The Silent Bullet [109]
on a sort of bed of sailcloth in a loft apparently devoted to the peaceful purposes of the junk trade, but really a perfect arsenal and magazine. It was dusty and cobwebbed, crammed with stands of arms, tents, uniforms in bales, batteries of Maxims and mountain-guns, and all the paraphernalia for carrying on a real twentieth-century revolution.
The young ambulance surgeon was still there, so quickly had we been able to get down-town. He had his stomach-pump, hypodermic syringe, emetics, and various tubes spread out on a piece of linen on a packing-case. Kennedy at once inquired just what he had done.
"Thought at first it was only a bad case of syncope," he replied, "but I guess he was dead some minutes before I got here. Tried rhythmic traction of the tongue, artificial respiration, stimulants, chest and heart massage--everything, but it was no use:"
"Have you any idea what caused his death?" asked Craig as he hastily adjusted his apparatus to an electric light socket--a rheostat, an induction-coil of peculiar shape, and an "interrupter."
"Poison of some kind--an alkaloid. They say they heard him fall as they came up-stairs, and when they got to him he was blue. His face was as blue as it is now when I arrived. Asphyxia, failure of both heart and lungs, that was what the alkaloid caused."
The gong of the electric cab sounded outside. As Craig heard it he rushed with two wires to the window, threw them out, and hurried downstairs, attaching them to the batteries of the cab.
In an instant he was back again.
"Now, Doctor," he said, "I'm going to perform a very delicate test on this man. Here I have the alternating city current and here a direct, continuous current from the storage-batteries of the cab below. Doctor, hold his mouth open. So. Now, have you a pair of forceps handy? Good. Can you catch hold of the tip of his tongue? There. Do just as I tell you. I apply this cathode to his skin in the dorsal region; under the back of the neck, and this anode in the lumbar region at the base of the spine--just pieces of cotton soaked in salt solution and covering the metal electrodes, to give me a good contact with the body."
I was fascinated. It was gruesome, and yet I could not take my eyes off it. Torreon stood blankly, in a daze. Craig was as calm as if his every-day work was experimenting on cadavers.
He applied the current, moving the anode and the cathode slowly. I had often seen the experiments on the nerves of a frog that had been freshly killed, how the electric current will make the muscles twitch, as discovered long ago by Galvani. But I was not prepared to see it on a human being. Torreon muttered something and crossed himself.
The arms seemed half to rise--then suddenly to fall, flabby again. There was a light hiss like an inspiration and expiration of air, a ghastly sound.
"Lungs react," muttered Kennedy, "but the heart doesn't. I must increase the voltage."
Again he applied the electrodes.
The face seemed a different shade of blue, I thought.
"Good God, Kennedy," I exclaimed, "do you suppose the effect of that mescal on me hasn't worn off yet? Blue, blue everything blue is playing pranks before my eyes. Tell me, is the blue of that face --his face--is it changing? Do you see it, or do I imagine it?"
"Blood asphyxiated," was the disjointed reply. "The oxygen is clearing it."
"But, Kennedy," I persisted; "his face was dark blue, black a minute ago. The most astonishing change has taken place. Its colour is almost natural now. Do I imagine it or is it real?"
Kennedy was so absorbed in his work that he made no reply at all. He heard nothing, nothing save the slow, forced inspiration and expiration of air as he deftly and quickly manipulated the electrodes.
"Doctor," he cried at length, "tell me what is going on in that heart."
The young surgeon bent his head and placed his ear on the cold breast. As he raised his eyes and they chanced to rest on Kennedy's hands, holding the electrodes dangling idly in the air, I think I never saw a greater look of astonishment
The young ambulance surgeon was still there, so quickly had we been able to get down-town. He had his stomach-pump, hypodermic syringe, emetics, and various tubes spread out on a piece of linen on a packing-case. Kennedy at once inquired just what he had done.
"Thought at first it was only a bad case of syncope," he replied, "but I guess he was dead some minutes before I got here. Tried rhythmic traction of the tongue, artificial respiration, stimulants, chest and heart massage--everything, but it was no use:"
"Have you any idea what caused his death?" asked Craig as he hastily adjusted his apparatus to an electric light socket--a rheostat, an induction-coil of peculiar shape, and an "interrupter."
"Poison of some kind--an alkaloid. They say they heard him fall as they came up-stairs, and when they got to him he was blue. His face was as blue as it is now when I arrived. Asphyxia, failure of both heart and lungs, that was what the alkaloid caused."
The gong of the electric cab sounded outside. As Craig heard it he rushed with two wires to the window, threw them out, and hurried downstairs, attaching them to the batteries of the cab.
In an instant he was back again.
"Now, Doctor," he said, "I'm going to perform a very delicate test on this man. Here I have the alternating city current and here a direct, continuous current from the storage-batteries of the cab below. Doctor, hold his mouth open. So. Now, have you a pair of forceps handy? Good. Can you catch hold of the tip of his tongue? There. Do just as I tell you. I apply this cathode to his skin in the dorsal region; under the back of the neck, and this anode in the lumbar region at the base of the spine--just pieces of cotton soaked in salt solution and covering the metal electrodes, to give me a good contact with the body."
I was fascinated. It was gruesome, and yet I could not take my eyes off it. Torreon stood blankly, in a daze. Craig was as calm as if his every-day work was experimenting on cadavers.
He applied the current, moving the anode and the cathode slowly. I had often seen the experiments on the nerves of a frog that had been freshly killed, how the electric current will make the muscles twitch, as discovered long ago by Galvani. But I was not prepared to see it on a human being. Torreon muttered something and crossed himself.
The arms seemed half to rise--then suddenly to fall, flabby again. There was a light hiss like an inspiration and expiration of air, a ghastly sound.
"Lungs react," muttered Kennedy, "but the heart doesn't. I must increase the voltage."
Again he applied the electrodes.
The face seemed a different shade of blue, I thought.
"Good God, Kennedy," I exclaimed, "do you suppose the effect of that mescal on me hasn't worn off yet? Blue, blue everything blue is playing pranks before my eyes. Tell me, is the blue of that face --his face--is it changing? Do you see it, or do I imagine it?"
"Blood asphyxiated," was the disjointed reply. "The oxygen is clearing it."
"But, Kennedy," I persisted; "his face was dark blue, black a minute ago. The most astonishing change has taken place. Its colour is almost natural now. Do I imagine it or is it real?"
Kennedy was so absorbed in his work that he made no reply at all. He heard nothing, nothing save the slow, forced inspiration and expiration of air as he deftly and quickly manipulated the electrodes.
"Doctor," he cried at length, "tell me what is going on in that heart."
The young surgeon bent his head and placed his ear on the cold breast. As he raised his eyes and they chanced to rest on Kennedy's hands, holding the electrodes dangling idly in the air, I think I never saw a greater look of astonishment