“She is flesh and blood,” he soliloquized, standing quietly by her bedside looking upon her plump, childish face. “Yes, she is flesh and blood; but she has a great spirit in her. She is unlike other children. I am afraid of her, yet I know she is only a child. She is a prophet. I will take ‘Memory Fluid,’ then I can see things not seen by the eyes. Ah, there is the bell again, again, again; something out of the usual is happening.” Juan quietly and quickly left the room. In the hall he met Julio Murillo, walking faster than he had ever known him to walk before. On seeing Juan he cried:
“I leave orders not to admit anyone to the house to-day. Under no circumstances will this order be countermanded. I will leave by a private entrance. No one will see me go nor return. Señor Guillermo Gonzales alone will occupy the Governor’s private study until my return. Under no circumstances intrude on him. He must not be worried about me, nor by anyone asking questions; and it is your business to keep quiet, and guard the house well, and his Honor’s interests in general, until I return.”
Juan replied: “Trust me, señor. I have never yet betrayed his Honor or his interests. The hour is very early; you have not had your morning meal. His Honor would not forgive me if a guest left his home, even if the hour be four, without his customary meal. Recline here, señor, and in a very few minutes I will return with a lunch just fitted to this early hour.”
“Your advice is good, Juan. I will accept your hospitality. But be quick; every moment counts now. I have located the three men who were last night confined in jail, on a charge of treason, and who escaped less than an hour ago. While I had no trouble in locating them, there will be much difficulty in getting them again behind the prison bars. You are right, Juan; I will need my morning meal before attempting their arrest. Bring me a bowl of hot milk, a plate of buttered toast, and two soft-boiled eggs, and bring it quickly, Juan. The revolution is inevitable, and we must face it like men and stop it; if possible, without bloodshed. Yes, I will wait, Juan, just fifteen minutes.”
As Juan passed from the presence of Señor Julio Murillo, he gave a sharp, low whistle, his only means to express the great surprise he had just received.
“Well, this is a nice state of things. The Governor spirited away, the prisoners escaped, Catalina on the eve of dying, ‘The Plunger from Kansas’ gone again, a woman arising from the dead, and a war on hand, all at the same time. Yes, a strange world. I don’t believe I will know as much as I do now, if I do not stop thinking so much about all of these strange things. I don’t believe I will take ‘Memory Fluid.’ I will have no time then to do anything but remember everything that happened when I lived before. I really wonder if I have lived before, or more than once. How funny it would be to remember four or five different lives. As soon as I get Señor Julio Murillo’s breakfast to him, and he is well out of the house, I will experiment with ‘Memory Fluid.’ I will be a subject. Oh, I wonder who I was when I lived before? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Wouldn’t it be a great joke if I was in my first life a president? Maybe I was George Washington, or the Mexican President, Santa Ana. Yes, that is a great joke. I have my own curiosity up, and will drink a gallon of that ‘Memory Fluid,’ if it will make me remember.”
Juan strode on toward the kitchen hurriedly, to give the order for Señor Julio Murillo’s breakfast, and then sat down on a stool and deeply meditated, upon the subject of “Memory Fluid.”
CHAPTER XIV.
MEETING IN THE ALAMEDA.
Señor Julio Murillo reclined on a comfortable couch in the large reception-hall on the second floor of the Governor’s stately mansion, to await the return of Juan.
“I see,” he mentally commented, “the end of this revolution which has just begun. If those who precipitated the mad act were told now what the final would be, they would have no faith in what was told them being true, and would leave nothing undone to carry out their present intentions. There is no way of dealing with those who have no knowledge outside of physical self, except by physical force. It is a lamentable condition of affairs to those who cannot see the end. To me it is of no concern whatever, except that I hate to see the suffering of humanity. There is always a certain sympathy, which the initiated have with those who do not know the Law. The spread of Free Thought during the last century, caused by scientific investigations, particularly in the spirit realm, has been wonderful. Such a very great decrease in crime has never been known, or at least has never been recorded since the beginning of time, as that shown during the last fifty years. The wane of the power of the priest and the pastor, and the great diffusion of scientific truths concerning the realm of the hidden is accountable for it. I will not do my duty if I fail to relieve the sufferings of those who do not know, of those who can only see the things seen by the eye. Here comes Juan, poor fellow. I wish he could see the hidden. He is on the road and will soon know, however. Is it he? Are my physical eyes failing me? It cannot be; the figure is too large and does not move like a domestic; still, Juan has much spirit. It is Señor Guillermo Gonzales. Ha! ha! what a start he gave me.”