Rodrigues Ottolengui - A Modern Wizard

"He is now thoroughly frightened, but the shock will not kill him. When he wakes he will be mine indeed! I will play the little trick, and I can be safe without fear from this." He kicked the prostrate form lightly with his foot, and then lifted Barnes up and sat him upon the stone as he slowly revived, supporting him until he had sufficiently recovered not to need assistance. Then he placed himself in front of Barnes, and as soon as the young man seemed to have regained his senses he folded his arms and said sternly:

"Look at me!" Barnes obeyed for a moment and then turned away and would have risen, but the doctor called out authoritatively:

"You cannot get up! You have no legs!" Barnes reached down with his hands towards his legs, only to be stopped by the words:

"You cannot feel! You have no hands! Now look at me! Look! I command you!" Barnes gazed helplessly into the Doctor's eyes, and the latter continued, in a voice of peremptory sternness:

"Now answer me when I speak to you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand. I will answer!" The voice did not seem to be the normal tones of the young man, and a smile passed over the Doctor's face as he went on.

"Do you know who you are? If so, tell me!"

"I am Jack Barnes!"

"And who am I?"

"Doctor Medjora!"

"Do you know where you are?"

"Yes! In the chamber of Æsculapius!"

"If I let you go from here, what will you do?"

"I would tell the police what I know!"

"Good! Now listen to me!"

"I am listening!"

"You wish to escape?"

"Yes!"

"I am your master?"

"You are my master!"

"You must obey my commands! You understand that?"

"I must obey your commands. I understand that!"

"You are asleep now?"

"Yes, I am asleep!"

"But if I give you a command now when you are asleep, you will obey it when I allow you to awaken?"

"What you command when I am asleep, I will do when you let me be awake!"

"You followed me to-day?"

"I followed you."

"You will forget that?"

No answer came from the sleeper. The crucial test had come. The contest of wills. The Doctor, however, was determined to succeed. Success meant a great deal to him, for he must either kill this man, or else control him. He did not consider the first expedient. Murder was not even in his thought. He stepped up to Barnes and took his two hands.

"You will forget that you followed me?"

Still no reply. The Doctor gently closed the open eyes of the sleeper, and rubbed them with a rotary movement of the thumb. Again he ventured:

"You will forget that you followed me? You – will – forget – that – you – followed – Dr. Medjora?" A pause, a quiver of the released eyelids, which opened slowly, allowing the eyes to gaze at the Doctor; then the lids closed again, a shiver passed over the sleeper's body, and the voice spoke:

"I will obey! I will forget!"

"You will forget that you followed me?"

"I will forget!"

"Repeat what I say. You will forget that you followed me?"

"I will forget that I followed you!"

"You will forget that you saw me and heard me speaking to a woman?"

"I will forget that you were speaking to a woman!"

"You will forget that there was a fire?"

"I will forget the fire!"

"You will forget the secret staircase?"

"I will forget the staircase!"

"The secret staircase!" The Doctor was determined to take no risk.

"I will forget the secret staircase!" said the sleeper.

"You will forget this room?"

"I will forget this room!"

"Finally, you will forget that you have been asleep?"

"Finally, I will forget that I have been asleep!"

"Good! That ought to be safe enough!" This the Doctor said to himself, but the sleeper replied:

"Good! That ought to be safe enough!"

"Pah! He is a mere automaton," said the Doctor.

"A mere automaton!" repeated Barnes.

At this last sally the Doctor burst out into uncontrolled laughter, so much heartier than before that it was plain that his previous laughing had been but a part of his scheme to overawe the strong young will of his companion, by raising up the affrighting echoes. The sleeper joined in with this laughing, imitating it almost note for note, and the answering echoes adding to the bedlam, made the place indeed like some dwelling-place of evil spirits. The Doctor's hilarity passed, and placing one hand upon Barnes's shoulder, in a voice of command he cried!

"Silence!" At once the stillness of death ensued, as though each gibbering demon had scurried back into his hiding-place. The Doctor took the young man's head in both hands, the palms open against the temples, and a thumb over each eye. Rubbing the closed lids gently, at the same time pressing the temples, he spoke in deep resonant tones.

"Sleep! Sleep more deeply! Sleep unconscious! Sleep oblivious! Sleep as though dead, but awaken when I call upon you to awaken!"

He continued his manipulations a few moments, and then removed his hands. The eyelids released, slowly opened, and the sleeper gazed at him. Then as slowly they closed again, and being shut, twitched and fluttered as the heart of a dying bird might do. More and more quiet the movements became, till at length all was still. Then the erect head sank gently down, until it rested upon the breast, and the body swayed, and slipped by easy stages from the stone to the floor, where, as it turned over and lay prone upon the face, a long-drawn sigh escaped, and Barnes lay as one dead. The Doctor gazed silent, satisfied, yet as though awed by his own work. Then he lost himself in reverie.

"And this thing is a man. A strong healthy body encasing a powerful will. Yet where now is that will? What has become of the soul that tenants this shell, which now seems empty, dead. Escaped, gone, and at my bidding! 'He sleeps, he is not dead,' says the scientist. What wily excuses men make for their ignorance. If he sleeps, he is dead, for sleep is death, different only because there is an awakening. Yet in the true death is there not an awakening? All analogy cries out 'Yes!' Now this man sleeps, and I have made him thus temporarily dead. Except at my bidding there can be no awakening on this earth. Then if I do not bid him rise, am I a murderer? The law would say so. The law! The law! Pah! The law that says that, is but a written token of man's ignorance. For if I leave him here, he still must awaken. And who can say that if I leave him to awaken in another world he might not thank me so much, that his spirit in gratitude would become my attendant guardian, until his foolish fellow-men, having hanged my body to a gibbet, by a rope, should send my soul into eternity beside him. My soul! Have I a soul? Yes! and not yet is it prepared to pass beyond the limit of this life. No, despite the laws, and the minions of the laws, I will live to reap the harvest which my great ancestor has garnered here. So this fellow must be awakened and restored to his place amongst his kind! Will it be safe? I have made his mind a blank. But will it so remain? His will is strong. He offered more resistance than any upon whom I have tried my power. Had I not first numbed his brain by twisting it into knots, I doubt that I should have controlled him. So if I release him, to-morrow in his waking senses he will perceive that several hours of his life are as a blank. He will realize that during that time something must have occurred that he has forgotten, and all his energy will be aroused to force remembrance. There is a vivid danger should he recall his experience, before my trial occurs and ends. And with our stupid laws who may say when that may be? Ah! I have the trick. His mind is now a blank, and these few hours will be a void. I have charged him to forget. Now I must bid him to remember, and furnish him with the incidents with which to account for the lapse of time. I will take him near the truth. So near that fluctuating recollection will be unable to disentangle fact from fiction. Thus what he recalls will bear no menace to my safety, and yet will so satisfy his will to know what has passed, that no great effort will be made to delve deeper into the records of this day. But first I must take him from this sacred place. It will be safer."