There was nothing abnormal in the character of Beverton except a
tendency, while very young, to walk in his sleep, and nothing in his
twenty-five years of life of which he was really ashamed except a deed
of his infancy, born of the above-named tendency, for which he had been
severely punished at the time. The punishment, no doubt, impressed the
incident on his mind, and he recalled it occasionally, always with a
flush of shame, while he lived his years of boyhood, youth, and early
manhood. He remembered being rudely awakened from sleep, not in a crib
where his mother had placed him, nor beside her, where he sometimes
slept, but flat on his back on the carpeted floor of a long hall, dimly
illumined by distant gas jets, the soft glow from which showed him a
woman in a night-robe looking down upon him with angry eyes, and a
purple-faced child, a little younger than himself, gasping and choking
in her arms. His cheek burned from the slap she had given him, and his
head hurt from the impact with the floor, so he joined the other baby
in protest, and the uproar brought several uniformed hall-boys and a
night clerk, who led him to the room occupied by his parents. After
punishment, and when able to understand, he learned what he had done in
his sleep--left his crib, sought the hall, buried his small fingers in
the throat of this other sleep-walking infant--whom he had never seen
before--and might possibly have murdered it had not its mother wakened
and arrived in time to interfere. He was well spanked for the feat.
His mother believed in both punishment and prayer as factors in reform.
For a long time he received nightly spankings in bed, with injunctions
to stay where he was put until morning, and supplemented his "Now I lay
me down to sleep" with a plea to be cured of his infirmity.
The treatment was successful; the unconscious cerebration left him, but
the spankings continued until he had outgrown the conscious cruelty
common to all children, then, having ceased vivisection of insects and
angle-worms, and overcome his antagonism to the aged, the helpless,
and the infirm of his own species, he began his development into a
cheery, generous, and humane character, which, assisted by good health,
good home training, and a good education, found, at manhood, outward
expression in six feet of good looks.
These good points brought him a wife--a creature as well favored as
himself, but his very antithesis in disposition and physique. He was
of the blond type, calm, masterful, and imperturbable in temperament;
she of the brunette, warm-hearted, and impulsive, yielding him neither
obedience nor spoken approval, and meeting him half-way only upon the
common ground of love, which Mother Nature provides for the agreement
of her opposites.
Beverton was content with her, and managed her in a way peculiar to
himself. Whether it was the best way or not, is hard to decide; for it
is possible that with more antagonism from him there would have been
less from her. But it was successful. As instance--she had thrown a
plate of newly buttered griddle-cakes across the breakfast table; her
aim being good, they had struck him fairly in the face, and the melted
butter smeared not only his face and shirt-front, but a gorgeous puff
cravat which her own fingers had made for him. He smilingly left the
table, changed his raiment, and they finished breakfast in silence;
then, instead of going to business, he cleared the kitchen table and
began cleaning the neckwear. A full hour he spent at the task, much in
her way and to the neglect of his business, when she broke her moody
silence with:
"What are you doing? Why do you not go down town?"
"I will soon, my dear," he answered amiably. "Just as soon as I get the
syrup and butter out of this tie you made. I don't mind washing my face
twice instead of once, but I hate to see this tie soiled."
She was upon him instantly, her arms about his neck and tears in her
eyes, while she begged, brokenly, for forgiveness. It was granted,
of course, and for a long time griddle-cakes were omitted from their
discussions.
Again, inspired by a natural and wifely desire to "jog some spirit into
him," she had carefully prepared a slippery place on the front yard
walk which a slight snow concealed from his view when he arrived in the
evening. He came down hard, and though he was not hurt, he pretended
to be; for he saw through her trick at once, and to punish her howled
for assistance and blamed his own carelessness, but uttered no word of
suspicion or reproach. Neighbors assisted him in, and all that evening,
prone upon the couch, he enjoyed the ministrations of a contrite and
tearful wife, who tried to atone for her sins of commission (and
omission, for she did not confess) by softly spoken sympathy and
frequent service of watered brandy to relieve the pain--a remedy which
Beverton liked, but which was denied him as a beverage.
