THE BABY

It was Dartmoor who saw the chance. He was the son of a wealthy father, and perhaps the one man of that medical class to feel equal to the experiments given up by the old professor.

Physically, Dartmoor was exceptionally favored by nature, possessing one of the most winning personalities I have ever met, and the face and figure of a Greek god. And to this was added a mental development that was almost abnormal in its completeness. I had gone through school with him, and never saw him studying. He seemed to learn his lessons by a few glances at the page of a book.

He had courage of a high order, but never had a fight in his life, for he could make an adversary surrender without a fight. He could win any girl for sweetheart, or any boy for friend. He had his enemies, carefully chosen by himself, but when he so decided he would make these enemies his friends. I had been one.

Shortly after our diplomas were given us, Dartmoor secured legal possession of the freak, with a history of the case. The history was simple; its mother, a poor immigrant, had died at its birth, and its father was unknown.

The professor, a visiting physician of the hospital at the time, had taken it into his sanitarium and cared for it; but beyond keeping it alive had not helped it. It was a man that had never been conscious—a human being born without the five senses.

Dartmoor erected a pavilion on his grounds, installed in it the freak, together with the apparatus for massage and exercise, and gave himself up to the study of his charge. He had me around once to witness the experiments, but I was not enthusiastic.

The creature, who was about as old as Dartmoor and myself, lay in a reclining posture on the exercising frame, staring vacantly with wide-open, blue eyes. He was full grown, but with the features of an infant—pudgy nose and pursed-up lips.

Two hinged levers worked by a crank caught his wrists as they lay extended over his head, lifted him to a sitting position, and pulled him forward until his fingers touched his feet. Then back he went, to be again swung forward. When there had been enough of this, two other levers lifted him by the ankles and brought his feet over his head, then dropped them back.

Then there were massaging and vibrating apparatus and a portable shower-bath to finish him off. All this had been going on since his infancy, and now he was fairly well developed—about six feet tall, with the muscles of an athlete.

"Dartmoor," I said, when the job was over, "this is a problem for a college of physicians and surgeons, not for one man."

"But think of the credit," he answered enthusiastically. "Think of the world's applause if I succeed in giving consciousness to this poor, animated clay."

"It may be an idiot."

"Not necessarily—an infant, perhaps."

"Where do you think the trouble lies?"

"I do not know; neither does the professor. It is something that affects the sensory, motor, and sympathetic nerves as a whole. I shall try the different absorption treatments, and various forms of radio-activity and ultra-violet rays. Mental suggestion may do it."

"Well, good luck to you. I've a living to make curing live people."

But I did not make a living by my profession. A girl who had said "yes" at the beginning of my studies now said "no," and it needed no deep investigation to discover the reason for the change. She had come under the sway of Dartmoor's personality, and my cause was hopeless.

What made it harder was that he seemed unaware of it. He evidently cared nothing for her, busying himself with his experiments and never seeking her. Otherwise I might have had it out with him.

However, the girl's "no" carried with it a denial of all else that I valued. I was young, unproven, much wrought up, and utterly irresponsible. For the next five years my life had better be glossed over. I went to sea, and found in the wandering life of a sailor the only relief for the aching drag at my breast.

At last, being more sane than insane, I turned over a new leaf and began to save money. A few years later I found myself owner and master of a fine little schooner, and, after a few exploring and trading trips around the South Sea Islands, came upon a pearl fishery which laid the foundations of a fortune.

This done, I took in a ballast load of guano, and, ten years from the time of my departure, sailed for the Golden Gate and home. I wanted to see that girl again, married or single.

It must have been intuition, for I arrived at San Francisco just before the date fixed for her marriage to Dartmoor. I saw him first, and it was he who told me. He was worn out with his unsolved problem, and about to abandon it.

There had been something lacking in his life, he said—something that lessened his powers, but now he had found it—the love of woman. He had awakened to the fact that he loved Miss Ewing, had always loved her, and was rejoiced to know that she had always loved him.

They were to be married in a week. His living dead man would then take second place in his thoughts, and perhaps new thoughts would come.

It was sad news for me, but I gritted my teeth and congratulated him.

"You're right," I said grimly. "A few years more of this business and no woman would have you. You look hunted. Your hair is turning."

