CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR'S EXPERIMENT.
During the breakfast the conversation chiefly dwelt on the administration of the colony, on the manners and customs of the inhabitants, on the relations which had been established between the Spanish and native populations. Incidentally the doctor was led to speak of the convict whom he had awakened from the magnetic sleep two or three days before on the road into the town.
“He remembers nothing about it, probably?” asked the doctor.
“Nothing,” replied the governor; “but he is not now at work on the roads.”
“Where is he, then?” asked the doctor with a certain feeling of anxiety that Pierre was the only one to remark.
“He is in the hospital,” answered the governor. “It seems that the shock upset his precious health.”
“Who is he?”
“A Spaniard named Carpena, a vulgar murderer, not at all interesting, Dr. Antekirtt; and if he happened to die, I can assure you that he would be no loss to us!”
Then the conversation took another turn. Doubtless it did not suit the doctor to lay too much stress on the case of the convict, who would be quite recovered after a day or two in hospital.
Breakfast over, coffee was served on deck, and cigars and cigarettes vanished in smoke beneath the awning. Then the doctor suggested going ashore without delay. He now belonged to the governor and was ready to visit the Spanish colony in all its branches.
The suggestion was accepted, and up to dinner-time the governor devoted himself to doing the honors of the colony to his illustrious visitor. The doctor and Pierre were conscientiously taken all over the place, both town and country. They did not miss a single detail either in the prisons or the barracks. The day being Sunday the convicts were not at their ordinary tasks, and the doctor could observe them under different circumstances. Carpena he only saw as they passed through one of the wards in the hospital, and he did not appear to attract his attention.
The doctor intended to leave for Antekirtta that night, but not until he had given the greater part of the evening to the governor; and about six o’clock he returned to the house, where an elegantly served dinner awaited them—the reply to the morning’s breakfast.
We need hardly say that during this walk through the colony the doctor was followed by Namir, and was quite unaware that he was so closely watched.
The dinner was a pleasant one. A few of the chief people in the colony, officers and their wives, and two or three rich merchants had been invited, and did not conceal the pleasure they experienced at seeing and hearing Dr. Antekirtt. The doctor spoke of his travels in the East, in Syria, in Arabia, in the north of Africa. Then leading the conversation round to Ceuta, he complimented the governor, who administered the Spanish colony with so much ability.
“But,” he added, “looking after the convicts must give you a great deal of trouble.”
“And why, my dear doctor?”
“Because they must try to escape; and as the prisoner must think more of getting away than the warders think of stopping him, it follows that the advantage is on the side of the prisoner; and I should not be surprised if there is sometimes one or two missing at roll-call.”
“Never,” answered the governor. “Never! Where would the fugitives go? By sea escape is impossible! By land, among the savage people of Morocco, flight would be dangerous. And so the convicts remain here, if not from pleasure, from prudence.”
“Well,” answered the doctor, “I must congratulate you; for it is to be feared that guarding the prisoners will become more and more difficult in the future.”
“And why, if you please?” asked one of the guests, who was much interested in the conversation owing to his being the director of the penitentiary.
“Because, sir,” replied the doctor, “the study of magnetic phenomena has made great progress; because their action can be applied to everything in the world; because the effects of suggestion are becoming more and more frequent and tend so much toward substituting one personality for another.”
“And in that case?” asked the governor.
“In that case I think that if it is wise to watch your prisoners, it is just as wise to watch your warders. During my travels I have witnessed some extraordinary things, that I would not have believed possible, with regard to these phenomena. And in your own interest do not forget that if a prisoner can unconsciously escape under the influence of a stranger’s will, a warder subject to the same influence can none the less unconsciously allow him to escape.”
“Will you explain to us of what these phenomena consist?” asked the director of the penitentiary.
“Yes, sir, and 1 will give yon an example to make them clear to you. Suppose a warder has a natural disposition to submit to magnetic or hypnotic influence; and admit that a prisoner can exercise such influence over him. Well, from that moment the prisoner has become the warder’s master and can do what he likes with him. He can make him go where he pleases, and can make him open the prison doors whenever he likes to suggest the idea to him.”
“Doubtless,” replied the director, “but on condition that he has first sent him to sleep—”
“That is where you make a mistake,” said the doctor. “He can do all these things when he is awake, and yet he will know nothing about them.”
“What, do you mean to say—”
“I mean to say, and I affirm, that under the influence the prisoner can say to the warder, ‘On such a day at such an hour you will do such a thing,’ and he will do it. ‘On such a day you will bring me the keys of my cell,’ and he will bring them. ‘On such a day you will open the gate of the prison,’ and he will open it. ‘On such a day I will pass by you,’ and he will not see him pass.”
