ABSOLUTE ZERO

He was not exactly an imbecile—merely feeble-minded, unable to remember his past, or even the events of a year gone by—an elderly man who loafed about the studio building, a man with few wants and no vices, who picked up a scanty living by cleaning up studios for the artists, and occasionally posing for them. We called him Old Bill; he did not know his last name, and was subject to fainting spells.

The artist, like myself, was a marine painter, each of us having followed the sea when young, and in answering to the higher call that comes at least once in every man's life, had taken to art with the sea for a specialty. We both painted ships and shipwrecks, storms and sailors, but the difference between us in age, experience, and ability was so great that there was never anything but sincere friendship between us.

I welcomed his advice and criticism, and he welcomed my society, because, as he put it, my youth and enthusiasm revived his failing energies. His studio adjoined mine, and when the afternoon light had waned, I visited him to smoke, talk, and listen to his yarns, for he had been longer at sea than I had, and he had more to tell. Also, besides being a master of his art, he was a deep student of science, keeping himself well informed on each new invention and discovery; and his comments on such subjects were practical, logical, and conclusive.

As, for instance, in discussing that ninety-and-nine days' wonder, the wreck of the Titanic, and the proposed measures to prevent a repetition of such a terrible disaster, he had laughed at the futile idea of more lifeboats.

"All the lifeboats in the world," he said, "will not avail of themselves if they must be lowered from a boat deck seventy feet high, with the steamer rolling in a heavy sea. They would all smash against the side before half-way down. The Titanic had a smooth sea, remember."

"Long davits," I suggested, "to keep them well outboard."

"Long davits—long enough to answer the purpose—would foul one another."

"Short davits, then, and travelers up and down the side."

"Impracticable, even if a steamship company would be willing to disfigure their ships so much. In time of panic, the boats could not be fitted into the travelers."

"But don't you think," I asked, "that more and stronger compartments would solve the difficulty?"

"They would have to be as strong as the side of the ship," he answered, "and the necessary angle irons and bracings would interfere with cargo space and interior accommodations."

"Then a detachable upper deck," I said, "that would stay in place by gravity, but float if the hull sank."

"It would break into pieces in a seaway. It would need to be an upper section of two decks with an air space. Well, how about hatches, stairways, and masts leading to the lower body? The two ends of the ship, which are clear of these fixtures, would not hold all hands, and if you do away with hatches, making this upper section water-tight, how about the hundreds of people—engineers, firemen, and steerage passengers—imprisoned in the hull?"

"Right," I answered. "It seems, then, that the only safety from ice is in the Southern Lane route, and slow speed in a fog."

"Yes, unless this English scientist's invention proves practicable. Have you read of it?"

I had not, and said so.

"He intends," he explained, "to send forth at intervals sharp notes of inaudible sound which, acting like audible sound, will come back from an iceberg, a ship, or a coast as an echo, and the time elapsed, recorded by a suitable receiver, and divided by two, will give the distance."

"Inaudible sound," I answered. "That seems anomalous."

"Hypothetical rather—not yet proven. But who knows? There are sounds of too low and long a vibration—I do not mean the roll of a drum, which is merely a succession of beats—that cannot be cognized by the human ear. There are sounds too high to be heard, such sounds as the chirp of a cricket, or tweet of a bird. Some people never hear these sounds. Why not use these sounds, and receive their echoes by delicate instruments?"

"Give it up," I said hopelessly.

"They call silence the negation of sound," he continued, "as they call darkness the negation of light. There is polarity throughout the universe. We are aware of plus and minus quantities in mathematics, each calculable by the same methods.

"We know of the north and south poles of the magnet; we know of positive and negative electricity; we know, by the expansion of gases, that there is a force the opposite of gravitation, and which repels instead of attracts. Some theorists have called this force apergy. I believe that all these negative forces exist, but only in the presence, or because of the existence, of their opposites. For I know that cold, which, more than all other conditions, may seem to be a mere negation, will answer to the laws of other radiant energy, and, like heat, decrease in force as the square of the distance."

I looked stupidly at him, then at Old Bill, who, no more stupid than myself under this avalanche of erudition, was puttering about, cleaning up the studio. Not noticing my bewilderment, the old artist went on.

"But an iceberg," he said, "is too large to be cognized by the law of inverse squares. It would need a diaphragm bigger than itself—bigger than the largest ship, to collect its radiations of cold. Could it be reduced to a point, however, and its cold concentrated, we could calculate its distance and direction, at least, if not its size. You know the nature of a searchlight, do you not?"

He looked at me now, and, trying to bring an intelligent expression to my face, I nodded.

"An arc light in the focus of a parabolic reflector placed behind it," he continued. "Stand in the path of its beam and you will sensibly feel the heat. Place a large lens—as large as the aperture—in the way, and focus the beam on yourself, and you will feel a heat equal to that of the arc light—about seven thousand degrees Fahrenheit—less what has radiated into the surrounding air.

"Now, get out of that focus, and place an opaque disk on the center of the searchlight aperture, and the beam will go forth with a dark center, like a hollow pipe of light and heat. And this dark center will have the temperature of the outer air, plus only what has radiated into it from the surrounding pipe.

"But after passing through the lens both the light and the dark center will reach the same focus, and if you can place a thermometer, without burning yourself, near the focus of the dark core, you will notice a great drop in the temperature. So, you see, cold, while negative heat, is a minus quantity; but it needs the presence of heat to make it respond to the same laws that govern heat."

He paused for a moment, then looked at me; and this time I could not conceal the vacuous expression on my face. He smiled, then turned to Old Bill.

"Bill," he said, "what do you think about it? Do you think all gases will ultimately be solidified as they are now liquefied? Do you think the absolute zero of space can be determined by any application of the integral or the differential calculus?"

In answer to this whimsical question Bill said: "I dunno, sir. I can't calcilate. I jess 'member I washed the windows an' swept up an' dusted. D'ye want me in the mornin', sir?"

"No, Bill. If you're through, that'll do to-night."

"I'll want you, Bill," I interposed, as the old fellow started for the door. "Come at nine o'clock, and wear your oldest, raggedest clothes."

"Yes, sir," answered Bill, and departed.

