Dr. Van Horne loosened his hands from the man, and turned to the watching group.
“So far I have succeeded,” said he. “So far my theory is correct. The electricity did not produce death in this man because his brain could not receive the sensation. Now I am going to bring him out of the hypnotic state and see if my theory is entirely correct.”
He did not state what that theory was, but stepped back to the man in the chair and began speaking in a low tone. He took both eyelids, and rolling them up, looked straight into the sleeper’s eyes.
“Jean Lescaut,” he cried sharply, “come to yourself! You are no longer asleep.”
For the first time the man moved his body slightly, as if trying to rise. Slowly a bright red spot began to appear on each pallid cheek. His eyes rolled down from under the lids, and the pupils began to dilate.
Then, suddenly, an awful horror came into his face, and without a word of warning, as if impelled by some unseen force, he leaped forward, and fell writhing and twisting on the floor over eight feet away. His arms and legs beat the air and floor for a minute convulsively, then stiffened into strange, grotesque positions.
Dr. Van Horne knelt down beside the body and examined it carefully. Then he stood up and smiled, though he was very pale.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “I was entirely correct in my theory. Had I not expected this ending, I would never have dared to thus violate the law and bring this man back to life. That deadly charge of electricity which was held back from acting by the influence of my hypnotism has at last accomplished its work, as you yourselves just saw. When the numbness produced by hypnotic sleep left the man’s brain, nature began to act, and the shock to the nervous system was all the more powerful because the electricity had changed its form to a static charge. You need not fear; this time he is really dead.”
And thus Jean Lescaut, wife poisoner and perpetrator of a dozen crimes, helped in his expiation of those crimes to advance the cause of science; and justice was not cheated, for the execution of his sentence was merely postponed the matter of a few hours.