"Yes," he sighed, "I'm getting gray and old. Perhaps, as you once said, it is too much of a task for one man. I have tried every scientific appliance, but I have not stirred a single sense perception.

"And I am being interfered with. A local society for the prevention of cruelty to children is getting active. I am charged with inhumanity, and in danger of arrest at any time. Why, he could not live a week without the care I am giving him."

"Why not let the society have him? Get him off your mind. Do you expect your wife to be happy with that monstrosity between you? Give it up, Dartmoor."

"I cannot. It is my life's work."

"Then you'd better take him down to my island, where I am the law and the lawmaker. Otherwise your life will be short and your wife a young widow."

I had made the suggestion at haphazard, but he became interested at once, asked me all about my pearl fishery, and the gang of coolies who obeyed me as a king, and said he would think it over. I left him then; and believing that even as a rejected lover I had a right to see my old sweetheart once in ten years, I called upon her.

It is hard for a man roughened as I have become to describe that girl; so I shall not try, except to say that all sense of fair play left me, and that I had not been in her presence five minutes before I was down on my knees, begging to be taken back.

I almost gained my point. There were tears in her eyes, and her hand trembled as I held it. She admitted that Dartmoor's long neglect had lessened his value in her eyes, now that she had won him. But he had done nothing culpable; her promise was given, and he seemed fond of her, and in need of her.

"Confound Dartmoor and his need of you!" I growled. "I need you more. He has his man-baby and his science. You will be second. You would be first with me, Ella. Give him up—for me."

She shook her head slowly, and more slowly, while I held tightly to her little hand. Then the doorbell rang, and we heard Dartmoor's voice.

"Curse him!" I cried hotly. "Ella, I won't have it. I won't give you up to him. I'm a man now, not a bewildered boy."

He came in before she could reply. He must have seen something out of the way in our faces, for he said jocularly:

"Talking about me, I'll wager. I wondered what made my ears burn. Do you know," he said, "that there is a scientific basis for that old fancy?"

As he took it scientifically and good-humoredly, I let it go; besides, as I remembered later, my anger had left me.

"Captain," he said seriously, "I have a proposition for you—that you take me and my phenomenon, with my attendants and apparatus, down to your island, where, I presume, we will be undisturbed. When I am alone with him I wish to try some experiments that I have long contemplated, but which have been interfered with by the people of this city. I will assume all expenses."

"Come along," I answered graciously. "I won't come within a mile of you, and the coolies will avoid you both."

"And, Ella," he said, turning to the girl he thought he loved, "it will necessitate a postponement of our wedding for a while. I cannot take you down into the South Pacific on an uncertainty. You will not mind, I know; we have waited long, and can wait a little longer. You agree with me, do you not, captain?"

"Of course, I do," I answered with a leaping heart, but trying to appear unconcerned. "It's no place for a woman."

She merely bowed her head and said nothing. What she thought I could not know. Nor can I remember much of what I thought myself. Mingled with my joy over the delay, there seemed to be vague imaginings of my holding Dartmoor by the heels over the taffrail and dropping him into the water. But I am not sure that these visions did not come later.

Wrong, of course; but I was an angry and jealous man.

I saw her once more before we sailed, but could not move her. She was kind, gentle with me, and sorrowful, but obedient to the influence of Dartmoor, with no will but his. So I gave it up for the time, trusting not to a watery grave to break his influence but to his absence from her.

We transferred the freak by night and lodged it in the hold, where I had built a sort of enclosure under the cabin trunk for the apparatus. Dartmoor brought a couple of his servants along to carry on the daily exercising, and my Kanaka crew expressed no curiosity concerning the strange weights they hoisted over the side at midnight. So, we got away without trouble.

Whether or not Dartmoor exercised any mental influence over me I do not know. I felt a healthy hatred for him as the man who had taken the woman I loved, but I could not bring myself to quarrel with him. He could not force me to like him, but possibly he disarmed my resentment by his kindly feeling for me.

My island was a small affair, as islands go—merely the top of a submerged mountain—surrounded by a barrier reef with only one passage through it; and this entrance was known to no one but myself. Well up from the beach I had erected huts for my coolie divers and a comfortable house for myself on the high ground near a spring of water.