“Not when he is awake?”
“Quite wide awake!”
To this affirmation of the doctor a shrug of incredulity passed round the company.
“Nothing can be truer, nevertheless,” said Pierre, “for I myself have seen such things.”
“And so,” said the governor, “the materiality of one person can be suppressed at the look of another?”
“Entirely,” said the doctor; “and in some people in such a way as to cause such changes in their senses that they will take salt for sugar, milk for vinegar, and wine for physic. Nothing is impossible in the way of illusion or hallucination while the brain is under the influence.”
“It seems to me, Dr. Antekirtt,” said the governor, “that the general feeling of the company is that those things must be seen to be believed!”
“And more than once!” said one of the guests.
“It is a pity,” said the governor, “that the short time you have to give us will not allow you to convince us by an experiment.”
“But I can!” replied the doctor.
“Now?”
“Yes, now, if you like!”
“How?”
“Your excellency has not forgotten that three days ago one of the convicts was found asleep on the road, and I told yon that it was a magnetic sleep?”
“Yes,” said the director of the penitentiary, “and the man is now in the hospital.”
“You remember I awakened him, for none of your warders could.”
“Quite so.”
“Well, that was enough to create between me and this convict—what is his name?”
“Carpena.”
“Between me and Carpena a bond of suggestion putting him completely in my power.”
“When he is in your presence.”
“And when we are apart.”
“Between you here and him in the hospital?” asked the governor.
“Yes; and if you will give orders for them to leave the doors open, do you know what he will do?”
“Run away!” said the governor, with a laugh, in which all joined.
“No, gentlemen,” replied the doctor, very seriously, “Carpena will not run away until I wish him to run away, and he will only do what I want him to do.”
“And what is that, if yon please?”
“For example, when he gets out of prison, I can order him to take the road here.”
“And will he come here?”
“Into this very room, if I please, and he will insist on speaking to you.”
“To me?”
“To you. And if you like, as he will have to obey all my suggestions, I will suggest the idea to him to take you for somebody else—say for his Majesty Alfonso XII.”
“For his Majesty the King of Spain?”
“Yes, your excellency, and he will ask you—”
“To pardon him?”
“Yes, to pardon him, and, if you like, to give him the Cross of Isabella into the bargain.”
Shouts of laughter greeted this last assertion.
“And the man wide awake all the time?” asked the director of the penitentiary.
“As wide awake as we are.”
“No, no! It is not credible, it is not possible,” exclaimed the governor.
“Then try the experiment! Give orders for Carpena to be allowed to do what he likes, and for security let one or two warders be told off to follow him at a distance. He shall do all I have just told you.”
“Very well, when would you like to begin?”
“It is now eight o’clock,” said the doctor, consulting his watch. “At nine o’clock?”
“Be it so; and after the experiment?”
“After the experiment Carpena will go quietly back to the hospital without the slightest remembrance of what has passed. I repeat—and it is the only explanation I can give you of the phenomenon—that Carpena will be under a suggestive influence coming from me, and in reality I shall be doing these things, not Carpena.”
The governor, whose incredulity was manifest, wrote a note to the chief warder, directing him to allow Carpena full liberty of action, and to follow him from a distance; and the note was immediately dispatched to the hospital.
The dinner at an end, the company at the governor’s invitation adjourned to the drawing-room.
Naturally the conversation still dwelt on the different phenomena of magnetism or hypnotism, and controversy between the believers and unbelievers grew animated. Dr. Antekirtt, while the cups of coffee circulated amid the smoke of the cigars and cigarettes, which even the Spanish ladies did not despise, related a score of facts of which he had been the witness or the author during the practice of his profession, all to the point, all indisputable, but none of them, seemingly, convincing.
He added also that this faculty of suggestion would give serious trouble to legislators and magistrates, for it could be used for criminal purposes; and cases could arise in which crime could be committed without its being possible to discover its author.
Suddenly at twenty-seven minutes to nine the doctor interrupted himself, and said:
“Carpena is now leaving the hospital!”
And a minute afterward he added:
“He has just passed through the gate of the penitentiary!”
The tone with which the words were pronounced had a strange effect on those around him. The governor alone continued to shake his head.
Then the conversation for and against began again, each one saying but little at a time, until at five minutes to nine the doctor interrupted them for the last time:
“Carpena is at the front door.”
Almost immediately afterward, one of the servants entered the drawing-room and told the governor that a man dressed like a convict was waiting below, and insisted on seeing him.
“Let him come in!” replied the governor, whose incredulity began to vanish in the face of the facts.