And so, as their young married life went on, he shamed and tamed her,
not by breaking her spirit, but by compelling her to break it herself;
and though she remained a tigress against those she _imagined_ his
enemies--for the man had none--she displayed toward him an attitude of
meekness, adoration, and almost slavish obedience which made him at
times regret the transformation; for her tantrums were the charm which
had first attracted him.
But at this period it seemed to him that the tantrums had struck in.
They slept in separate rooms, and one night he awoke to find her
leaning over him with a pail of water poised above his head. Before he
could catch the tilting pail, she had deluged him, but even this did
not disturb his equanimity; he merely sprang out of bed, caught her by
the arm, and asked what he had done to deserve a ducking. She answered
with a scream, and, dropping the pail, clung to him in the darkness.
She did not know where she was--she could not explain, but at last he
understood.
"Do you walk in your sleep, Grace?" he asked, gently.
"Oh, no--yes," she stammered; "but not since our marriage. I thought it
had left me. Oh, I'm so sorry. Did I waken you?"
"With a bucket of water," he answered, dryly as was possible in his
moist condition. "I had the habit when very young, but they cured me by
radical treatment. You're too old to be punished, Grace, but we must
find _some_ way. You may set fire to me next time."
But he knew of no way, and when she had repeated the feat with the pail
of water, and a little later made a midnight assault upon him with
the carving-knife, he could only nail her bedroom window partly open
for ventilation, and put a bolt on his side of her door. Her grief
and horror were pathetic, and it sorely tried Beverton to lock up his
wife like a wild beast; but she had become a menace to his health,
and perhaps his life; for, though on each occasion he had wakened in
time to realize her intent, he had not wakened in time to save himself
completely. He had not quite avoided the downcoming knife; aimed at his
heart, it had grazed his arm as he wrenched from under.
It was a very fine piece of polished hardware, this knife--and belonged
to a carving-set given to them at their wedding. On the day following
her demonstration with it, and before he had announced her sentence of
nightly imprisonment, she had bound the knife, fork, and steel together
with a rosette of ribbons, and with the aid of a step-ladder hung them
high on the dining-room wall; then she burned the ladder, and when
Beverton arrived in the evening showed him the exhibit.
"There," she said, with a determined little frown, "is the only deadly
weapon in the house, and it is out of my reach. Let it stay there; I
hate the sight of it, and could never bear to have it on the table
again; but if it be up there--out of the way--where I can't help seeing
it, perhaps--perhaps--it will--" The rest was convulsive sobbing.
Beverton comforted her, and meaning to lock her up at bedtime,
suggested putting the harrowing reminder out of sight in some safe
place; but she would not consent, even though she approved of the bolt
on her door.
"I might find that knife in my sleep, no matter where you hid it," she
said. "Lock me up, instead, and then, if I pick the lock, I cannot
reach the knife."
So there it remained, and as they used their dining-room for a
sitting-room and as she had resolutely placed the beribboned and
glittering display squarely opposite her favorite seat, she had full
opportunity of benefiting by any deterrent influence it possessed. As
to its possessing such an influence, she could only surmise and hope;
however, she confessed that it fascinated her.
"I can't keep my eyes off it," she explained one evening, while they
sat reading in the dining-room. "For the dozenth time to-night I've
found my gaze creep up to that knife. Why is it? And the hateful thing
makes me sleepy--just looking at it."
"Well," responded Beverton, grimly, "if it could only keep you asleep,
it would be all right, wouldn't it?" Then, observing that the speech
had pained her, he arose, kissed the flushed cheek, and added gently,
"Don't look at it, girl; face the other way and get interested in your
book. What are you reading?"
"It's so hard to get interested," she said, wearily, "in what you
don't understand. It's a sea novel." She held up the book and turned
the leaves. "What does topgallant clewlines mean, Tom?--fore-and-aft,
clew-up and clew-down? And here's a word, 'mizzen.' And
clew-garnet--what does that mean? It's a strange language."