Here I purposed to install Dartmoor and the freak; but I wondered, grimly and ungenerously, as I steered through the dangerous passage and glanced at a dismantled hulk wrecked on the reef during my absence, as to the chances of anybody getting off that island without my consent.

As we let go the anchor, a man pulled out in a small dingey I kept for exploring the lagoon and climbed aboard. He was tall, elderly, and mild of face and manner.

"Glad to see a white face again," he said as he offered me his hand. "You are the captain, I believe—the white chief of these poor heathen. I am Mr. Pfeffer, a seagoing missionary, and my little craft was wrecked here last week while trying to make the passage in a storm. I am the only one saved, and I owe my life to your divers. They have been very kind to me, a shipwrecked wayfarer, and I would like to remain among them a while, if it is possible for me to do so."

"Stay as long as you like, Mr. Pfeffer," I answered. "Convert us all, if you like; but there's a critter down below that's proof, I'll warrant."

He asked questions, and Dartmoor explained. Then the missionary inspected the monstrosity.

"I consider my shipwreck as an act of God," he said, as he came on deck. "You will succeed, Mr. Dartmoor, I know you will. And I will be here, to aid you with prayer and spiritual help. For this new-born intelligence must be trained to know and believe in the goodness of God, who creates nothing without a purpose. It is all clear, now, captain. I have been brought here to assist."

I did not dispute him. Fish, yams, and cocoanuts were plentiful on that island, and I had other things to think of. An overhauling of the work done in my absence and a trip to Honolulu for supplies would keep me busy for some time.

As I was about to start, Dartmoor's two servants asked to be taken with me. I consulted Dartmoor, and he sadly advised it. They did not like the quiet life on the island and, though he had offered more pay, they were not content. I landed them at Honolulu and saw no more of them.

Their going left the manual work of exercising the freak to Dartmoor, and I grinned shamelessly. At this juncture I had half a mind to run over to San Francisco and make another appeal to Ella, but gave it up. She might not have grown away from him yet; and at any rate I could keep Dartmoor on the island as long as I pleased. To such dark depths of knavery does jealousy bring a man.

I ran back to the island, and no sooner was the anchor down than Dartmoor and the dominie appeared on the beach, shouting and gesticulating like lunatics. Then, over the noise they made, there came from the house up the hill a sound like the braying of a burro mixed with the wail of a fog siren. Then I heard Dartmoor.

"It's alive," he called, "and conscious. It can sit up."

"Great Scott," I said. "Then that's its baby wail."

I went ashore and received the particulars from the excited Dartmoor.

The whole life treatment had been wrong because of its mechanical nature. He had found himself without the strength to manipulate the machine, and had consequently resorted to hand massage. When tired he would sit for hours, concentrating his mind upon the desire that the freak would awaken—would see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. Then he would resume the massage.

It worked. The creature opened its eyes one day about a week back and moved its limbs. With the wakening of the motor nerves came a correlative wakening of the sensory and optic nerves. He could see and feel.

But the sensations were too much for him and, like a new-born infant, he set up the loud, discordant wailing I had heard. A little further treatment brought to life the sense of hearing, and after a few simple experiments it was proved that he could taste and smell.

I went up and inspected the baby. He lay on his cot, dressed in dungaree jumper and overalls, twiddling his toes and fingers, and sticking out his tongue at the ceiling; but at the sight of me he set up a roar that drove us out into the open. He could certainly "take notice."

"His lungs are all right," I said. "He'll make a good bo'sun's mate when he grows up. Think he'll start growing now?"

"Oh, no," said Dartmoor seriously. "He's got his growth. But we are teaching him to walk, and we must teach him to talk. His intelligence and memory will come with the accumulation of perceptions."

"He will talk soon," said the old missionary hopefully. "He is very imitative. This morning he repeated 'Now I lay,' but could go no farther. His first speech must be prayer, to give thanks for his rescue from darkness."

"He'll learn to swear," I said unsympathetically, "if I catch him around my pearls. Think he'll be an idiot, Dartmoor? Has he a soul after all these years of unconsciousness?"

"He has always possessed a subconscious mind," said Dartmoor didactically, "and now has the beginning of consciousness. But if he has a soul, depend upon it, it is my soul. I brought him to life, and he will feel what I feel and do what I do to the extent of his power.