"It's the last figure in the picture," I added quickly, to forestall a resumption of the harrowing lecture on matters I did not understand. "And it will be done about noon. I'll be glad if you will come in and look it over."

"Most certainly," said my friend. "Been a long time at it, haven't you?"

"Yes; but I didn't want to bother you until it was done. I want to be original, if I can, and depend on my own conceptions."

"That's right. Be yourself. I'll be in at noon, and look at it."

I had been a long time on that picture, in conception, composition, and execution; and it had followed a longer time of inactivity, during which I had done nothing in the way of work except to search my soul for an idea. At last it had come to me, and I had made sketches, one after the other, until, in composition, it was complete; then I had painted it.

Still, there lacked a motive. It was a picture, but it told no story intelligible to the eye without an explanatory title, and I had not yet thought of a title. The scene was on the deck of a ship—a flush-deck, polacca-masted craft, a type of rig I had seen but once in my travels—and the viewpoint was at the break of the poop, looking forward. The fore and mainsail were clewed up, hanging in the buntlines, and the flying jib was down a-bag on the jib-boom end.

The craft was heeled, a gale of wind blowing, as evidenced by the gray storm clouds and a sea washing over the bow, and scattered about the deck were dead men, of the Chinese, Malay, or negro type; but here consistency ended, for though these men were bareheaded and barefooted, indicating warm weather, huge icicles hung from the fife rails and scuttles, while the sea bordering the bow lost the translucency of water as it reached the deck, taking on the white, glistening effect of ice, in which some of the bodies were frozen.

Near the foremast, on the weather side, his feet and ankles hidden in ice, stood a huge negro holding over his head at full length the figure of a living man, his attitude indicating an intention to hurl him to the deck. On his dark, evil face, as on the faces of the dead men, was an expression of terror and pain.

But the face of the living man held over his head showed nothing. I had not yet painted the face, and that was why I wanted Old Bill, to take the pose and assume a terrified look. I had painted the others from my imagination, taking care only to make each one different; but this living face of a man about to be hurled to death was to be the center of the picture—to be worked out in detail, with all the high lights. A grotesque, Dantesque, Doresque, horrible idea for a picture, one might well think; but its incongruity never struck me as my mind had worked it out.

Old Bill came on time next morning, and, without looking at the painting, climbed to a plank I had placed between two easels about seven feet above the floor. He lay on his side, and at my direction assumed the pose I wanted—arms and legs outstretched, with fingers clutching at nothing. In this, he suited me; but when it came to taking a frightened look, he failed. His wrinkled features went into all sorts of contortions, and I painted, wiped out, and repainted, again and again, then gave it up. The world had treated Old Bill too kindly, I thought, and he could not comprehend fear.

When I had paid him for his time he left, and I painted in the face from imagination alone—giving it, not the wrinkled look of age, but youth, strength, and courage, and the terror that comes to youth and strength and courage when menaced with sudden death. Then, the picture finished, I sat back and smoked, while a weariness came over me that soon merged into slumber, from which I was awakened by a knock at the door. My cold pipe fell from my lips, and I arose to admit my neighbor, tutor, and critic—the old artist.

"There it is," I said, as I led him to the picture. "Old Bill didn't help much. He couldn't—"

"Great God, man!" he interrupted. "What are you doing? I thought you wanted to be original. Have you been through my old drawings?"

"No, I have not," I answered hotly. "What do you mean?"

He did not answer at once. He looked at the picture with eyes that almost bulged, muttering to himself: "Pango Sam, Wong Fing, Landy Jim." Then he turned to me, and said excitedly: "Were you on board that bark?"

I wondered if he had gone crazy, and did not answer.

"No," he said. "It happened before you were born. What manner of man are you—to see into the past? It is not prophecy. Wait!"

He darted out of my studio and into his own, where I heard him throwing things about, opening trunks and closets, and talking to himself. I relighted my pipe, seated myself, and waited, wondering what had upset him. After a time he returned, much calmer, and holding in one hand a painting, in the other a small tintype, the faces of which he concealed from me.

"Our finite minds," he said, as he stood above me, "consider only what appeals to the five senses. Our subconscious minds consider the infinite, in which there is neither time, nor space, nor distance. That mutiny and murder has occurred, is occurring, and will occur. You have dipped into the infinite, that is all. Look!"

He showed me the painting. It was dusty and dingy, but, with a few minor exceptions of detail, the exact duplicate of the painting on my easel!

"I painted this thirty years ago," he said, "and for twenty-five years it has lain at the bottom of an old trunk. The subject was too grisly for the market, and I did not try to sell it."

While I stared, open-eyed and open-mouthed, at his picture, and my pipe went out from my irregular, gasping breathing, he held before me the tintype. It was the picture of a young man clad in cheap, ready-made garments—the "store clothes" of the farmer, or the "shore clothes" of the sailor. And the face was the face that I had conceived for the man held aloft by the negro in my painting!

"I was that young fellow," he said, "and this tintype was taken at the end of that voyage."

"What does it mean?" I gasped. "Have I read your mind?"

"I do not know. It depends upon what else you know yourself. Can you tell me what killed those men? Can you tell me what killed the nigger, so that instead of being thrown twenty feet I merely slid down from his grip and bumped my elbow on the ice? Ice, understand, near the equator, in the Indian Ocean."

"I do not know," I choked. "Did this happen? When did it happen?"

"Nearly fifty years ago, when I was 'fore the mast, unable to understand. But it was one of the influences that led me to the study of science. Perhaps I could understand now, if I had the data. But I cannot remember, and I have not your power of intuition. It is a wonderful power, but as likely to harm as to help you. Have you studied physics at all?"

"Only in the most elementary way," I answered. "And something killed those men, you say—something you do not understand?"

"I can only surmise. Something struck them that froze them stiff, that turned moving salt water to ice in an instant, that killed the intelligence that directed it. It was a passenger, a young missionary going home—a young genius of a man with a bent toward material things, and a whole boatload of scientific paraphernalia that he was always experimenting with. He was on the poop-deck when this occurred, but went clean crazy when I fell to the deck. We put him in the Cape Town hospital, but up to the last he was demented. He alone could tell what he did to that bunch of mutineers, but he could not have lived much longer."

