“You are quite right, Miguey,” said the Governor’s scientific friend, and friend of his other life, “quite right. Possibly if we had been able to present to the public a month or so ago all the necessary proofs of what we claim for ‘Memory Fluid,’ the present trouble,—the uprising, I mean—might have been prevented. It is a horrible thing. Fifty persons now lie dead in the morgue.”
“It is a serious condition of affairs,” replied the Governor, “for the uninitiated, particularly, to be sent out of this existence during such an unfortunate affair, and without any insight whatever into the unseen. Think of the misery they will unknowingly cause the future generation. If it were not the law that each must see the things not seen by the eye, before they are fitted for the Realm on High, it would be fortunate for those who will come in contact with them if their reappearance here could be prevented.”
“I hope the poor creatures at the hospital who were wounded and are in agony with physical pain, will recover, that they may have a chance to know. If your Honor and Señor Guillermo Gonzales will pardon me, I will hurry to the hospital and tender my services,” concluded Helen Hinckley, as she arose to leave the room.
“One moment, one moment, Miss Hinckley,” said Governor Lehumada. “I will inquire how the wounded are, and if your services are needed.”
The Governor stepped into the chamber adjoining, built especially to condense thought waves, which were made audible by holding a small cone-shaped instrument to the ear which was connected at the smaller end by means of a fine wire to the thought-condensing board. In a few moments he returned to his study with a very much pleased expression on his face. He dropped into a chair, and throwing his handsome head far back and his arms out and forward in a suppliant manner, cried: “Great Cause, thou everlasting Ruler, the Promoter of Harmony, and the Distributor of Justice, I am happier this moment than at any other period of my existence to my recollection.”
Helen Hinckley and Guillermo Gonzales looked quietly on, but neither spoke.
After his exclamation was completed he looked at his friends smilingly, and continued: “Miss Hinckley, and friend Guillermo, this is a victorious day for us. I have this moment heard from the head physician at the hospital, William J. Matling. He says that only two of the fifty wounded will pass away. He further states that their blasphemous cries and threats against myself and my able coworkers which filled the air with horror for an hour or more, have subsided, and they are either in a state which resembles a trance, or are relating strange stories, and now and then one shouts: ‘I am happy. I know what it is to live. I see the things not seen by the eye and hear things not heard by the ear.’ He further says that a strange child, who declares she is his Honor’s Catalina, has been going from one ward to another, and to no one has she failed to talk a moment. He requested the head nurse to have the child taken away from the hospital; but every man protested, and he allowed her to remain.”
“Catalina, the blessed one,” said Miss Hinckley; “she is determined on doing her duty in this life.”
“The physician asked me to use my influence in removing the child from the hospital. He said he firmly believes she has bewitched the men, and when they come out from under her spell they will be beyond his control,” said the Governor.
“Doctor Matling is certainly one of the uninitiated. Catalina should give him a whiff of ‘Memory Fluid,’ and he would understand the spell he thinks she has cast over those men,” said Señor Guillermo Gonzales.