"Why, that is proved now. I can quiet him by a word, or even a fixed thought of disapproval. He smiles or laughs when I do. I was frightened by a shark yesterday—just a momentary shock—but his wailings were pitiable. Yet he was out of sight of me."

"Well, all this is beyond me," I said. "But now that you've got him alive what will you do with him? Take him back to the coast and exhibit him? He'd make a fine dime-museum star."

"Nothing so cheap. I do not care to take him back until I have fully demonstrated my theory. But, in his development he will need more than my care and Mr. Pfeffer's. He needs the tender ministrations of a mother. A woman's instinct alone can tell when to punish and when to reward.

"I want you to go back home, captain, and bring Ella to me, with her mother. Mr. Pfeffer can marry us, and then you can take the mother back."

"Dartmoor, you inhuman devil," I answered with what restraint I could, "would you condemn a civilized young woman to companionship with that brute?"

"In the interest of science, yes. My wife will work with me."

"She won't come," I answered explosively. "In justice and fairness I shall warn her of what is ahead. She won't come, depend upon it."

"She will. I will write her a letter which you can deliver to her."

I acceded—I do not know why. I had sworn to drown him in the lagoon before I would lend a hand toward his marrying that girl. I only came back to myself when three days out, homeward bound.

I was obeying his orders; yet, as the days went on, I found my will power and determination growing. If I took that girl out, I vowed she would go as my wife.

Nothing of the sort happened. When she read his letter she insisted upon going, and her weak old mother fell in line. In vain did I beg and storm. Nothing I could say availed against that letter.

I could not recognize Dartmoor's right to that girl over my own, though I was compelled to yield to his greater power. On that run out to sea I did all I could to sway her. I prayed to her and argued with her, representing as strongly as I could her life with a heartless, bloodless scientist and a man-baby—a repulsive, incongruous parody on the human race; but I finally had to give up in despair.

As we sailed into the lagoon I observed through the glass the whole colony, Dartmoor, the missionary, and the gang of coolies mustered on the beach. And with them was the baby. They had taught him to walk. Clumsy and huge, he lumbered around among them, and occasionally dropped to all-fours. Even at the distance I could hear his thundering "Da, da da!"

"Nice prospect for Ella," I thought gloomily. "Heaven help the poor girl!"

I lowered the quarter-boat and sent mother and daughter ashore, for I was determined not to witness Dartmoor's meeting with the girl I loved. Yet the jealous devils in my soul were too strong for my determination. I looked through the glass at Dartmoor assisting Ella ashore, and swore dismally as he took her in his arms, kissed her on the cheek, and turned away from her to the mother.

A scream, either from Ella or her mother, interrupted the second greeting, and I shifted my glass. There was the brute baby, with his huge arms around Ella, attempting to follow the example of Dartmoor. The missionary shouted, and the coolies danced around at a safe distance.

Dartmoor acted. With a bound he had the brute by the throat and pulled him clear. Then I saw them clench, and at this I dropped the glass and sprang into the dingey.

I took only one look behind as I pulled furiously on the oars. They were on the ground in a mad struggle, the brute uppermost. Ella had fainted and her mother was bending over her, while the missionary and the coolies were well up the hill.

As I grounded and sprang out with an oar, the brute slowly rose erect, looking at Dartmoor.

"Get out of here!" I yelled. "Clear out!" and brandished the oar.

He stumbled away a short distance, dropped and crawled a little farther, then lay down on the sand. I made toward Ella.

"Is she hurt?" I asked anxiously.

"Only fainted away," answered the mother. "That creature frightened her so. He is simply terrible."

I went to Dartmoor, prone upon his back, and stooped over him.

"Hurt, Dartmoor?" I asked.

"My back," he whispered. "He has broken my back. I cannot move and there is no sensation below the waist. Where is he now?"

"Lying down over yonder," I answered. "What can I do?"

"Nothing. Protect Ella from him."

"I will. I'll murder him if need be."

"You will not need," he went on in that weakening whisper. "I did too well. He had only my soul to inspire his impulses, without my governing mind. He took my love for Ella only as his mind could interpret it, as mere impulse. He took my anger and vented it upon me. He will die with me. It is but the passing of one soul."

Dartmoor was right. He breathed his last in a minute, and I went over to the beast. He, too, lay quiet and still.