"Blest if I know. Pick the story out. Never mind the descriptions."
They resumed their reading, and it was ten minutes later when Beverton,
aroused by the unusual quiet, looked again at his wife. The book lay
on her lap, held open by her hands, but she was not reading--she was
staring up at the hardware glistening in the lamplight, with eyes that
were wide-open, but almost as lightless as the eyes of a corpse. And
as Beverton looked at them, the eyelids fluttered together and closed
in sleep. Beverton watched, and in a moment they opened, with an
expression in them that he had never seen before--so strange, hard, and
murderous it seemed.
"Grace," said the startled man, rising to his feet, "are you awake?"
"Awake," she screamed--"screech" better describes the hard, raspy tone
with which she answered him. "Aye, awake and ready--for eighteen hours,
come eight bells; and all guns o' the port battery down the mizzen
hatch, and all hands drunk but the cook. What's to do?"
"Wake up, Grace," he commanded.
A convulsive shiver passed through her, she uttered a little gasp, then
closed her eyes, and opened them with her natural smile.
"Why, I did go to sleep, after all, didn't I?" she asked, softly.
"Yes, and talked and looked like the very deuce. Let's see what you are
reading." He took the book from her hands, but neither on the open page
nor upon any preceding could he find words similar to those she had
spoken.
"What were you dreaming of when I spoke to you?" he inquired.
"I didn't dream--at least, I don't remember. Did you speak?" She yawned
and arose. "I'll go to bed, Tom," she said. "Lock me up."
Beverton read the book, after she had retired, from the beginning to
the opened page; then sat down and pondered far into the night.
Next evening, on his way home, he visited a physician--a personal
friend, who had once met Mrs. Beverton--and to him he stated the
trouble.
"Self-hypnotized," said the doctor, "by the usual method--staring at a
bright object. Practically in the same condition as when sleep-walking.
You can cure her by suggestion."
"How--what do you mean?"
"Don't you know that a somnambulist will always obey orders--will
believe anything that is spoken in a firm, commanding tone, the same
as though hypnotized?"
"She didn't look and act like it. And where did she get that sailor
talk? It wasn't in the book she was reading."
"The book suggested the train of thought, nevertheless. The
subconscious memory is absolute. She read those words at some time in
her life, or heard them spoken--possibly in infancy."
"Well, it's too much for me. Can you take charge of her case?"
"No--although there is not, perhaps, a man in town more studied in
this subject than myself. But there is no one more unfit to operate.
I am too subjective, as the phrase is--too good a subject, easily
hypnotized, and thus unable to control even a self-hypnotized person.
As there is not a professional hypnotist in town it devolves upon you."
"But I know nothing about it."
"Learn. Your natural mastery over her renders you the one above all
others to treat her successfully. Let her stare at the knife again--or
any bright object. Lead back into her past, and try to find what was
on her mind when she first walked in her sleep; then tell her that her
fears or anxiety were groundless, and that she must never get up in her
sleep again."
He gave Beverton as much of practical instruction as was safe for a
novice to possess, and with some misgivings the half-credulous young
husband resolved to experiment alone. But in his first attempt to do
so, he found unexpected developments in the situation that seemed to
remove the solution farther yet from his powers.
Not daring to take her into his confidence, he waited, evening after
evening, for her to place herself under favoring conditions--to take
up the wearying tale of the sea, and to rest her eyes and brain by
staring at the glistening array of steel on the wall. She capriciously
and vivaciously declared that she would have nothing more to do with
either, that she would divert her mind by polishing up her neglected
accomplishment of stenography (from practice of which he had rescued
her by marriage), and while he fidgeted and made occasional more or
less adroit references to the story, which he pretended to admire, she
translated into hieroglyphics the random thoughts of her brain.
"For if I make a widow of myself some night," she said, "and an angel
of you, Tommie, and escape execution, I will need to earn my living,
don't you see? But if you like that horrid story, suppose you read to
me from where I left off, and I'll take it down for practice."