"Tell me the yarn," I suggested. "Perhaps I can make a further guess at it."

"The best way," he answered, "would be to hypnotize you and question your subconscious mind. It is done in the hospitals to learn of mysterious, baffling diseases, and why could not you tell how this happened? But I never hypnotized anyone, so I'll give you the yarn—tell you what I know, and perhaps you can get the rest."

He placed his picture, face downward, on my table, seated himself, and lighted his pipe as a preliminary to his story. But before he could begin there was a knock at the door, and I admitted Old Bill.

"Thought, sir," he said, "that you might want me to clean up when the job is done."

This was usual; when a piece of work was in the making I paid no attention to my place. Only when the last stroke was applied to a picture did I think of housecleaning, and send for Bill.

"All right," I answered. "But not right away. Come back in an hour, when we're through talking."

He had entered the room, and nodded at my answer, even though his eyes were fixed upon the painting on the easel.

"But ye haven't put my face in it, arter all, sir," he said.

"No, you didn't make good, Bill," I answered. Then my attention was taken by the expression of his face—a curious blankness which I knew too well. My neighbor noticed, too, and said sharply:

"Brace up, Bill! Brace up, man!"

I knew the remedy from former experience, and happened to have it in a closet. Quickly pouring a glass of liquor, I gave it to the shaking, tottering old man, and he swallowed it at a gulp.

"Thank ye, sir," he said a moment later, when he was steadier. "Ye know I don't drink, sir; but when I feel it comin' on, nothin' else but a drink'll stop the spell. I'll be back in an hour, sir."

He left, and the artist remarked: "Poor old Bill. He'll go out feet first one of these days, and that'll be the last of him. Well, I'll tell you about that bark. I shipped in her at Hongkong, and stuck to her at Batavia, where every other man 'fore the mast deserted. She was not exactly a hell ship, as hell ships go; but the skipper and two mates were American, with American ideas of discipline, and these ideas were too strenuous for the cosmopolitan crew of Dagoes, Dutchmen, and Sou'egians that had taken her down the China Sea.

"But the crew we took on at Batavia was worse; there was not a white man in the crowd. There were three giants among them—one, Wong Fing, a short-haired renegade from Ningpo, where he was wanted for cutting his brother's throat. Another was Pango Sam, a West Coast negro, and a capital seaman, but with a frightful temper. The third was Landy Jim, and I never knew his nationality. He was a half-breed, or a fourth-breed; when things went well with him he was yellow, but when angered he turned black, and his eyes turned red as his hair, which, though kinky, was the color of a brand-new brick. They were a fine trio, and the master spirits.

"The rest were the usual riffraff of the Orient, yellow and brown, barely able to speak English or understand orders, but able to get out of their own way, steer after a fashion, and pull a rope if put in their hands. With this crowd we went to sea, bound for Cape Town, and at the last moment our passenger, of whom I have spoken, joined us with his apparatus. There was nothing that I understood at the time, nor even now. He had a lot of tanks, flasks, carboys, spiral pipes, and such things, with a big, cup-shaped affair that might have been a reflector if it had not been so long. I remember it was polished inside, and perhaps now, could I see that outfit, I might make a guess as to what he was experimenting with.

"No, in painting that picture you did not read my mind, or you would have put the Reverend Mr. Mayhew in with the apparatus on the poop; for I saw it plainly, though unable to understand; and there is plenty of room in the foreground—on the poop. You have pictured Pango Sam correctly, and the fellow down on deck near the fore-rigging is Landy Jim, and Wong Fing is that fellow on the fore-hatch. It is wonderful, and it is more than mere mind reading, though I cannot say that you have got the features of the others. I cannot remember."

At this moment there was an interruption. The elevator boy appeared, announcing that a visitor had arrived, asking for my neighbor, and, with apologies and promises to return, he left me, leaving the door open. I sat there in my easy-chair thinking of the wonderful powers of the subconscious mind, as indicated in my own case, and wondering if I could go farther, and solve the mystery that was beyond the powers of my experienced and erudite old friend. I smoked and pondered, until my pipe went out, then filled and relighted it to smoke and ponder still more, while I looked at the picture I had painted. And as I looked the pipe went cold in my grasp, the fixed expression on the faces of Pango Sam, Wong Fing, and Landy Jim took on mobility of action, while the men on deck writhed in their dying agony.

My pipe fell to the floor again, and I roused up, realizing only that I had been half asleep, but also feeling the desire to fill in the hiatus—to place in the vacant foreground the scientific apparatus vaguely described by my friend. So, after a few preliminary outlinings in charcoal, I went at it, and soon I had placed the tanks and spiral pipes and the long, cup-shaped object described to me.

Vaguely, as I worked, I felt that I was merely obeying suggestion—following up the hints given me by my neighbor; yet, when I had finished, and seated myself for another smoke, I felt myself trembling from head to foot, as though I had actually lived the experience, and were suffering from the memories. From this state of mind I was aroused by the return of my neighbor.

"By George!" he said, as he looked at the painting. "Where do you get this? You have got it right, and refreshened my memory. Fifty years is a long time, and I had forgotten; but there is the whole apparatus, lacking only the Reverend Mr. Mayhew. Why didn't you put him in, behind that big, long cup?"

"Don't know," I answered. "Didn't think of him."

"Well, never mind. There is a reason for all things. No doubt you will yet get it all, if you delve farther into the infinite."

But I did not need to delve still farther, as will be apparent by what follows.

"There is not much to the yarn," he continued. "The trouble began in the usual way, from the white man's fixed idea that it is always safe to kick a nigger, and that a nigger is anything human, but not white. A good deal depends, of course, upon the kind of nigger that is kicked, and big Pango Sam was not accustomed to it. Neither were Wong Fing nor Landy Jim, but they all got it before we were well through the Straits of Sunda. All three threatened the second mate, who was doing the kicking, with sudden death, and the result was that we were all called aft and compelled, under the muzzle of three pistols, to hand in our sheath knives.

