Beadle's Dime Library No. 146 — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

— the street to the next corner, then she crossed the awenue and came back on the same side that the dector’s house was on. Hoppergrass had not lost sight of her fora moment,and when he saw her coming up the street directly toward bim, he began to get frightened; a vague suspicion haunted his mind that he was about to be accused of some wrong- doing and his first impulse was to take to his |ecis and run, but he resolved to stand his rround, ‘*So help me Bob! I ain’t done nuffin to no- body!” he muttered; “I ain’t a-goin’ to skoot when I ain’t done nuffin, nohow.” The boy’s suspicion was correct; the lady had returned for the express purpose of speaking to him. She halted in front of the —— and Hopper- mrass looked curiously up into her face; about ‘ll that be could distinguish through the thick vail which concealed it was a most brilliant pair of black eyes, and sucha pair of diamond-like eyes he thought that he had never seen before; taey seemed to fairly look one through and through. Under that piercing gaze the boy felt decid- edly uneasy. ; * This is Doster Diamond’s house?” the lad said, speaking in a deep, inusical voice whic pore: the gamin sweeter—sweeter than any voice he had ever heard, even than the bell-like toues of Dura Eldon. The sign affixed beside the door of course an- swered the question, so the lad very naturally inferred that the inquiry was merely for the purpose of opening a conversation with him. “Yes ma’an,” replied Hoppergrass, ducking his head. ‘* Do you know the doctor?” ‘Yes, ma’am.” “‘Is he in?” ‘* No, ma’am; I am a-waitin’ for him now.” “* Are you well acquainted with him?” ‘‘Known him a long time, ever since I was so high,” and the gamin with his hand indicated the: altitude of about two feet, from which it wes to be inferred that the acquaintanceship co. amenced at a very early age. ‘ne lady hesitated for a moment, cast a rapid glance up and down the street as if deba some question in her mind, and then, in an evi- dently repressed voice, said: ‘‘As you know the doetor er you can give me some information about him. Will ou come with me? I will pay you well,” and e lady held up a silver dollar. The boy’s eyes sparkled; evidently he had got into a streak of luck. ‘* All right, ma’am; I’m the boy wot kin do it!” —_— CHAPTER X. AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY. ‘* Now, then, old fellow, come! ‘Your judg- rent upon this case!” Doramus continued, in rapture, without giving the other a chance to spoak, ‘“‘[sn’t it grand? Did you ever see a finer specimen?” ‘Lhe look in the eyes of the guest showed that he shared the professional ardor of his friend; au better ‘‘ subject” than the insensible form lying so still upon the marble slab had never ‘allen imte a doctor’s hands. The savant from India coming close to the table examined the body with great interest. ‘The clothes been removed, for the captain of the White Band had been careful that bis men should remove everything that might lead to a discovery as to who the man was; they had cven ¢ the flowing locks of the victim close oe oo head, thus in ev oe measure changing bis appearance so as render recog- nition more uncertain. The body was fully ex- posed from the head to the waist—the upper part of the sheet, which had completely cov- cred it, having been thrown back by the old yentleman upon introducing his friend. ‘‘Youare right, Daniel; it is really superb,” the savant observed—*‘ a ificent subject; a young man, too, right in the first flush of youth, Vhy, he ought to have had forty years of life before him. Of what disease did he die? I see no indication of any; as far as a nces go, he was perfectly heaithv ; in fact, in a condition to fight, run or work for his life.” < Acci lenc caused h's dea: h—he was drowned. You have no idea low much trouble I had to ret him—cost two hundred dollars! Of course or such an experiment as the one Iam about to make I wanted a first-class subject.” ‘* Drowned, el?” and the white-bearded doc- tor approached still nearer and poked the body with his finger, examining it in a very critical way. ) Yee: 20 the y said with whom I made the bargain, and from what he stated, I got the idea tuatit was a friend of his, es yamem- ber of the gang, for of course. there must be a rang of tnene stemprewans bow Tye ‘*Daniel, do you know t I have a sus- o'cion about this affair?’ the old savant ov- ler hat do ?” ys ou mean “5 n't think that this man was drowned; have you examined the body at.all/” The Doctor Detective. ““ No, it had just arrived when you came—not five minutes before you.” And then Doramus came quite close to the table, took out his spec- tacles and adjusted them, “The body doesn’t present the slightest ap- nee of the man having come to his death in that way. In fact, Daniel, to give you my honest opinion, I don’t believe the man is dead at all!” ‘* Not dead?” cried Doramus. ‘‘ By Jove! if that is so, lam out two hundred dollars, for I didn’t bargain for a live man!” Then bending over the body he examined it carefully. ‘** Well, what do you think?” the other asked, when the doctor raised his head and shook it slowly, a sure sign that he was greatly per- plexed, “you are right; this man was never drown- ‘*My own thought exactly; but do you think that he is really dead?” ‘Well, as to that, I confess I am puzzled, but if it is not death, what is it? A trance, think you—merely a case of suspended anima- tion? Although the signs of death are here, yet from the peculiar appearance of the body sn a be led to think it not really deat itself. ‘‘As a professional man, would you be will- ing to give your sanction to the burial of such a body as this?” | ‘*No, I would not—decidedly I would not. In such a case I would recommend delay. I would advise that the body be kept until the state of it rendered it certain that death had ensued. I am quite sure that a great many noose have been buried alive, spy, from undue haste. Cases of this death-like trance are much more common than the world at large have any idea of, or ever will have.” ‘*But there are some peculiar things about this body which lead me to think that it is not a trance either,” remarked the old savant, seri- ously. ¥ But if it is neither death nor a trance, what is it?” asked Doramus, amazed. ‘“* A case of suspended animation produced by artificial means.’ ‘“* Aha! you suspect that there has been foul play, then?” ‘“* Kither that or an attempt at suicide. No- tice the rigidity of the muscles of the mouth: that is not natural, How long has this man been in this state?” ‘The fellow said that he was drowned five days a He explained that he was a ‘ pal’ of his and that they were on the river at night, a ‘ pleasure excursion,’ you know, for the prepiee ot stealing whatever they could get their hands on. I presume this man accidentally fell over- board; he was rescued, but too late; he was taken on board in an insensible condition and never revived. And, as the man had no rela- tives or friends, this fellow who told the story added, with a grin, that he thought he might as + tee amen an honest penny by selling the re- mains. ‘The story is a lie; the man hasn’t been in the water at all. A state of coma like this might be produced by the inhaling of bad air— the gas in a coal-pit, or the foul vapors at the bottom of a deep and neglected well, but in such cases, death would surely follow suspended animation, if the exposure was continued long enough.” c. y agar colleague, how then do you think that this has been produced—by the use of a drug?’ * Do you know of any that would produce such an effect?—I am assuming of course that the man is not dead, only in a state of insensibility and that the natural functions of nature can be restored to their normai condition.” For a few moment Doramus dered over the question; then at last he shook his head. ‘* No, sir, I do not; 1 speak of my own know!l- edge, of course, and am not Mon my opinion at all on the vague traditions, if I may term them, common to our profession that there are, or have been certain things, drawn from the vegetable world chiefly, which, administervu to man, would produce a stupor greatly resembling death, and from which after a lapse of time, long or short according to the strength of the dose, the patient would wake to life again. These drugs are not known to us medical men of the present age, and I confess for my part that I am much inclined to believe them stu- pendous lies, put forward by the ancients to gull a credulous and ignorant wort” ‘*Then from the fund of your pe map you doubt the poet’s tale of Juliet drinking the slee — See bt so that, in a supposed state of death, she m ght be conveyed to the tomb of the Capulets, there towake and join her lover?” ‘‘ A beautiful fiction, but a fiction only.” “You mustn’t tell that to one of the learned barefooted savans of India.” - ‘‘And why not?’ The ductor understood ma this was the prelude to an important dis- closure ‘*Because he would immediately entertain avery poor opinion of our knowledge and be quite certain that our materia medica was not as complete as it ought to be.” ‘‘Now comes one of the secrets that you 9 —_——» ——— ee wrested from the native sages, eh?’ exclaimed Doramus, greatly interested, “Yes, and the must important one that the whole lani of India possesses in a medical way. As I have told you, the most persistent and important researches of the native doctors have been in the poison line. A subtle poi- son, that could be easily administered in either food or drink without the danger of detection— without the fear of exciting the suspicions of the partaker, and which would leave very little trace afterward, and would be certain to cause death, was what the native physicians were all searching after. And it was found, too—how many years ago, of course, it is impossible to tell. The secret was handed down with scru- pulous care from father to. son, and to-day, even, after the lapse of years, there are not, probably, ten men in the country whc are able to aie poly the drug, or have any knowledge in regard to it, and yet it is derived from one of the most common families of plants known to man—a wide order though, which gives to man the fig, the mulberry an the hop, to the tropics, the famous bread-fruit, and in South America the milk-tree of the caroscus, whose bland juice feeds the natives; some of the species furnish caoutchouc, india-rubber, and yet the almost fabulous upas tree of Java, whose poisonous ex- — halations are death to all who dare to penetrate into its valley, is amember of this same family ; from one of the humblest of the order we get the material which, after being prepared by hu- man we use for strangling rascals.” ‘*T understand; you refer to the order Urtica- ces; a very interesting family indeed, and it is a well-known fact that some of the members are provided with a poisonous juice, and in or a highly narcotic principle can be de- veio . “ ctly; well, from one of the humblest members of this family, a low-growing shrub, found only in almost inaccessible jungles, grow- ing always ina morass, near the water, some of the native doctors have procured a drug, won- corfu powerful inits action. After a great deal of trouble I learned the secret. The plant is plucked, roots and all, placed in a closely- covered crucible, such as chemists use, covered with water and pe hive to an intense heat until the contents are reduced to almost nothing; then the stuff is taken out and exposed to the rays of the sun on a metal ‘plate until the liquid—the plant is entirely dissolved in the boiling opera- tion stallizes into a mass like common salt, without either smell or taste. This is carefully bottled. A grain placed in water dissolves in- stantly, leaving not the slightest trace behind, or it can be reduced to a fine powder and be sprinkled on a dish of food like common salt, but the action when taken within the system is as certain as death itself, In its operation it varies of course according to the quanti taken; a small amount produces drowsiness fol- lowed by sleep, and if the dose is repeated often enough, finally a sleep is induced which bécomes a trance, or if a sufficient aumber of the grains be taken the trance-like sleep is produced ali immediately, all functions are suspended.” “* And the patient dies?” “Yes, if the trance cannot be broken, and in nine cases out of ten the unlucky individual upen whom the drug is tried is buried alive. eis supposed to be dead, of course, as he does not show any signs of life, The native doctors believed that the drug did cause death; they had not the skill to A pgoish between a trance and actual death. I think that I may claim for myself the honor of being the discoverer of the fact that the drug did not cause death but only insensibility—apparent death... Of course it ani- swered their purpose for they buried the man all the same.” ‘‘And you believe that this man has heen drugged y this strange medicine?” and he pointed to the body. “*T do, most nig im and, what is more, 1 th life again.” bable as it seems; CHAPTER XI. AN UNDERSTANDING, IT was a very quiet funeral and the men who had charge of the affair really wondered. Everything had been done in good style the remains interred at Greenwood, the gr si- l can wake him to lent city of the country, the bills not only paid — promptly, but paid in advance, which was something that had never happened to any of them before. But, there were only two and the ‘minister. The clerical gentleman was well known to the Oe geererann men, the oceupant of one of the richest up-town churches; it was not often that he assisted at any funeral that was not first-class in all 3. ope It was a strange affair. The twom a& lady and oe were well dreesed—the gentleman so—and evidently peo- ple of standing, m ita The funeral rites were finished at last end the mortal remains of ‘‘Maitha Eldon, eged 50,” were ed to the care of the ear the minister shook hands with and uttered a few consoling remarks to the bereaved diuugl- ter, after the fashion of his cloth, affecting as | JOOKS (ECON MUS (E(o)