He had committed himself, and was bound to the task. He began at the
top of the page and read, but she mercifully stopped him part way to
the bottom, so that she might transcribe her notes and verify. This
measured her interest in the story, and as he had none himself he
gladly ceased, and she began her transcription. While waiting for her
he glanced at the ornament on the wall. It was bright, pleasing to the
eye--artistic in finish and design. It attracted his gaze, and having
secured it, held it; for the longer he looked the less inclined he felt
to look elsewhere, and at last, with the knife filling his vision to
the exclusion of the fork and steel, his eyelids drooped and his senses
left him.
When he wakened he was on his knees, with hands clasped in supplication
before his wife, who, with tears in her eyes, but with laughter
quivering on her lips--in fact, nearly hysterical, had arisen from her
chair with her pencil and notebook.
"Why, Tom," she said, "what is the matter with you? You were not
yourself; it was so absurd and ridiculous. Did you go to sleep, and do
you talk in your sleep, as I walk in mine?"
"No," he answered, rising and blinking sheepishly. "Did I? Yes, perhaps
I did doze off--in the chair. Did I get up?"
"Yes, and got down--on your knees to me, with your eyes impassionedly
fixed on mine--oh, it was so funny, but it frightened me; you were
so intense--and you delivered yourself of--well, I took it down in
shorthand, and I'll transcribe it first, and then read."
He sat down in his chair, and she worked busily for a few moments, and
then said: "Now, I'll read first what I took down from that horrid
sea-story, and you take the book and follow me to see if I've made
mistakes."
He picked up the book from the floor, found the page, and scanned it
while she read from her copy as follows:
"'--which had blown, at times, with a force that nearly amounted to a
little gale, was lulling and becoming uncertain, as though awed by the
more violent power that was gathering along the borders of the sea, in
the direction of the neighboring continent. Each moment the eastern
puffs of air lost their strength and became more and more feeble,
until, in an incredibly short period, the heavy sails were heard
flapping against the masts--a frightful and ominous calm succeeding.'
"Now," she said, "did I make any mistakes in this?"
"No," he answered, "word for word it is correct."
"Very well. You know I stopped you at this point, and when I had
written it out in longhand, I said 'I'm ready. Go on,' and turned to
a new page; but you, instead of reading more, dropped the book, got
down on your knees, and--just listen--you uttered this in tones of the
utmost distress:
"'Sir, my life is in your hands; but as to my body, in relation to that
which you would persuade me to, my soul shall sooner be separated from
it, through the violence of your arms, than I shall condescend to your
request.'"
"And I said that in my sleep?" inquired the amazed Beverton.
"You did," laughed his wife, "in the most plaintive, piping feminine
accents imaginable. You were a perfect picture of virtue in distress.
What were you dreaming of?"
"I don't remember. Isn't this the page"--he glanced at the book--"that
you were reading when you fell asleep the other evening?"
"Yes, I think so; but I was looking at the knife when I dropped off."
"So was I," he responded. "Now, this is one of Cooper's tales, written,
I think, about the middle of this century; and, though it is full
of nautical language, there is nothing in it, up to this page, that
resembles this prayerful speech of mine, or your reprehensible language
the other evening, which you uttered, by the way, in hoarse, masculine
tones."
"Did I?" she asked. "What did I say?"
"Something about 'eight bells,' and 'all hands drunk.' I've forgotten
it all; but did you ever listen to any sailor yarns? Have you ever read
any sea-stories besides this?"
"I never saw a sailor in my life, that I know of. I never read a
sea-story, either, and never shall. I don't like them."
"Then it isn't the book, Grace, that affects us; it must be the knife.
It is merely a bright object which, if looked at steadily, will put a
person into a hypnotic sleep. At least, that is what I have heard."
"And then we talk," she said. "But why should you talk like a virtuous
maiden and I like a bad man?"
"I don't know," he said. "I know very little of hypnotism."
"Thomas Beverton," she said, with mock severity, "did you ever listen
to a prayer from a helpless female in your power?"
"No," he answered, laughing. "No, I swear it. I've always done the
praying myself."