"I needed no such coercion, for, though I was a 'foremast hand, I had no great sympathy for, nor community of interest with, my shipmates. However, the skipper and two mates classed me in with the rest, and had as little sympathy for me. In fact, the only companionship I enjoyed on that passage was when I was at the wheel, and the passenger would talk with me. He was about my age, and seemed to have taken a liking to me; yet there was little that we could talk about. I was uneducated and crude, while his was the brightest mind I had come into contact with.

"Even then I could appreciate that he knew more of navigation than did the skipper, and I heard him say one day that the mistake of his life was in taking to the ministry instead of devoting himself to science. For preaching came hard to him, he said, while the study of science was a delight.

"Well, I hardly know how the trouble started. It was partly due to our losing our knives, for a sailor without a knife is like a mechanic without tools. It put us all in a bad humor; we had to untie with our fingers rackings, whippings, and stops which ordinarily we would have cut. And one day, when the passenger had his apparatus on the poop, a fierce squall hit us, and soon developed into a gale that demanded the taking in of canvas. There was no time to lift those heavy tanks and flasks down below, so, while we hauled on downhauls, clewlines, and buntlines, the passenger remained by his property, watching and guarding it.

"We had trouble at once from the lack of our knives, for the coils of all halyards had been stopped up clear of the deck, and we had to untie these while the three bullies of the after-guard yelled at us. Seas began boarding us, too, and that made matters worse. But finally we got the two royals, the gafftopsail, and the flying jib down, and the courses clewed up; but while the latter was being done, I and two of the small fry went aloft to furl, my job being the fore royal. I furled it, and had started down, when I looked below, and saw the whole crowd on deck fighting the two mates, with the helmsman running forward to join the row, leaving the skipper at the wheel.

"I slid down by the royal backstay, for while I had no great fellow-feeling for the officers, still, they were my countrymen, and I had no desire to take part in mutiny. Before I reached the deck, however, the fight was over, as far the mates were concerned. They were running aft, for their guns, I suppose, while all but Pango Sam lay stretched out on the deck, and he met me at the rail with murder in his eyes, knowing instinctively, I suppose, that I was not on his side.

"As I jumped to the deck and reached for a belaying pin, he grabbed me. I was utterly helpless in the grasp of that giant. He roared inarticulately, and frothed at the mouth as he lifted me at full length over his head, to dash me to the deck.

"But, as I told you, I merely slid down, to paralyze my crazy bone on hard ice—ice, remember, in the tropics. When I picked myself up Pango Sam was still standing, but dead and stiff, his feet frozen in the ice that covered the deck. Then I saw our passenger flat on his back. He never recovered his reason. His last intelligent speech was given as he fell to the deck, which was about a second or so after I fell myself. While at the wheel, a few days later, I heard the skipper quote it to the mate. It was: 'God have mercy upon my soul!' After that he uttered nothing but gibberish."

Behind us the sound of footsteps came to our ears: but before we could turn, or arise, a voice, fervent and agonized, repeated: "God have mercy upon my soul!" And Old Bill launched headlong between us, and lay unconscious on the floor at the foot of the easel.

"Another spell," said my neighbor. "It was coming to him, I guess. Help me lift him to your couch."

We laid the old fellow on the couch, where he lay with every indication of a fainting spell. But, though we worked over him for a time, he did not come out of it. He did not seem to be in a natural sleep, either, for his breath was too faint, his pulse too irregular. We watched him with growing disquiet for a while, then telephoned to the nearest hospital. Old Bill was taken away, still unconscious, and all we could do was to put him from our minds with the mental reservation that we would visit him.

We did not visit him. Work, engagements, the eternal scramble for money incidental to the life of every man who works for himself, prevented my neighbor and me from getting together for the visit. In a month, however, Old Bill visited us as we sat, discussing my picture; but we hardly recognized him, and, on his part, he did not recognize us at all.

His old face, though still wrinkled and withered, bore an alert, intelligent look far removed from the dull, stupid expression we had known; he was clad in well-fitting garments late from the tailor. He carried a cane, and on his hands were gloves which, as he removed them, showed fingers thick and stubby, but with the unmistakable signs of recent manicuring.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," he said, as he looked us over, "but I have been directed to this studio by an ambulance surgeon as the place from which I was taken in a comatose condition about a month ago. I wakened a few days later with the memories, the consciousness—the ego, I might say—of a young man of twenty-five. Had not that ego been in a good, stable condition I might have gone mad when I saw my old face in a mirror, and realized that I had lost fifty years of my life.

"Since then, however, I have been re-establishing my old connections, and I am now trying to learn what I have been, where I have been, and who I have been. Can you tell me anything? I am, or was once, a Methodist clergyman, named Franklin Mayhew; but I fear that I have forfeited the title of reverend."

"What?" exclaimed my neighbor. We had both risen to our feet, to stare at the metamorphosed Old Bill, but now we sat down, rather weak in the legs. I had the grace to motion our visitor to a chair.

"If you are the Reverend Franklin Mayhew," continued my neighbor, "did you once take passage in the bark Rangoon at Batavia, bound to Cape Town?"

"I did, and by my chronology it was but a month ago. The terrible scenes on board that vessel were the first things that came to my mind when I wakened in the hospital. Do you know anything about it? I want to know what happened to me."

"I do not know what happened to you, nor what happened to that crowd of mutineers. I was 'fore the mast in that bark, and remember you; but I have known you lately merely as a man-of-all-work around this building. I owe you a dollar for cleaning up my place"—our visitor raised his hand deprecatingly—"and we called you Bill. You couldn't remember your last name, nor very far back. You went crazy aboard that bark, Mr. Mayhew, and we put you ashore, still crazy, at Cape Town. I know nothing more."

"Nor does anyone else?" The look on his face was piteous.

"I doubt that you can gather up the threads. Why should you wish to? You must have lived a life of misery and hard labor. You were shocked into fainting by the sight of a picture, right here in this studio, and you have awakened to intelligence and mental activity."

"What picture?"

For answer I arose and wheeled the easel around so that the painting faced him. The effect upon him was more startling than had been the same experience upon my friend.

"Oh, God, help me!" he almost screamed. "God have mercy upon my soul! Why must it be perpetuated? Have I not suffered enough?" He covered his face with his hands, and with some misgiving I covered the picture with a cloth.

