Chapter III (5)

"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.