"I suppose so," she rejoined, with a pout. Then, rising, she added: "If
you are going to talk in your sleep, I'm going to listen, and I'll know
all about your love affairs, remember that."
And with this truly feminine disposition of the question, she went to
bed.
Beverton secured a broom from the kitchen and, reaching up, unhooked
the carving-set and examined each piece carefully. The fork was a
fork, the steel a steel, the knife a knife--simple in design and
workmanship--such as could be found in any hardware store; but
the knife possessed one slight peculiarity that his questioning
eye noticed. Though it was ground in the conventional bowie-knife
shape, yet the blade as a whole had more curve than is usual in
carving-knives, while the long concave in the back of the blade,
near the point, was very short and deep. A further exaggeration of
these peculiarities would have given the blade the look of a Moorish
scimitar; but, even so, would have carried no occult significance to
Beverton's mind, and as it certainly did possess an unpleasant and
material connection with the problem before him, he decided to remove
it. Putting on his hat and overcoat, he took the three pieces out to
the back yard and hurled them, one by one, over the fence into a deep
snow-drift. Then he returned and, as was his custom, read until sleepy.
It was two hours later before the desired condition arrived, and laying
down his book, he discovered that he had not bolted his untrusty wife
in her room. He arose and looked in, only to see that her bed was
empty. He called, but she did not answer, and, thoroughly awake now,
he ran through the rooms of the house, but did not find her. As he
reached the dining-room, however, to don his hat and coat, he saw her
enter from the kitchen. She was in her nightdress, which was wet with
clinging snow; in her eyes was the lightless stare of somnambulism, and
in her hand the knife. In spite of his temperament, Beverton shivered
as he watched her expressionless stare, then remembering his friend's
instructions, pulled himself together, and said:
"Drop that knife. Drop it at once."
The knife clattered on the floor; he advanced, picked it up, and placed
it on the sideboard. Then he faced her, calm and determined, resolved
to solve the problem.
"Why do you walk in your sleep?" he demanded. She stood quiescent
before him; and though her features moved with inward emotion, she did
not reply.
"Why do you walk in your sleep?" he again demanded. "Answer me."
"To save myself," she said, slowly, and in plaintive, aggrieved tones.
"From whom?" asked Beverton.
"From my enemy--who would kill me."
"Who is your enemy? Why would he kill you?"
"I do not know. I know I must kill him, or he will kill me."
"This is nonsense," said Beverton, sternly, warming to the problem.
"Nonsense?" Her face seemed troubled, as though the mind behind was in
doubt.
"Rank nonsense. No one would harm you. Everyone loves you. What makes
you think he would kill you?"
"He tried." The set face of the young wife took on an expression of
fright and horror. "He met me when I was looking for him, trying to
explain. He clutched me by the throat. He would have killed me if he
could. He will kill me yet if I cannot explain."
"When did he choke you?" asked Beverton. "Where was it?" he asked,
with perspiration starting from his forehead and an incident of his
childhood in his mind.
"In the hall--the long hall."
"He was a baby," ventured Beverton. "How could he harm you?"
She waited a moment, as though the question puzzled her, then said:
"A baby, yes. I was a baby, too."
"Where was this long hall?"
Again the play of emotion on her features, but no answer.
"Was it in a hotel?"
"A hotel, yes."
"What hotel? Where was it?"
"The Mansion House, Main Street, Buffalo."
Beverton shook in the knees. She had named the hotel where his parents
had stopped while traveling--where he had last walked in his sleep.
"Grace," he said, as firmly and gently as he could with his tongue
trembling against the roof of his mouth. "He did not mean to hurt you;
he did not know you at the time. He will never hurt you. You must never
seek him again, either to kill or explain to him. He is satisfied."
"Has he forgiven? Does he realize that--that--I--that--"
Her face became troubled again, and she reached forth her hands,
clutching at the air, as though trying to grasp the elusive memory.
"Yes, he has forgiven," said Beverton, steadier of voice now at the
apparent success of the experiment. "And you will never seek him again,
will you? It is all settled now."
