Sons and Fathers

by Harry Stillwell Edwards

In the east the hills were darkening, but memory flashed on him a scene—a fair-faced girl, as he had seen her, as he would always see her, floating upon an amethyst stream, smiling upon him, one hand parting the waters and over them the wonders of a southern sunset.

In the wing-room Virdow and Gerald were getting ready for an experiment with flashlight photography. Refusing to be hurried in his scientific investigations, Gerald had insisted that until it had been proven that a living substance could hold a photographic imprint he should not advance to the consideration of Virdow's theory. There must be brain pictures before there could be mind pictures. At least, so he reasoned. None of them knew exactly what his experiment was to be, except that he was going to test the substance that envelopes the body of the bass, the micopterus salmoides of southern waters. That sensitive plate, thinner than art could make it, was not only spoiled by exposure to light, but by light and air combined was absolutely destroyed. And the difficulty of controlling the movements of this fish seemed absolutely insuperable. They could only watch the experimenter.

Into a thin glass jar Gerald poured a quantity of powder, which he had carefully compounded during the day. Virdow saw in it the silvery glimmer of magnesium. What the combined element was could not be determined. This compound reached only a third of the distance up the side of the glass. The jar was then stopped with cork pierced by a copper wire that touched the powder, and hermetically sealed with wax. With this under one arm, and a small galvanic battery under the other, and restless with suppressed excitement, Gerald, pointing to a small hooded lantern, whose powerful reflector was lighting one end of the room, bade them follow him.

Virdow and Edward obeyed. With a rapid stride Gerald set out across fields, through strips of woodlands and down precipitous slopes until they stood all breathless upon the shore of the little lake. There they found the flat-bottom bateau, and although by this time both Edward and Virdow had begun seriously to doubt the wisdom of blindly following such a character, they resigned themselves to fate and entered.

Gerald propelled the little craft carefully to a stump that stood up distinct against the gloom under the searchlight in the bow, and reaching it took out his pocket compass. Turning the boat's head north-east, he followed the course about forty yards until at the left the reflector showed him two stakes in line. Here he brought the little craft to a standstill, and in silence, which he invoked by lifting his hand warningly, turned the lantern downward over the stern of the boat, and with a tube, whose lower end was stubbed with a bit of glass and inserted in the water, examined the bottom of the lake twelve feet below. Long and patient was the search, but at last the others saw him lay aside his glass and let the boat drift a few moments. Then very gently, only a ripple of the surface marking the action, he lowered the weighted jar until the slackening wire indicated that it was upon the bottom. He reached out his hand quickly and drew the battery to him, firmly grasping the cross-handle lever. The next instant there was a rumbling, roaring sound, accompanied by a fierce, white light, and the end of the boat was in the air. In a brief moment Edward saw the slender form of the enthusiast bathed in the flash, his face as white as chalk, his eyes afire with excitement—the incarnation of insanity, it seemed to him. Then there was a deluge of spray, a violent rocking of the boat and the water in it went over their shoe-tops. Instantly all was inky blackness, except where in the hands of the fearless man in the stern the lantern, its slide changed, was now casting a stream of red light upon the surface of the lake. Suddenly Gerald uttered a loud cry.

"Look! Look! There he is!" And floating in that crimson path, with small fishes rising around him, was the dead body of a gigantic bass. Lifting him carefully by the gills, Gerald laid him in a box drawn from under the rear seat.

"What is it?" broke from Virdow. "We have risked our lives and ruined our clothes—for what?"

"For a photograph upon a living substance! On the side of this fish, which was exposed to the flashlight, you will find the outlines of the grasses in this lake, or the whole film destroyed. If the outlines are there then there is no reason why the human brain, infinitely more sensitive and forever excluded from light, cannot contain the pictures of those twin cameras—the human eyes." He turned the boat shoreward and seizing his box disappeared in the darkness, his enlarged pupils giving him the visual powers of a night animal. Virdow and Edward, even aided by the lantern, found their way back with difficulty.

The two men entered the wing-room to find it vacant. Virdow, however, pointed silently to the red light gleaming through the glass of the little door to the cabinet. The sound of trickling water was heard.

At that instant a smothered half-human cry came from within, and trembling violently, Gerald staggered into the room. They took hold of him, fearing he would fall. Straining their eyes, they both saw for an instant only the half-developed outlines of a human profile extended along the broad side of the fish. As they watched, the surface grew into one tone and the carcass fell to the floor.