Chapter IV

Evidently several weeks elapsed between the last entry in the diary and what follows. This is to be inferred from the fact that several things are mentioned as having happened of which there is no record. In all probability, I was in a semi-somnambulic state during the interval, as a result of Lessman’s strange power over me. During my entire incarceration there were times when everything was a blank; at other times, I remember, there were dim, hazy vistas of things into which I peered. They seem like dreams. Yet, if they were dreams, of what was their substance? A dream must have some foundation.

FROM THE DIARY.

“The unforeseen has come to pass. That which I have just witnessed God never intended that mortal eyes should see. At the very thought of it my body trembles and every nerve tingles as if from electric shock.

“Where is Lessman? Did the Bodymaster and his female accomplice perish in the ruins of their own diabolical art? I hope so. It is better that I—that all of us—die of starvation, locked as we are in this horrible den, than that others should share the fate which has been meted out to us.

“Last night I am almost certain that we exchanged bodies—the Bodymaster and I!

“At least, my waking consciousness tells me that we did. Yet it is all so hazy that I can remember only fragments of what happened. Perhaps I only dreamed. I tell only what I can remember.

“At his command, I slunk from my narrow cell like a mangy, half-starved, dope-filled circus lion from its cage. And, like the king of beasts, beaten into servitude in the arena, I fawned at my master’s feet, ready to do his bidding. Such is the state that I have reached. For my body is not my own. It is his—his to do with as he wills. Fight as I may, an unseen force compels me to do his bidding.

“They were together, he and Meta. From another door entered a girl—young, beautiful, fair-haired. She is, I am certain, the woman who accompanied me on that other occasion of which I have a recollection—the night I found the blood upon my hand and knew that I had killed a man. I dream of her nightly. She is Meta’s dupe. Like me, her mind is not yet a blank. She entered slowly, reluctantly, as if every fiber in her body rebelled against the awful crime in which she was to take a part, her great blue eyes staring straight ahead.

“Like a woman who walks in her sleep, she approached Meta’s side. For an instant they stood there—the fair-haired girl and the beautiful, raven-tressed woman. Lessman’s hands hovered over them.

“She screamed! God in heaven, how she shrieked! Then the body of Meta staggered to a nearby chair and dropped into its recesses.

“And from the throat of the fair-haired girl with the angel’s face came the voice of Meta!

“‘It is done!’

“He, the Bodymaster, turned to me. My whole being fought within me against the sacrilege which was being committed. As well attempt to stem the oncoming tide. I felt my body in a convulsion. Something seemed to be tearing at my very vitals. My mind reeled. My brain was filled with fire. The face—the devilish, diabolical, mocking face of the Bodymaster appeared before me. I could see nothing else. His baleful, gleaming eyes seemed to burn into my very core. My body seemed to be hurled through space.... Then came oblivion.

“I must have been unconscious but an instant. I stood leaning against the table, my fingers pressed against my aching brow. Dazed, I passed my hand across my face. I was bearded. It was the face of Lessman, the Bodymaster!

“The clothes were his. I was inhabiting his body!

“My startled gaze turned across the room. To all intents and purposes it was I who stood there, my arm about the waist of the golden-haired girl.

“I knew that it was not I—that it was Lessman, the Bodymaster, who offered his foul caresses to the beautiful face upraised to his. I knew that the rich red lips were not those of the girl whose slender body he had defiled. It was Meta—Meta and Lessman, not the girl and I....

“A burst of rage swelled up within me. Something snapped. For an instant a flood of red appeared before my eyes. I leaped forward, the lust for killing within my brain.

“Lessman’s body is fat with nourishment, his muscles fed by good living, while mine is half famished, ill-nourished, weak as a result of worry and nerve strain.

“It was my own body I was punishing. Yet Lessman’s was the soul that inhabited it. As a man sees his face in a mirror, so did I see my face before me. I hurled my stolen body to the floor. Screaming with rage, I showered blow after blow upon it. It writhed with pain.

“And all the time, within me, there was being waged a terrible struggle for mastery. I felt the will of Lessman commanding me to desist. Yet the love of a woman was stronger than his power. I gouged at the gleaming eyes which stared up into mine, the while I choked at the throat—my throat—which lay beneath my fingers.

“The woman was screaming. I knew that it was Meta who was cursing me, who sought to pull me from my victim. Yet it was the body of the unnamed girl I loved, her face contorted into a frenzy of malignancy, who showered blow after blow upon my bared head....

“I awoke to find myself here in my cell again. My head aches. My face is covered with bruises. My hair is matted with blood. Lessman must have conquered. I wonder how fared the girl with the mass of shimmering, golden hair. Surely, with all these bruises, it could not have been a dream.”