prophet
standing near. I scarcely recognized him, he was so changed. His
cheeks had great sunken places in them, and the skin had a waxy and
corpse-like appearance. But his eyes were brighter than ever before as
he said, eagerly:
“It has come back again, as I told you it would. To-night I will tell
you the story you wished to know before. Where have you been so long?”
I told him that I had been very busy since I last saw him, and,
ordering a bottle of his favorite drink, I waited with interest for
what I felt must prove a strange and interesting tale. He waited till
the liquor came, and, after taking a deep draught, he told me the
following story:
“You have probably heard the men here telling how I used to be a
prophet and could foretell events, and that once I failed. What you
have not heard, though, is how I came to fail; but I will tell you
to-night. I did not always have the gift, neither did I study and
cultivate it. It came to me as an inspiration,--and I abused that
gift,” he added, sadly.
“The first time was just before de Arnault was killed. As I sat at
this very table drinking, a peculiar feeling came over me, a kind of
exaltation. I seemed to be drifting out of myself and to have no part
with my surroundings. Then, gradually, I began to see a great crowd
in a public square. A man was sitting in a carriage near the Arch of
Triumph, reviewing some troops. I could not see his face, for there was
a mist about it. Suddenly, out of the crowd, I saw a man working his
way toward the carriage. He reached it, and, drawing a revolver from
his pocket, he fired three shots full at the breast of the man in the
carriage. Then the mist which had been about his face cleared, and I
recognized the Count de Arnault.
“When I came to myself the waiter was standing by my chair asking if I
were ill. I must have been acting queerly, for as I went out everyone
looked at me curiously.
“Someway, strange as it probably seems to you, I did not pay much
attention to the vision, for my brain is not exactly right, and I
see many things after I have been drinking which would frighten most
men. Imagine my horror a week later, however, when, as the Count was
reviewing the Imperial troops at the Place de la Concorde, I saw
enacted in reality what I had seen in my vision.
“Then, for a year, I had those strange visitations, during which
future events were revealed to me exactly as they were to occur. I
gained a reputation here in the Rivola, for during the Franco-Prussian
war I foretold the defeat of the army at Saarbruck, the retreats at
Weissenburg and Worth, the capitulation of Metz, and the fatal disaster
at Sedan. It was this war that was my ruin. The money which before
I could scarcely scrape together came to me now by the purse. I was
consulted on every great occasion, and my prophecies were paid for in
gold.
“Do you realize what a gift I had?” he cried, becoming excited. “I
could have done anything, been anything I wished. My fame extended
beyond the humble Rivola. I was sought after by all classes, from the
lowest to the highest.”
He stopped and remained silent for several minutes, then he began again
bitterly. “And because for two long years I never did one worthy thing
with the money I earned so easily,--because I made that gift a curse
instead of a blessing,--God took it from me. The money that I had saved
melted away, and I was soon back again where I had been before, for I
would not lie to the people. That is, at first I would not lie to them;
but when for two more years I waited and not a vision came to me, I
became desperate. I needed money terribly, and I thirsted for my former
fame. So, just before the treaty of peace was laid before the National
Assembly by Thiers, I told the people that it would not be accepted,
and you know how it came out on March 1. My old patrons, who had taken
my advice and staked much money on my prophecy, were furious. I was
even in a worse position than I had been before. The two years that I
had foretold events correctly counted for nothing. I had failed once,
and nobody would ever believe me again. I was a False Prophet.
“You do not know how I have lived since then, and I will not tell you.
The few sous I have picked up doing menial tasks have been spent here,
you know how. Sometimes I have been for days without food, but I could
always manage to get a little liquor. But now at last it has come
back again. I have a chance to redeem myself, and I shall make such a
different use of the gift than I did before. I have had another vision.
France is about to undergo another great change. She shall--”
He stopped abruptly, leaned forward against the table, and began
to breathe heavily. His eyes lost their bright look, the pupils
narrowed to needle points and took on the peculiar, dull appearance
of a hypnotized man. Then over his face there stole a look of fear.
He turned and glanced toward the bar. Involuntarily I followed his
glance, but there were only a couple of sailors talking together. I
turned again to my companion. The look of fear had given way to one of
absolute horror, and he had thrown up his arm as if to ward off a blow.
“Not that, my God, not that,” he muttered, “just when I was to have
redeemed my honor!”
The Prophet was having another vision, of that I was sure. But what
could be the impending disaster which could bring on such a look of
horror as that?