"That was it," he continued. "That was the last I remember on board that bark, and the first in the hospital the other day. I killed seven human beings—I, an ordained minister of the gospel!"

"Steady, sir," answered my neighbor, rising and laying a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. "You killed only six—how, I don't know—six bloodthirsty cutthroats who would have killed you if they'd had their way."

"But one was innocent," answered Mr. Mayhew, uncovering his moist eyes. "The young fellow in the clutch of the big negro."

"That was myself, and I am very much alive. In fact, Mr. Mayhew, you saved my life. You killed the nigger, but I simply fell down to the deck. Then I came aft and helped carry you below. Look here?" He lifted the cloth, and pointed to the face of the man held poised over the negro's head. "That's me. Never mind who painted this picture, but look here." He displayed the tintype. "Taken at the end of that voyage," he continued, "and still in my possession. No doubt, Mr. Mayhew, your mind gave way under the shock of the experience, and it returned to you when you looked at the reproduction. Now, don't worry about it any more. You did right to quell that mutiny."

"Perhaps—according to most standards. But I was a minister, and my conscience was already active enough from my devotion to science to the neglect of my clerical work. But perhaps you are right. I'll try and not worry."

I joined in with what encouragement I could offer, and when he had calmed somewhat my neighbor said: "You must tell me how you did it, Mr. Mayhew. You killed six worthless heathen, and saved the lives of several white men, by some application of intense cold. I am a student of science, but I cannot understand."

"Very simple," answered our guest. "You know that cold is merely negative heat, and, if reduced to a point, will act like heat, decreasing in strength as the square of the distance."

The old artist chuckled. "I knew it," he said. "Go on."

"And do you notice that the reflector in the picture has the elliptical curve, instead of the parabolic of the usual reflectors?"

I gasped. In painting that object into the picture I had not thought of curves. In fact, knew nothing of conic sections at the time.

"The secondary focus of that reflector," went on Mr. Mayhew, "was about sixty feet away. I had designed it for experimenting with light. In fact, I had invented the searchlight, now in general use, as I have learned by reading up lately. But I have also learned more—that in the fifty years of my darkness the scientific world has not caught up to me. At that time I had not only liquefied the six refractory gases of Clerk Maxwell, but had solidified hydrogen and discovered in advance a gas which I had not named, but which I now find is called helium. I had also succeeded in liquefying this gas."

"And in the focus of that reflector?" inquired the old artist, half rising from his chair.

"Was a small cup of liquefied helium, on which floated a lump of solid hydrogen. It produced a temperature of nearly two hundred and seventy-three minus centigrade—the absolute zero of space."

"And it froze the blood in their veins," commented the artist, reseating himself. "Lucky for me you didn't switch it a little higher."

I shivered, and after a few moments of silence I asked:

"If I did not read your mind, but delved into the infinite, as you say, why didn't I get this too?"

"Didn't have time, my boy. But you may have read the mind of Mr. Mayhew, the subconscious mind of Old Bill—the mind that never sleeps and never forgets, you know, and which retained through the years all that Mr. Mayhew had put into it; for you drew into the reflector the elliptical curve, which Mr. Mayhew conceived, but which never in my life have I considered in conjunction with reflectors."

"But you?" I asked again. "Your picture?"

"I painted from memory, and, if you will remember, left out the reflector. But Mr. Mayhew had also dipped into the infinite, and discovered what no living brain knew. Mr. Mayhew"—he turned to the still shaky old man—"you have lost, it is true, fifty years of your life. But your remaining years will be full of honor, profit, and ease, for the whole scientific world will rise to do you homage. You are still in advance, for you have not only isolated and liquefied helium, the last of the refractory gases, but you will ultimately solidify it."

OVER THE BORDER

First, let me introduce myself. I am now an old man, healthy of body and mind—else I could not tell this story—but in late middle life was somewhat feeble-minded. I was an installment collector for a furniture house.

My earnings were small—just sufficient to afford me a hall room in a boarding house, where, with my few books, I maintained my interest in life. I began it as a sailor in deep-water ships, but, because of the small promise of advancement, quit the sea after ten years, and worked on shore. I was ambitious, studious, and fairly well educated. I worked at one thing and another, finally becoming a reader for a magazine; and, later, editor-in-chief. But the strain upon my mind of reading, classifying, and rejecting or accepting for publication the various and multitudinous manuscripts sent to me, wore down my mental powers until there came an utter collapse, and I spent the next few years in sanitariums, with all memory of my past blotted out, except a few salient points, such as the name of my first ship, my first job on shore, my first incursion into literary work, and the final furious quarrel with my employer, when I was discharged as incompetent. Then came my slow recovery to the point where I could obtain and hold my position as collector. So much, in prelude, for myself and history.

Yet there is one more point of my early life that I remembered, but only because my memory of it was refreshed occasionally as I fought my way along in my shore life after leaving the sea—Jack Sullivan, a watchmate on that first ship, who later became a boarding-house runner and afterward a successful boarding and shipping master.

Jack's path in life did not coincide with mine, yet we met often during my struggle for advancement, and each time it was a drink together, and a reminiscent talk about that voyage; and it continued during the years when I was an incompetent neurasthenic, and he a prosperous man with influence at Tammany Hall.

It was after such a meeting with Jack, in which he had paid the bill and clapped me on the back, bidding me to brace up and look ahead, that I wandered into a small playhouse, the bills of which advertised a mesmeric exhibition.

I had never seen such a public performance before, and was extremely interested, as the operator, a tall, bearded man, in evening clothes, called up members of the audience and, after a few passes over their heads and down before them, put them into hypnotic or mesmeric sleep; and then made them perform absurd and ridiculous feats.

I left the theatre, fully impressed, struck with awe at the power of one man over others, and boarded a street car on my way home.

Still wondering, and afflicted with an uneasy struggle of my mind with the idea that I had known of such things before, I was forced to listen to a desultory conversation between two men who sat near me.

They were well-dressed and well-spoken—educated men—and as the talk went on I easily deduced that they were physicians, slightly acquainted—one, a visiting physician of a hospital; the other, a general practitioner.