As nine o’clock struck, Carpena appeared at the door of the drawing-room. Without appearing to see any of those present, although his eyes were wide open, he walked up to the governor, and kneeling before him, said:
“Sire, I ask you to pardon me.”
The governor absolutely dumfounded, as if he himself was under an hallucination, knew not what to say.
“You can pardon him,” said the doctor, with a smile; “he will have no recollection of all this.”
“I grant you your pardon,” said the governor, with all the dignity of the King of all the Spains.
“And to that pardon, sire,” said Carpena, still bending low, “will you add the Cross of Isabella?”
“I give it you.”
And then Carpena made as though to take something from the governor’s hand and attach the imaginary cross to his breast. Then he rose, and walking backward quitted the room.
This time the whole company followed him to the front door.
“I will go with him, I will see him to the hospital,” said the governor, struggling with himself, as if loath to yield to the evidence of his senses.
“Come, then!” said the doctor.
And the governor, Pierre Bathory, Dr. Antekirtt, and the rest followed after Carpena as he went along the road toward the town. Namir, who had watched him since he left the penitentiary, glided along in the shadow and continued to watch.
The night was rather dark. The Spaniard walked along at a regular pace with no hesitation in his stride. The governor and his guests were twenty paces behind him with the two warders who had received orders to keep him. in sight.
The road as it approaches the town bends round a small creek, forming the second harbor on that side of the rock. On the black, motionless water flickered the reflections of two or three lights. They came from the ports and lanterns of the “Ferrato,” whose hull loomed large in the darkness.
As he reached this spot Carpena left the road and inclined to the right toward a heap of rocks which rose from the shore a dozen feet away. Doubtless a gesture from the doctor, unseen by any one—perhaps a simple suggestion of his will—had obliged the Spaniard to leave the path.
The warders prepared to close up so as to send him back, but the governor, knowing that no escape from that side was possible, ordered them to leave him to himself.
However, Carpena halted on one of the rocks as if he had been struck motionless and fixed there by some irresistible power. He tried to lift his feet, to move his arms, but he could not. The doctor’s will within him nailed him to the ground.
The governor looked at him for a minute or so. Then he said to his guest—
“Well, doctor, whether he is awake or not, we must give in to the evidence!”
“You are convinced, quite convinced?”
“Yes, quite convinced that there are things we must believe in like the brutes! Now, Dr. Antekirtt. suggest to him to go back to the penitentiary! Alfonso XII. commands it!”
The governor had hardly finished the sentence before Carpena, without uttering a sound, threw himself into the water. Was it an accident? Was it a voluntary act on his part? Had some fortuitous circumstance intervened to snatch him out of the doctor’s power? No one could say.
Immediately there was a general rush to the rocks, and the warders ran on to the beach. There was no trace of Carpena. Some fishing-boats came up, as did the boats from the yacht. All was useless. They did not even find the corpse, which the current would carry out to sea.
“I am very sorry, your excellency,” said the doctor, “that our experiment has had so tragical an end, which it was impossible to anticipate.”
“But how do you account for it?” asked the governor.
“The reason is that in the exercise of this suggestive power, of which you can not deny the effects, there are intermittences. That man escaped me for an instant, undoubtedly, and either from his being seized with vertigo or some other cause he fell off the rocks! It is a great pity, for we have lost such a splendid specimen!”
“We have lost a scamp—nothing more!” said the governor philosophically.
And that was Carpena’s funeral oration!
The doctor and Pierre then took leave of the governor. They had to start before daybreak for Antekirtta, and they were profuse in their thanks to their host for the hospitable welcome he had given them in the Spanish colony.
The governor shook the doctor’s hand, wished him a pleasant journey, and after promising to come and see him, returned to his house.
Perhaps it may be said that Dr. Antekirtt had somewhat abused the good faith of the Governor of Ceuta. His conduct under the circumstances is certainly open to criticism. But we should not forget the work to which Count Sandorf had consecrated his life. “A thousand roads—one end!” And this was one of the thousand roads he had to take.
A few minutes afterward one of the boats of the “Ferrato” had taken them on board. Luigi was waiting for them as they came up the side.
“That man?” asked the doctor.
“According to your orders,” said Luigi, “our boat was near the rocks and picked him up after his fall, and he is under lock and key in the fore-cabin.”
“He has said nothing?” asked Pierre.
“How could he say anything? He seems asleep and unconscious of his acts.”
“Good,” answered the doctor. “I willed that Carpena should fall from those rocks, and he fell. I willed that he should sleep, and he sleeps. When I will that he wakes, he shall wake. And now, Luigi, up anchor and away!”
The steam was up, and a few minutes afterward the “Ferrato” was off, heading out to sea, straight for Antekirtta.