THE TRANSFORMATION
It was near the end of September. The seaside resorts on Long Island
were deserted by the gay health-seekers from the adjacent cities, and
the inhabitants of the villages along the South Shore, from Rockaway
to Montauk, had dwindled to their normal number of rural residents
except the city of B---- which, on account of its shipping interests,
still retained a lively activity.
The day was dismal and damp, foreboding a rainy spell. There were
scarcely any people on the streets and at dusk, when the Montauk
express stopped at the station of B----, there were only a few
passengers to alight.
One of them was a young woman attired in black, with a thick veil of
similar hue drawn over her face. She looked furtively up and down the
platform with painful anxiety, and espying an automobile a few rods
below the station, walked toward it hesitatingly, at the same time
pulling from her wrist-bag a crimson handkerchief. The chauffeur on
the machine seemed to understand the meaning of the signal, for at
once jumping down he advanced to meet the stranger.
After several words were exchanged in subdued tones, he escorted the
veiled lady to the vehicle and in a few minutes they were speeding
down the road toward the Hindoo doctor's sanitarium. The woman,
of course, was Margaret MacDonald and the chauffeur none other than
the Levantine Jew, Esau, the Doctor's discreet servant. When they
arrived at Ben Raaba's domicile it was almost pitch dark, and not a
soul could be seen in the vicinity. At the ringing of the door-bell,
Ben Raaba himself appeared and sedately welcomed Margaret, conducting
her into the reception room.
Shortly after, when Esau had withdrawn, they were sitting tête-à-tête
at a table, perusing some mysterious documents to which at last,
Margaret, taking a pen, subscribed her signature.
The documents were nothing else than the legal contract, which Margaret
had signed, offering herself a willing subject to undergo a mental and
physical metamorphosis, and absolving Ben Raaba from any responsibility
if the experiment should prove unsuccessful or fatal!
After a fortnight of dietary preparation, Margaret was taken into
the Laboratory of the Wizard and immediately hypnotized by him into
a state of cataleptic coma.
An awful sensation crept over one upon looking around about this den
called the Laboratory. Glittering saws and scalpels were hung in rows
on the walls; lances, beakers and retorts were scattered on the tables
and on the floor, and a hundred and one other apparatus and bottles
could be seen upon the shelves.
A big cat-owl perched on a pedestal in one corner, and a black tom-cat
with intense green eyes, prowling about the room, gave to the scene
a cabalistic and weird aspect. Here among these uncanny surroundings
Dr. Hyder Ben Raaba isolated and busied himself with continuous
vigilance for many months in order to achieve an undertaking that
seemed miraculous and impossible.
Through the lapse of so many long and tedious months Dr. Hyder Ben
Raaba had come to the completion of his assiduous labors,--labors
which had almost exhausted his consummate skill in hypnotism, surgery
and magic.
After a final but scrupulously careful examination of the patient,
assuring himself that every muscle, nerve, gland and artery were in
their proper places, he paused a moment before the prostrate body. It
was a solemn and tragic moment. Signs of intense anxiety were visible
upon his otherwise imperturbable visage, betraying the fact that he
was in a crucial predicament.
What, if on awakening the patient, he found her a maniac irrevocably
bereft of reason? What, if his re-incarnated subject should prove to be
a hideous Frankenstein or a monstrosity devoid of finer senses? What,
if she should prove to be a man with effeminate mind and manners?
Such and a thousand other similar fears and misgivings were flashing in
that moment through his mind, but at last, confident of his ultimate
success, and undaunted with apprehensions, he assumed a determined
countenance and commenced to undo the hypnotic spell, in order to
restore his subject to life and energy.
With eyes dilated, eyebrows knit, and arms stretched--holding in one
hand a magic wand--this future Mephisto uttered some mysterious words
in sepulchral intonations, snapped his fingers three times, and presto!
The spell was broken!
The full magical effect of his audacious undertaking was evident, for
scarcely had the last syllable of those mysterious and incomprehensible
words left his shriveled lips, when a sudden tremor shook the frame
of Margaret and, with a subdued groan, indicative more of a sensation
of bliss than of pain, she opened her eyes.
A triumphant smile pervaded her countenance, as if awakening from
an Utopian dream. Dr. Ben Raaba, meanwhile perceiving the crowning
success of his work, and standing beside her, began to exclaim with
rapturous joy, "Metempsychosis! Metempsychosis!"
The patient at once became conscious that her bodily transformation
was complete, for it did not take her long to realize it as HE stood
there, a beautiful specimen of manhood!
This miraculous transformation brought to light another remarkable
mental discovery. It was discovered by the Doctor that all the
accomplishments, knowledge and mental attributes possessed by
Margaret, prior to her re-incarnation, had been intensified a
hundredfold in their entity into those of aggressive, daring and
strenuous masculinity.
Margaret, assuming forthwith a masculine name, remained a few months
under the care and tutelage of Ben Raaba, in order to acquire further
important knowledge in hypnotism, diplomacy, etc., that would be
of invaluable service in his future career, and it was not until
September, almost one year after the advent of the patient, that he
reluctantly bade good-bye to Hyder Ben Raaba, and was again lost in
the vortex of humanity.