“The righting of wrongs could not have been so satisfactorily settled by the civil law. It is the influence of the Great Unseen that has brought this about,” said the Governor, as their vehicle sped rapidly toward the morgue.
All morning, before starting to the hospital, the Governor had been in constant communication with the Federal authorities at Washington. Reports to the effect that the rebels were increasing in power in many States, and that the depredations being committed upon the property of public officers in particular, and many inoffensive private citizens in general, were now almost hourly occurrences, had been the cause of many small affrays between the rebels and the State militia, in which many lost their lives and others were wounded, on both sides. It was believed by the authorities in Chihuahua that when the sad end of the instigators of the trouble had become known, that an early abating of the hostilities would occur, which would result in terms of peace being effected. The manipulators of the presidential campaign and the lobbyists out for booty, prayed for a continuation of hostilities; for they believed the hold they had lost, when James Henry Mortingo became President—when “parties” lost their hold—“when the plum was taken by a stray”—(as those who felt sore from the result of the election expressed themselves)—would be made strong again, from the very fact of the rebellion that had arisen, and the part the President played in it. Many claimed that they did not believe any rational beings would be in favor of electing a man to the Presidency of the United States of America, who publicly confessed having been a “Subject” on whom “Memory Fluid” was used, or one who believed in it and thought it to be the greatest discovery the world had ever known, and that through its use the world would be taught about and brought to see and to experience the highest laws of God.
The fame of Julio Murillo had gone abroad. His name, at the head of long columns in almost every newspaper in the land, was printed in flaming red letters. He was spoken of as more of a prophet than any recorded in the Bible or any other religious book.
Helen Hinckley and Catalina Martinet both received their share of criticism, of ridicule, of praise.
Catalina was caricatured in various ways, and in each she was in a different way giving “Memory Fluid” to humanity, who were grovelling at her feet and beseeching for it.
Helen Hinckley was represented in one paper as a beautiful, fair-haired, young woman, suspended high in the air, and looking down with scorn upon the awestricken people.
In another she was gliding, with Governor Lehumada, out of a door that led onto a balcony, from the second floor of the Governor’s Mansion, into space. All of these things were commented upon by the Governor, Miss Hinckley and Guillermo Gonzales as they hurried to the morgue.
Hundreds of people were on the outside, eager to see the four suicides, all of whom had been guilty of treason against the United States of America.
As the Governor and his party alighted from the strange, circular cab, the throng drew near, and it would take volumes to hold the remarks passed by them about the vehicle, the Governor as a public officer, as a scientist, and strange to say, as a lover.
Equally eager were they to catch a glimpse of Helen Hinckley, and numerous were the criticisms passed upon her—upon the woman who, if reports were true, would soon be the Governor’s wife; upon the woman who, so far as they knew, was the sole possessor of the knowledge of how to overcome the law of gravitation. It was quite evident that everybody considered the Governor, his prospective bride, and his two scientific coworkers, a queer lot.