Then, without a word of warning, he was himself again, and turned to me.
“It is fate,” he said, sadly, “and it must be borne; but it is very
hard.”
He waited several minutes, trying to collect himself, then he began
again in a low tone:
“I have had my last vision. Soon--I know not when--but I must die. And
such a death!” He shuddered and threw up his hand again, involuntarily,
as he had done before. “As you and I sit here together at this table, a
man will come into the place. He will mistake you for an enemy of his,
and will try to kill you; but do not fear, he will not succeed. Promise
me,” he pleaded, “that you will take care of me when it is all over.”
I tried to make him leave the place, to promise never to come back
again if he thought there were any such danger; but he only shook his
head.
“It is no use, it is fate; and who are we to try to interfere with the
will of God? I tell you--”
He stopped. Again that look of fear began to come over his face, and I
turned to see the cause of his alarm, for he was not in any trance this
time.
“For God’s sake, don’t turn round!” he cried.
But it was too late. As I turned, I saw, standing by the bar, a man
almost a giant in form. As I looked, he chanced to glance in the mirror
behind the bar. He caught my eye, and, in a second, turned and started
for our table. Never have I seen such a look of hate on a human face.
As he neared our table, he drew a huge knife from his belt.
“So I have found you at last!” he cried. He reached our table and
raised that terrible knife, while I sat there, staring stupidly at him,
paralyzed with fear.
The arm descended, but, before the knife could reach me, the Prophet
had leaped from his chair and thrown himself in the way. Once more I
saw that pitiful little gesture of defense. I tried to look away, but
could not. I had not moved a muscle since I had first seen the murderer.
With a blow strong enough to have felled an ox, the cruel knife sank
deep into the Prophet’s neck, described a circular motion, and came out
on the other side, severing the head completely from the body.
The brute, horrified at what he had done, dropped the knife and fled
from the place. Then, as if released from the spell which had held me,
I came to myself.
I do not know how I did it, but, picking up that ghastly thing from
the floor, I rose and told the men assembled of the prophecy which
the dead man had made to me a short time before. It may not seem much
to you, but I felt that I owed it to the Prophet, to give him back the
place among those people which he had formerly held. And to-day, in the
Rivola, his name is honored as it was in the old days. It was an awful
price to pay, but he paid it; and his reward was, that the stigma of
false was forever removed from his name and memory.
The Prophet had redeemed himself.
A STUDY IN PSYCHOLOGY.
A STUDY IN PSYCHOLOGY.
In one corner of his solitary cell, with face buried in his hands, sat
Jean Lescaut, wife poisoner, waiting for the morrow on which he would
expiate his crimes.
Each hour as the sentry made his rounds, he saw the prisoner sitting in
that same hopeless attitude of despair. A month before when he first
heard his sentence he had raved and fought impotently. Night after
night, and day after day he had paced his narrow cell like a caged
animal, but now that was over. Already the shadow of the doom which was
so near had fallen upon him.
Presently there was a sound of footsteps, and the prisoner heard two
people in conversation coming down the corridor. But he did not stir;
events of that day had no interest for him: he was to be electrocuted
on the morrow. The steps stopped outside his cell, and he heard the
attendant saying, “I am sorry, Doctor Van Horne, but I can give you
only an hour. Orders are orders, you know.”
The heavy barred door swung open, was closed and locked again, and
the turnkey walked away. Jean Lescaut looked up wearily and without
curiosity. He saw a tall clerical gentleman regarding him intently.
“Jean Lescaut,” began the stranger, stepping close to the prisoner, “I
have come here to-day to offer you the only thing on earth which you
care for--liberty.”
A quick flush of color dyed the prison pallor of the man in irons, then
as quickly faded again.
“I am going to offer this to you,” the doctor continued, “not because
I think you innocent of the crime of which you were convicted, not
because I have any friendship for you, or because I desire to defeat
justice. The proposition I make you is purely in the interest of
science. Have you ever been hypnotized?”
The prisoner shook his head.
“Have you ever seen anyone in such a condition?”
Lescaut nodded wearily. All this talk irritated him. He wished that the
man would stop looking at him so intently and questioning him so much.
It reminded him of that other day in the court room when the lawyer for
the prosecution had looked at him in just such a way, and asked him so
many questions that he had become confused and told many things that
he had never intended to tell.