"A remarkable case," the former was saying, as I began to listen. "He has been there longer than any other patient, and there has been neither improvement nor decline. A complete case of aphasia in some regards, amnesia in others; for we once succeeded in partly hypnotizing him and getting incoherent comments—in the choicest of English, however."

"Is he sane, as regards the present—of passing events?" asked the general practitioner.

"Sane as you or I, except in the relapses. He has illusions and hallucinations, but recovers himself without treatment other than seclusion. It is a case of second personality, no doubt; but there is no prognosis."

"And you cannot classify it?"

"No, except as double personality. He cannot remember his name before the time the police brought him to us. He began all over again, and is now an intelligent man, who reads the papers, and talks sanely."

"Keep up that hypnotic treatment."

"What's the use? We are busy over more modern and vital cases. He is merely a medical and physical curiosity."

"Keep it up. By hypnotic treatment you can obtain his past and restore his memory. You know that. Isn't it worth while—to restore a man's soul to him?"

"Well, perhaps I will; but I am very busy, and he is a hard subject to hypnotize."

The car was approaching my corner. With my mind in a whirl that I could not understand, I arose, and, facing the two doctors, I asked them where this man was confined. "Bellevue," answered the narrator of the story.

I thanked him, and went out, standing for a while on the corner, breathing deeply of the fresh air, and trying to analyze my state of mind. Something within me was beating against my poor, tired brain—something that would not take form and expression; something of truth and fact and experience of my own that I could not remember—something pertaining to my life at sea.

At last I went home and sank into a troubled slumber, from which I wakened in the morning, not with any projects for the welfare of the man in the hospital, but for my own good. Hypnotic operations would restore memory; so the doctor had affirmed. My mind went at once to the successful hypnotist that I had seen at the theater, and, after a day of idleness and musing, I called there before the performance began.

I met him, explained my loss of memory, and he promised to do what he could, appointing a meeting at his apartment at twelve, when the day's work was ended, and his mind and mine were tranquil.

I was there on time. While well-dressed and well spoken, there was a slight burr to his voice and a roughness of the skin on the back of his neck that—I do not know why—betokens the outdoor, manual worker. He spoke gently to me, asked my name and occupation, and, when I told him that I was a collector, remarked that he had once been a collector himself. First seating me in an easy-chair, he faced me in another, and took my hands in his.

"Now, I am going to mesmerize you," he said, "instead of merely hypnotizing. I am going to put you to sleep by personal or, as some say, animal magnetism. It is more efficient in a case of long duration, but I never use it on the stage, because it is not necessary, and because only I could waken the subjects. Something might happen, you see—a fire, or an injury to myself. But here we are quiet and safe. Now, look me steadily in the eyes, and when you have gone to sleep I will command you, firmly, to remember all your past. That will be all. Very simple."

I obeyed him, looking steadily into his kindly, brown eyes. As I looked they seemed to grow larger, while the pressure of his hands on mine relaxed. Larger and larger grew his eyes, until I seemed to see nothing else; then a tingling sensation crept through my frame—a delicious tremor that soothed me into drooping my eyelids.

"Close your eyes now," he said, and his voice was far away. "You are going to sleep, and, when I waken you, you will remember all that you have forgotten."

I obeyed him, and for a moment or two thought I had slept; but the closing words of his command seemed to arouse me. He was still before me, but in the act of rising. He went into another room, and came out, dressed in rough clothing and smoking a short clay pipe; then the wall containing this door grew blank and white, and in a moment had taken on the exact form of the forward side of a ship's forecastle, while a duplicate door appeared in it.

Sitting quietly there, I watched the strange transformation scene, able to rise if I wanted to, but not wanting to, nor feeling the slightest uneasiness about the phenomena. The pictures left the wall, and faded into nothingness; the mantel to my right hand elongated and took on the form of a ship's rail; then with a rush all else in the room changed.

The floor rose suddenly, and became a fore-hatch, while the place was filled with sailors, known to me by face and name; but among them I could not now see the transformed mesmerist—the only man smoking was Bill Andrus, a young fellow from Australia. To complete the picture, my easy-chair changed into the weather windlass barrel, and a dash of salt spray came over the bow. Being able to move, I left my seat and got out of the way of the water. All seemed natural to me; I was at sea again, and on one of the boats stowed on the house I spelled the name of my first ship.

Of course, it was a dream, even though real to me at the time; and there was no beginning to it. I dropped into that chapter of my life with a full memory of the chapters preceding it, and I went on with it as I had lived it before, with no thought that my seat on the windlass had, a few moments before, been an easy morris chair.

The men around me were my shipmates, and in no sense out of proportion of place or time. It was the last dog-watch, and when eight bells struck I went aft to my trick at the wheel with no self-questioning. And so, I will tell the rest of this story as though I had never forgotten it.

The name of the ship was Chariot, and she was small, well found and manned, with an easy skipper and mates. We were bound to Sydney, and before the trades had been reached each man was on good terms, not only with the others of the crew, but with the cook and steward, skipper and mates. There had not been a blow or a harsh word from the officers since we lifted the anchor in the Horseshoe.

In my watch, besides myself, were Jack Sullivan, an intelligent young Irish-American; Swansen, a big, good-natured Swede—a Sou'wegian, we called him—Wilkinson and Tompkins, two Jerseyites; Andrus, the Australian, the youngest and least efficient of the ship's company, but the most intelligent; and Devlin, an Irish, hot-headed graduate of the Dublin university, who had gone to sea from sheer rebellion against the conventionalities of shore life. We were a congenial, cheerful lot of good fellows, ready for work or play or fight—only there was no occasion for the latter.

We had our afternoon watch and first dog-watch below, a rare condition in American ships, and on Sundays a liberal dinner of duff and good wholesome beef sweetened to the flavor of corned beef by an overnight soaking in fresh water. Each Sunday, while the trades lasted, all hands remained on deck in both forenoon and afternoon watches, to wash clothes, overhaul and air dunnage, to shave or be shaved and to mutually cut hair, all of us confident of a good night's sleep, even on deck; for braces are rarely touched at night while the trades are blowing.