"All settled," she repeated, while her countenance softened.
"You will not worry any more, will you?"
"No more. It is all settled. He has forgiven me."
"You will never walk in your sleep again, will you, Grace?"
"No, it is all settled. He has forgiven me."
Had Beverton sent her to bed now he might have spared himself a
life-long puzzle which ever baffled solution; but, with fairly good
command of himself, he yielded to curiosity, and asked:
"What had you done to him? What had he to forgive?"
Her face became convulsed; the query seemed a blow that gave her agony.
With arms extended and fingers clutching again, she tottered, but did
not fall; and he mercilessly repeated the question. She did not answer,
and he, blindly desirous of prompting her, reached for the knife on the
sideboard.
"Had it anything to do with this?" he asked.
"The scimitar," she exclaimed, hoarsely. "I killed her with it." Then
she pressed her hands to her brow, held them tightly, and her eyes
closed, while her frame stiffened visibly under the pressure. When she
removed her hands and looked at him, she seemed another person; for in
her eyes was the strange, hard expression they had worn when she had
dozed off in her chair. They lighted on the carving-knife, and before
he could move she pounced upon him and wrenched it from his hand.
"Ha," she exclaimed, in the same harsh, raspy voice as before; "and
would the señorita harm herself--or me? 'Tis a pretty plaything"--she
ran her finger along the edge--"but too sharp for the Lady Isobel.
Moorish make, I trow--we took it from the Spanish plate-ship off
Tortuga--but better fit to slay than to prod. And had ye thought, my
obstinate charmer, that when my patience is given out, it may be this
that shall slit your smooth white throat?" With a meaning and somewhat
quizzical smile at him, she laid the knife on the sideboard.
Beverton kept his nerve, remembering her recent amenability to his
suggestions.
"Who are you?" he asked, tentatively, seeking an opening for further
inquiry.
"Ha-ha," she laughed. "An idle question to ask of Hal Morgan. Are ye
so little informed of a man known to your countrymen from Madrid to
Panama?"
"And where are you?"
"Where am I? Where indeed, but in the stateroom of my Lady Isobel, who,
if I mistake not, is still intractable. We will try the water-cure, for
once more." She lifted her face to the ceiling and called: "On deck
there. A bucket o' water. Send it below by the steward."
As though the order were obeyed, she stepped to the kitchen-door, just
beyond which was the sink; and from this she lifted at arm's length--a
feat of strength impossible to her when awake--the pail of water
which always stood there. Turning toward him she swung it backward,
one hand supporting it, the other gripping the bottom edge, and would
have deluged him had he not spoken. "Wait," he said, sternly. "The
water-cure will not avail."
Her eyes wavered before his steady gaze, and she slowly lowered the
pail to the floor. For a moment it seemed that she would waken, or at
least lapse into softer mood; for her features grew composed, and her
eyes lost their glitter; but they rested on the knife, and immediately
hardened.
"Then, here's to the end o' it," she said, impatiently, and springing
forward she seized it, then with another bound sidewise, she reached
Beverton and plunged the knife in his shoulder.
It was done so swiftly that he had not time to dodge, and he sank,
weak and nerveless under the blow, the knife slipping from her hand
and remaining in the wound. Looking up with failing eyes, he beheld
her standing with arms listless by her side, the tension gone from her
face, and her gaze wandering mildly about the room.
"Grace," he gasped, "you've killed me. Wake up!"
The last was a whisper, but she heard it; and Beverton's last
remembrance before he fainted was of her piercing scream as she wakened
and looked down upon him.
* * * * *
She had not killed him; on the contrary, though he bled copiously
until their aroused servant had summoned the doctor, he recovered
from the wound and loss of blood long before his wife recovered from
the brain-fever that followed her awakening; and it was while she was
delirious, and he convalescent enough to talk that the doctor, after
listening for an hour to her raving one day, entered the room of the
other patient, and said:
"She is past the crisis--perspiring and sound asleep, and will recover
rapidly. But, Beverton, though while delirious she was most certainly
in as subjective a condition as when self-hypnotized, yet she has not
uttered one word of a nautical or piratical nature."