“If you have seen it done, so much the better. You have probably seen
persons put under this influence and then undergo tests which you know
would be a physical impossibility for them to endure otherwise. I have
myself given subjects arsenic, telling them it was sugar, and they felt
no bad effects. I have also burned with hot irons and thrust pins into
the flesh of such persons without their feeling any pain.
“Now what I have to propose to you, Jean Lescaut, is this,--to-morrow
at noon you are to go to the electric chair where 1800 volts of
electricity will be sent through your body. At eleven o’clock to-morrow
I will come to your cell and put you into an hypnotic sleep. You
will go to the chair, show all the symptoms and effects of a person
electrocuted, and you will apparently be dead. In reality, however, you
will only be asleep. And, as I can easily obtain your body from the
prison doctor on the pretense of using it for dissection purposes, I
can then awaken you.”
The prisoner leaned over and clutched the doctor’s arm so tightly that
he winced. “And what then?” he whispered eagerly.
“Then, as I have just said, I will awaken you. I will have proven
that a certain theory of mine is correct or false, and you will have
obtained your liberty, for I shall not hinder you from going where you
will after the experiment is over. But I must first try and see if I
can get control of you. You may not be susceptible to my influence.”
An hour later the turnkey came to inform Van Horne that his hour had
expired, and the preliminary trial must have been a success, for there
was a smile of triumph on the doctor’s face as he bade the prisoner
good day.
Next day an hour previous to the time set for the electrocution of
Jean Lescaut, Doctor Van Horne again visited the prisoner in his cell.
At twelve o’clock two attendants came and conducted him to the fatal
room. The reporters and prison officials present remarked on the
calmness of the doomed man. He walked to the chair without assistance,
and submitted to the strapping down and adjusting of the sponges and
electrodes without a tremor.
When all was ready the warden stepped to the side of the chair. “Jean
Lescaut,” said he, “I am about to give the signal for you to be sent
into eternity. Have you anything to say?”
The man in the chair shook his head. The warden stepped back out of
sight and made a sign to an assistant behind the screen. A switch
was thrown on and the voltmeter registered that nearly 2000 volts of
electricity were passing through the hooded figure in the chair. The
warden held his watch in his hand, glancing first at it, then at
Lescaut. At the end of eight seconds he made another sign, and the man
at the switch cut off the current.
The prison doctor stepped up from one side and examined the body
carefully. “Justice is satisfied. I pronounce Jean Lescaut dead,” he
said solemnly, and motioning to two of the attendants, he bade them
carry away the body.
That night, in a dissecting room in the suburbs of Albany, a crowd
of scientific men assembled at the invitation of Doctor Van Horne to
witness an important experiment. No one knew what that experiment was
to be; but every one had accepted the invitation, for Van Horne had a
high reputation among his colleagues.
When the last expected guest had arrived, the doctor made a few
remarks to the company. “I have invited you here to-night,” he said,
“to witness an experiment, which, if I am not mistaken, I have the
distinction of being the first to attempt. I have to-day taken the law
in my own hands; but, if the theory on which I have been working is
correct, justice will not be deprived of its victim.
“To-day, one hour previous to his electrocution, I hypnotized Jean
Lescaut, the man who poisoned his wife, strangled his child, and who
was sentenced to death last July. While under my influence I told
him that the current of electricity which would be sent through his
body would not kill him, but would only put him to sleep, from which
to-night I would awaken him.
“After he was pronounced dead by the prison doctor, I secured his body
for dissection, and have had it brought into the next room. Now, if
a theory on which I have been working for the last year is correct,
the impression which I left on his brain, has kept that electricity
from producing death; and, at my command, Jean Lescaut, though to all
appearances a corpse, will speak to us to-night.”
There was a stir of expectation among the doctors present as Van Horne
stepped into the adjoining room. Presently he returned wheeling a light
operating chair, over which a sheet was thrown.
“If everything should not happen in accordance with my theory, of
course what happens to-night is under the seal of the profession,” he
observed quietly, as he lifted the cloth. “I wish you all to examine
this body and state whether or not the man is dead.”
The doctors crowded about the figure in the chair, and used every known
means to detect the presence of life in the body. At the end of ten
minutes every one declared that Jean Lescaut was dead, that it was
impossible to discover a sign of life.
[Illustration: “He turned the reflector so that the rays fell on the
pallid, upturned face.” (See page 121.)]
Dr. Van Horne pushed the operating chair with its strange burden
directly under the electric light, turning the reflector so that the
strong rays fell full on the pallid upturned face. He passed his hands
lightly and rapidly over the man’s temples.
