Part 19

"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.