But on a Sunday morning, just after the trades had blown out, the young Irish ne'er-do-well wanted a haircut and a shave. Wilkinson and Tompkins had proved the best barbers, and had done all the work heretofore; but this time they rebelled; they were tired of it, and, besides, a squall was coming. Devlin vociferated and declaimed, saying that he had looked like a dog long enough, and finally, to appease him, young Andrus volunteered the task; so Devlin sat down on the fore-hatch, and Andrus went to work, with mock pitying comments on his doglike face.

"Of course, you're a dog," he would say, "the Skye terrier breed; but I'll make a fox terrier out of you 'fore I'm done. Keep quiet. I can't cut your hair while you're wriggling like a cat in a bathtub. You're not a cat; you're a dog."

Devlin finally ceased his profane comment and wriggling, sitting quiet until the clipping was done; then Andrus, after a walk to the rail and a look at the growing squall to the westward, came back, saying that there was time for a shave—which Devlin needed as badly as a haircut.

"Quiet, you dog!" he said jokingly. "You're a Skye terrier now, and I'll soon make you a fox terrier—just as soon as I get that fur off your face."

He shaved him clumsily but quickly, then stood back.

"Now, Devlin," he said, still carrying on the good-natured raillery, "you're as handsome a dog as I ever saw. Let's hear you bark."

To our astonishment, Devlin emitted a series of canine sounds, and ended with a menacing growl. He still sat quietly on the hatch, however, without a sign or a smile on his face to indicate that he fell in with the joke. Then came a shout from the mate, calling us to halyards, clewlines, and buntlines, to shorten down for the squall.

We answered, and it was not until the squall had passed and sail made again that we noticed that Devlin still sat on the hatch, occasionally giving voice to barks and growls. We spoke to him, but received only growls.

The skipper and mates came forward, and commanded him; he answered by louder barks and deeper growls. We continued for an hour, and at last he became violent. He was put into his berth, voted crazy from some cause inherent in his nature, and ministered unto by all hands.

He grew quiet in a few days, but never regained his senses. We would talk to him, coax him to answer, and even sing the old forecastle songs to him; but all we received in answer were barks and growls, and soon we perceived that he had forgotten the use of his pan, pannikin, and spoon. We sorrowfully taught him to eat.

And we mourned also for another good fellow, from the time of that squall that followed the barbering. Andrus, the Australian, had been lost overboard. At a time when royals and topgallant sails were flapping and fluttering, the ship laid over by the squall until the lee rail was buried, and, with wind abeam, making twelve knots, Andrus had floundered down into the water in the waist to rescue the ship's cat, old Tom, that had been caught unawares and was in danger of floating overboard.

No one knew just how it happened. We only knew that the ship righted for a moment, then sagged back to a farther angle, and, when next she righted, Andrus and the cat were gone.

We let the canvas flap and carry away, while we strove to back the main yards, and the skipper threw over life-buoys and gratings. But in that furious wind we could not gain an inch on the main-brace, and by the time we realized this Andrus and the cat, life-buoys, and gratings must have been a mile astern. There was a ship on the horizon, following in our wake, but it was past all reason that Andrus, who we knew could not swim, should reach a life-buoy or grating and be picked up.

We taught and trained Devlin as we would train a dog, and he learned readily. He first learned to pull a rope with us, and soon understood the meaning of "belay." He learned to sweep and scrub decks, and, after a few trips aloft with us, learned to furl, to reef, and to "loose" a sail. He remembered every word spoken to him, and would repeat them at the right time; but we had rounded the Cape before he could converse, and then in short, jerky sentences; yet he learned to speak much more rapidly than could a child.

We called him Devlin until we understood that he could not remember it as his name; then we addressed him as "Say." Little by little he learned the ropes, the compass, and the use of marlinespikes and deck gear, and, though still stupid, was in a fair way to become an able seaman again, but for an unfortunate speech of one of our number—I think it was Swansen—who, at our forecastle supper, jokingly called him a dog.

Devlin immediately became a dog, snapping, snarling, barking, and growling, with all his tutelage gone from him.

We mobbed Swansen, but it did not help the case; Devlin remained an imbecile until we reached port, where he went to a hospital.

So, with our spirits clouded, we were glad to quit that good ship at Sydney, and separate, each going his own way. Mine led to other voyages until, as I have said, I quit the sea to work on shore; then, on through my struggles for a livelihood to the time of my mental breakdown; and I even remembered and lived the experience of the night at the theater and my visit to the hypnotist. And then I awoke, to find him standing over me, making passes upward and over my head.

"Well," he said, as I glanced confusedly around the room, "how do you feel?"

"Feel?" I answered. "Why, professor, I've dreamed of my whole life—only, it is fading away. Let me think. The ship—Swansen—the squall—no, it is going. I cannot remember. I cannot."

"Go home," he said kindly, "and sleep all you can. Each morning will bring back fresh recollections, and in time your memory will be thoroughly restored."

He was right. Next morning I recalled the incidents of my boyhood and my early seafaring experience, culminating in my signing able seaman in the Chariot. And as I viewed my face in the glass, I marveled at the change; I knew it as my face, and remembered it, but now remembered the face of my youth, which gave no promise of the worn and wasted features in the glass.

Yet the following morning brought back more recollections of that voyage, and the next and the next still more, until at the end of a week I could review my past, perhaps with a keener memory than that of the ordinary man who has tired his brain and memory without the relief that had come to me. I called down blessings upon the head of that hypnotist, and in my gladness of heart thought of the poor devil in Bellevue Hospital, and went to see him.

But I was not admitted. I was not acquainted with him, and had no plausible excuse for wishing to see him. So I went to Sullivan, my old shipmate, and explained the case, at the same time telling him of my wonderful cure, and my wish to secure to him the services of the kindly man who had served me.

"Won't let you in?" he cried. "I'll see about that. Just come along wi' me up to Tammany Hall, an' I'll see if a fri'nd o' Jack Sullivan is to be barred out of any public institution in this burg."

We started, and as our way led past the apartment of the professor, I suggested that we stop and endeavor to take him along, as, if all went well, the thing could be done in a few moments.