"And what of that?" replied Beverton weakly, but doggedly. "According
to those books of yours"--he pointed to a pile of them at the foot of
his bed--"and I've studied them well while lying here--there are one,
two, or more sub-normal personalities within us, any one of which can
become dominant."
"Admitted; but is that a proof of reincarnation?--that the soul of your
wife once lived in the body of a pirate named Hal Morgan, and that your
soul animated the form of a beauteous maiden captured by him?"
"I can accept no other explanation. As infants we were subconscious
enemies. I drove her back farther, seeking the cause; I saw the
convulsive transition. I heard her use language she could not have
learned in this life."
The doctor smiled, and drawing a book from his pocket, said: "Then here
is something to further strengthen your belief--for a time. I took the
copy of your maidenly speech to a librarian in the city, told him what
was necessary to interest him, and he found this book for me. It is
Pyle's compilation of the lives of the buccaneers, and in Esquemeling's
account of the doings of Captain Henry Morgan is this--" He opened the
book, searched the pages, and read:
"'--but the lady, not willing to consent, or accept his presents,
showing herself like Susannah for constancy, he presently changed
his note, and addressed her in another tone, threatening a thousand
cruelties and hard usages. To all of which she gave only this resolute
and positive answer--'
"Listen now," said the doctor. "'Sir, my life is in your hands; but as
to my body, in relation to that which you would persuade me to, my soul
shall sooner be separated from it, through the violence of your arms,
than I shall condescend to your request.'"
"And what more do you want?" asked Beverton, excitedly. "The very words
I spoke; and I never saw that book."
"Wait," said the doctor, smiling. "This follows:
"'Captain Morgan, understanding this her heroic resolution, commanded
her to be stripped of the best of her apparel, and imprisoned in a
darksome, stinking cellar; here she was allowed a small quantity of
meat and drink, wherewith she had much ado to sustain life.'
"No need of reading the whole account," said the doctor, closing the
book. "This occurred in the city of Panama, which Morgan had just
captured, and the lady was never at sea with him. His men took her from
Tavoga or Tagovilla, and he released her on the march from Panama to
the coast. He did not kill her."
"Then why should I hate her as a baby?"
"I do not know. Children have strange antipathies, and while very young
are much in the subjective state."
"But the sailor talk; where did she get it? Where did I get that
quotation you just read?"
"Telepathy," said the doctor. "It is the subconscious mind which
projects and reads thoughts. You were both subjective from an inherent
tendency and the influence of that shiny knife on the wall. Your fear
of punishment and bedtime prayers were a strong auto-suggestion against
somnambulism; but the knife overcame it in your case, and your wife
never met with any deterrent influence whatever. Now, Beverton, one of
you--it makes no difference which--has read the mind of the other, and
this one has read the mind of some strong, projective personality--some
man or woman thoroughly enthused and interested in the history of the
seventeenth-century pirates--some one who has lately read this book,
and other accounts of Morgan's adventures."
"And the scimitar-like shape of the knife--the sea-story by Cooper?"
"Coincidences, both of them--and suggestions."
Beverton was silent a few moments, then said with a weary sigh: "I
cannot convince myself. I wish I could. It is strong evidence, as you
say, toward telepathy, but does not disprove reincarnation. How did she
find that knife in the snow? It was dark. I did not know where it fell."
"Your subconscious mind knew. So did hers. It was merely clairvoyance."
The doctor rose. "It does not disprove, I admit, Beverton," he said;
"and if you must know, you can only learn by experimenting farther. The
knife, fork, and steel are at the bottom of the river, as you directed.
But you can hypnotize her by other means."
"Not for the world," said Beverton. "I guess I'll wait until she walks
in her sleep again, if I experiment any more."
But Mrs. Beverton never accommodated him; neither would she have a
pointed knife in the house, nor permit her eyes to more than merely
rest upon anything bright for the rest of her life.