“Jean Lescaut,” he said slowly, “can you hear me?” There was no sign of
life on the part of the sleeper, and Van Horne repeated his question,
speaking more sharply.
Then, hardened though they were by numberless horrible scenes at the
operating table, many of the doctors shuddered; for, slowly, indeed so
slowly that the motion was barely perceptible, the figure in the chair
began to nod its head.
“Answer me,” cried Van Horne, raising his voice, and taking both the
man’s hands in his own. One of the doctors, younger than the others,
raised the window and thrust his head out into the cold air. The room
was becoming oppressive.
Slowly Jean Lescaut’s mouth opened. The lips parted, but no sound came
forth.
“Speak,” cried Van Horne sternly.
“I have been executed, I cannot speak. I am dead.” The words came from
the man in jerky, spasmodic sentences as if torn from him against his
will.
“Tell me, I command you, what has happened since I left you this
morning.”
“I am dead,” repeated the murderer in a dull, mechanical tone.
Dr. Van Horne stepped once more to the chair. He held one hand firmly
against the man’s forehead. The other he reached down behind the head
and pressed at the base of the brain.
Again the man began to speak, this time more rapidly than before, but
in a harsh, cackling voice.
“They came and took me from my cell and put me in a chair. They
strapped me down, and put sponges on my spine and on my ankles. Then
they put ten thousand needles into my body, and I began to grow cold
and numb. My heart stopped beating, and I could not breathe. And now I
am dead.”
“But you are breathing.”
“And now I am dead,” repeated the other mechanically.
Dr. Van Horne loosened his hands from the man, and turned to the
watching group.
“So far I have succeeded,” said he. “So far my theory is correct. The
electricity did not produce death in this man because his brain could
not receive the sensation. Now I am going to bring him out of the
hypnotic state and see if my theory is entirely correct.”
He did not state what that theory was, but stepped back to the man in
the chair and began speaking in a low tone. He took both eyelids, and
rolling them up, looked straight into the sleeper’s eyes.
“Jean Lescaut,” he cried sharply, “come to yourself! You are no longer
asleep.”
For the first time the man moved his body slightly, as if trying to
rise. Slowly a bright red spot began to appear on each pallid cheek.
His eyes rolled down from under the lids, and the pupils began to
dilate.
Then, suddenly, an awful horror came into his face, and without a word
of warning, as if impelled by some unseen force, he leaped forward,
and fell writhing and twisting on the floor over eight feet away. His
arms and legs beat the air and floor for a minute convulsively, then
stiffened into strange, grotesque positions.
Dr. Van Horne knelt down beside the body and examined it carefully.
Then he stood up and smiled, though he was very pale.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “I was entirely correct in my theory. Had I not
expected this ending, I would never have dared to thus violate the law
and bring this man back to life. That deadly charge of electricity
which was held back from acting by the influence of my hypnotism has
at last accomplished its work, as you yourselves just saw. When the
numbness produced by hypnotic sleep left the man’s brain, nature began
to act, and the shock to the nervous system was all the more powerful
because the electricity had changed its form to a static charge. You
need not fear; this time he is really dead.”
And thus Jean Lescaut, wife poisoner and perpetrator of a dozen crimes,
helped in his expiation of those crimes to advance the cause of
science; and justice was not cheated, for the execution of his sentence
was merely postponed the matter of a few hours.
THE PAINTED LADY AND THE BOY.
THE PAINTED LADY AND THE BOY.
“Bud Phillips says The Boy is going to the devil,” announced Stebbins,
as he strolled into the smoking room at the Sherwood Club, after
beating Perkins three games of billiards.
“Well, Bud is certainly in a position to be accurately informed on
that subject,” answered the Colonel; and the truth of his reply was so
apparent, that everyone smiled.
Bud was night clerk at the Algonquin, the hotel where The Boy had a
suite. So he had a chance to see at what hour and how the guests came
home. He also knew just how many times a week The Boy’s rooms were a
rendezvous for the young subalterns from Fort Blair, who came into town
every time they could get leave, to gamble away their month’s scanty
pay.
But as Bud Phillips also said, The Boy wasn’t entirely to blame, for
he had never had a mother’s care; and, though no one in Preston City
except the Colonel and I knew the facts of his early life, everyone had
a good word for him, and was inclined to overlook many indiscretions on
the part of popular Billy Richards, The Boy.