I was still seated facing my three hosts, and nothing seemed changed
between us. To all appearances, I was quite at liberty: no shackles, no
bonds, impeded me; I was free to get up, walk around, make a fight of
it. In reality an irresistible force, a crushing weight, had settled on
my members. I was paralyzed in the most complete, the most atrocious
sense of the word. To save my life, to save my soul, to save the woman
I loved, I should not, even at the command of God himself, have been
able to lift a finger or wink an eyelid.
The Marquis Gaspard finished his bloodcurdling reply without
interruption from me. I listened on in silence; my face failing quite
to show the unspeakable horror convulsing through my inner self.
Now this man--this beast--of prey was silent for a moment. At times
in the placid atmosphere of that room I had the creeping sensation of
wings whirring about me--the weird ghoulish flight of vampires.
Suddenly the Marquis Gaspard spoke up anew:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I am inclined to suppose that now your
curiosity is satisfied; but should there remain some shadow of doubt in
your mind still, should there be any point I have not yet made entirely
clear, please consider me at your disposal quite. In my opinion--I know
it is but a humble one--it were best all around that we understand each
other perfectly, leaving nothing, absolutely nothing, in the dark. You
will be patient, therefore, if I supplement my recent explanation with
a few observations in detail--and kindly pardon me, if I seem to do
all the talking. For that matter, I do not insist. You may be bored
insufferably for instance. In that event you are quite at liberty
to make your escape--you might go to bed again, for one thing. The
narrative I have just completed seemed to me essential to an accurate
understanding of the facts. On the other hand, what I was minded to
tell you now is not wholly indispensable. I should not be in the least
offended if you thought best not to hear it....
“To proceed then, Madame Madeleine de X...., a friend of yours, is
here, as you now know, to work, with the best of her soul and body,
for our benefit; and specifically for the purpose of renewing, of
rejuvenating, the physical substance of us three. Now I know how
you love this lady; and I am quite ready to assume that you would be
interested in hearing more of the marvelous things she does for us, and
for which we are indeed her debtors. I should feel remiss in concealing
anything on such a delicate matter.
“Monsieur le capitaine, I shall not inflict upon you a review I might
make--dull, dry, wearisome it would almost certainly be--of the efforts
men--and by men, I mean physicians more particularly--have made to
transfuse a life that is young into bodies that are old. I use the word
‘transfuse,’ my mind reverting to a crude experiment resorted to from
time to time (with no success worth mentioning) and which consists in a
simple transfer of blood from a strong man to a weaker one. Folderol!
Balderdash! Charlatanry! What else could you expect from doctors of
medicine, so called? Among donkeys your physician is the prize ass! And
I cannot understand how your age, Monsieur le capitaine, the Twentieth
Century of Our Lord’s era, can take so seriously these fakirs who, in
my time, I assure you, were appraised at a far juster worth.
“That, however, is beside the point. I need not remind you--you must
surely have guessed as much yourself--that my master made no use of
medical devices in arriving at his astonishing results. His pride it
was to be a chemist, not to say an alchemist, as he would have said. He
was no mere horse-doctor. He was no mere barber. His discerning eye was
fixed on the mysterious depths of the test-tube, not on the point of a
brutal butcher-knife. And he discovered....
“Just when, I do not know. It is well authenticated that the Count
de Saint Germain lived several centuries, a fact explainable only on
the assumption that the Secret of Long Life must be of very ancient
origin. I stress this fact, for the glory of my master is but enhanced
thereby. Our Secret, indeed, has a number of curious analogies with the
electric or magnetic appliances the invention of which is the glory
of the present age. Just consider then how far ahead of his time this
great man was! But in speaking of electricity I am not, believe me,
thinking of the primitive tricks that were known even to men of old.
No, my master did not waste his time in drawing sparks from a cat’s
tail nor in making bull-frogs dance to music. But he did manipulate
the philosopher’s stone most handily, and he was able to dispense with
mercury when he chose to plate with silver or with gold. I remember
that many a time, just in play one might say, he would amuse us by
transferring the metal of one object to the surface of another object
of a different metal; and this he did by means of electric batteries,
of which, precisely, he was an independent inventor; though he used
other processes still, quite as far from being supernatural as they
were kindred to the marvelous. But he did not stop at so little, for
these things were mere child’s play to him. I saw him, with my own
eyes, one day, take a branch from a rose-bush with two roses on it
and one bud, not to mention the leaves, and transport the whole in
some mysterious way through a thick partition, in which the doors
were sealed, into an adjoining room. Little by little the rose-branch
wasted away before our eyes and as gradually reassembled in another
place. That experiment impressed me, I can tell you, Sir; though the
Count assured me there was nothing very remarkable about it, since
any substance could be disintegrated for a certain short length of
time into incredibly minute atoms which made light of passing through
such coarsely textured obstacles as wooden doors, or brick and plaster
walls. ‘The time will come,’ he used to say, ‘when _matter_ and
_movement_, which, moreover, are identical, can be _exteriorized_, much
as smells, sounds, or light are normally at present.’
“It would be scant flattery to your acumen, Monsieur le capitaine, were
I now to fear you had not guessed the general method of our Secret.
Just as a mass of pure gold, suitably moistened in an appropriate
liquid and acted upon by a current from an electric battery of an
appropriate force, may be broken up and distributed toward a mass of
plain iron so placed as to be receptive of such action, so a living
creature, likewise placed in a favorable environment and subjected to
a magnetic energy of proper strength, gives up its cells in certain
numbers and transmits them to another living creature stationed at a
point where they may be received and assimilated. There, Monsieur le
capitaine, you have our ‘process’--if I may borrow a term from the
jargon of your modern alchemists.
“You must be aware by this time, Sir, that I am seeking to hide
nothing from you, that I come down indeed to very perilous details. I
will go even so far as to add that the conditions favorable for this
operation may be found in any room whatever, provided such room be
tightly closed, perfectly silent, and darkened to a half light; and
provided also, it be laid on a line from North to South. This latter
specification is necessary in order to keep at sufficient tension
(by drawing on the magnetic forces of the Earth itself) the magnetic
current which, for its part, any strong and wilful man can find in his
own physical being when he so pleases.
“Now, Monsieur le capitaine, I dare hope you have been furnished with
all the facts that you desired to know?”