Luckily we found him at home, packing up for the road. His engagement was ended, and he would leave town that evening; but, when I had explained about the poor fellow at Bellevue, whose case was worse than my own, his kindly brown eyes lit up with a fellow sympathy, and he came with us.

We took a cab, and Jack and I occupied the forward seat, while the professor sat opposite. As we rode along, I noticed that he furtively glanced into Jack's seamy face, and occasionally, and as furtively, into mine, while a doubtful, thoughtful expression stole over his own. But he uttered no word during that ride, and indeed there was hardly a chance, for Jack kept the atmosphere sulphurous with his comments on the insolence of the doctors at Bellevue.

At Tammany Hall Jack went in, and what he said or did in there I do not know; but he soon came out, waving a pass to the hospital, and still swearing.

We soon reached Bellevue, and were readily admitted and led to the ward containing the hopelessly insane. And here we were at a loss as to which of the fifty or more patients was our man. The one nurse there did not know the pathology of a single case in the ward; but he went to inquire, and brought back the visiting physician whom I had met in the car. He recognized me, heard my story, was introduced to Jack and the professor, and said to the latter:

"If you have restored this man's memory, sir, you may succeed with our man. I am perfectly willing you should try. We have always failed. I suppose you want a quiet room. Come with me, and I will send for the man."

He led us into a small, vacant bedroom, containing, beside the bed, a washstand and one chair. The doctor called for more chairs, and then said:

"It is best perhaps that you should know something about him before he arrives, as he is intelligent and sensitive in his present personality. Besides his utter loss of memory, he carries the strangest antipathy to cats and dogs—"

And here, as though in confirmation of the description, a huge cat bounded into the room, followed by a frenzied-eyed man, who uttered incoherent snarls and growls, as he endeavored to catch the cat.

"That's the man," said the doctor. "Look out."

Following the maniac was the nurse, who endeavored to stop the chase; but he could not hold the violent patient, though the cat had a moment's reprieve. It glared at its enemy from a corner; then, as the pursuer bounded toward it, the cat sprang to my head and shoulders, spitting and snarling defiance, and from my head, which was rather bald, it leaped to the head of the doctor—which was balder—thence to the floor, and out of the room. The patient pursued, but was stopped and held by the doctor and nurse.

"Sit down in that chair," said the doctor, "and behave yourself."

The frenzy left the man's eyes, and he quietly obeyed.

"I have told you often enough," said the doctor to the nurse, "to keep that cat out of this ward." He wiped the blood from his bare scalp. "Why are not my instructions carried out?"

"It was not my fault, sir," answered the nurse. "I do not know who let the cat in."

"Never let it happen again. Bring those chairs in."

"Wait, doctor," said the professor. "Can you send in a bench about a foot high, or, if not, a bucket or pail. I want to seat this man on something hard."

There was no such bench, he was informed, but a large pail came in with the chairs.

I had been studying the patient. He was a middle-sized, middle-aged man, with a careworn face and gray hair and beard, and he sat tremblingly in his chair, and looked pleadingly at the doctor.

"I could not help it, doctor," he said. "I hate them—they madden me."

"Never mind, Monson," answered the doctor kindly; "but we're going to try again to take it out of you. You must sit still and be hypnotized."

"What! More of that foolishness! It never did any good."

"Not hypnotized this time—mesmerized. This gentleman thinks he can put you to sleep. If he succeeds, you will remember your past. Isn't it worth trying? Come, now; be sensible."

He looked at the professor doubtingly, and I also looked at him, noticing perhaps what the doctor did not—that he was trembling from head to foot, and that the muscles of his mouth twitched; but he pulled himself together and approached the patient.

"Yes, my poor fellow," he said, in his kindly voice, "it can be done. I have never failed. You will remember your former name and all your early life."

"I have studied this thing a little," answered Monson, "and I understand that it is done by suggestion to the subconscious mind."

"You are right. And as you seem to be a well-informed, intelligent man, it will be all the easier. Come over here, and sit down on the upturned pail."

He changed his seat, and the professor, warning us to perfect silence, made a few passes over the man's head and down before him.

"Sit up, now," he commanded, "and don't fall over." Monson stiffened straight, and the professor continued his passes until Monson's eyes took on a fixed expression. Then the mesmerist began twitching and pulling his patient's hair, sometimes gently, and again roughly. Then he took a chair, seated himself before Monson, as he had done in my case, and, taking his hands in his own, commanded him to stare at his eyes.

Monson obeyed, and, in a few moments, his eyelids drooped. Soon he was asleep. But the professor continued the passes and the occasional twitching of the hair for fully five minutes; then he stood up and stepped back. The sweat was running down his face, and he wiped it off with his handkerchief.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I have him in the somnambulistic stage, but it may be necessary to send him deeper. I will try. Monson, answer me," he commanded in a sharp voice.

"Yes, sir," answered the sleeping man.

"Do you hate cats?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

The professor made more passes, waited a few minutes; then made more, and again asked sternly: "Monson, do you hate cats?"

There was no answer.

The professor looked at us with a smile. "I think I have found him," he said. He again began the hair twitching, and after a few moments again questioned him. And the question brought Sullivan and me, gasping and choking, to our feet.

"Devlin," he said, in a joking tone, "am I cutting your hair to your satisfaction?"

"You are not," answered the sleeper. "I was doggy enough before, but ye're making a hairless Mexican poodle o' me 'stead of a fox terrier."

"Devlin," shouted the professor, as he drew away his hands, "you are not a dog. You never have been a dog, and you never will be a dog. You are a man, and your name is not Monson. It never was Monson, and it never will be Monson. When you waken you will remember every event of your past life up to and after the time of the squall aboard the Chariot. You will remember everything. Wake up, Devlin, wake up, and don't count your trouble against me, old shipmate. I did not know my power then. I nearly drowned before that ship astern picked me up. Wake up, Devlin. Wake up."

The professor was making furious passes upward.

Slowly the man's eyes opened, and, with the daze of sleep still in them, he looked at the professor.

"You're a bum barber, Andrus," he said. "I wouldn't give ye hell room."

The professor did not catch his train that evening. Four old shipmates dined together; and the dinner lasted until it became a supper, and finally a breakfast.