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Anglo-American Alliance: A Serio-Comic Romance and Forecast of the Future

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<h2 class="label">CHAPTER X</h2> <h2 class="main">The Transformation</h2></div> <div class="divBody"> It was near the end of September. The seaside resorts on Long Island were deserted by the gay health-seekers from the adjacent cities, and the inhabitants of the villages along the South Shore, from Rockaway to Montauk, had dwindled to their normal number of rural residents except the city of B—— which, on account of its shipping interests, still retained a lively activity. The day was dismal and damp, foreboding a rainy spell. There were scarcely any people on the streets and at dusk, when the Montauk express stopped at the station of B——, there were only a few passengers to alight. One of them was a young woman attired in black, with a thick veil of similar hue drawn over her face. She looked furtively up and down the platform with painful anxiety, and [111]espying an automobile a few rods below the station, walked toward it hesitatingly, at the same time pulling from her wrist-bag a crimson handkerchief. The chauffeur on the machine seemed to understand the meaning of the signal, for at once jumping down he advanced to meet the stranger. After several words were exchanged in subdued tones, he escorted the veiled lady to the vehicle and in a few minutes they were speeding down the road toward the Hindoo doctor’s sanitarium. The woman, of course, was Margaret MacDonald and the chauffeur none other than the Levantine Jew, Esau, the Doctor’s discreet servant. When they arrived at Ben Raaba’s domicile it was almost pitch dark, and not a soul could be seen in the vicinity. At the ringing of the door-bell, Ben Raaba himself appeared and sedately welcomed Margaret, conducting her into the reception room. Shortly after, when Esau had withdrawn, they were sitting tête-à-tête at a table, perusing some mysterious documents to which at last, Margaret, taking a pen, subscribed her signature. The documents were nothing else than the [112]legal contract, which Margaret had signed, offering herself a willing subject to undergo a mental and physical metamorphosis, and absolving Ben Raaba from any responsibility if the experiment should prove unsuccessful or fatal! After a fortnight of dietary preparation, Margaret was taken into the Laboratory of the Wizard and immediately hypnotized by him into a state of cataleptic coma. <div class="figure xd22e1468width"><ANTIMG src="images/p112.jpg" alt="Ben Raaba’s Laboratory" width-obs="362" height-obs="513"> Ben Raaba’s Laboratory </div> An awful sensation crept over one upon looking around about this den called the Laboratory. Glittering saws and scalpels were hung in rows on the walls; lances, beakers and retorts were scattered on the tables and on the floor, and a hundred and one other apparatus and bottles could be seen upon the shelves. A big cat-owl perched on a pedestal in one corner, and a black tom-cat with intense green eyes, prowling about the room, gave to the scene a cabalistic and weird aspect. Here among these uncanny surroundings Dr. Hyder Ben Raaba isolated and busied himself with continuous vigilance for many months in order to achieve an undertaking that seemed miraculous and impossible. <hr class="tb"> [113] Through the lapse of so many long and tedious months Dr. Hyder Ben Raaba had come to the completion of his assiduous labors,—labors which had almost exhausted his consummate skill in hypnotism, surgery and magic. After a final but scrupulously careful examination of the patient, assuring himself that every muscle, nerve, gland and artery were in their proper places, he paused a moment before the prostrate body. It was a solemn and tragic moment. Signs of intense anxiety were visible upon his otherwise imperturbable visage, betraying the fact that he was in a crucial predicament. What, if on awakening the patient, he found her a maniac irrevocably bereft of reason? What, if his re-incarnated subject should prove to be a hideous Frankenstein or a monstrosity devoid of finer senses? What, if she should prove to be a man with effeminate mind and manners? Such and a thousand other similar fears and misgivings were flashing in that moment through his mind, but at last, confident of his ultimate success, and undaunted with apprehensions, he assumed a determined countenance [114]and commenced to undo the hypnotic spell, in order to restore his subject to life and energy. With eyes dilated, eyebrows knit, and arms stretched—holding in one hand a magic wand—this future Mephisto uttered some mysterious words in sepulchral intonations, snapped his fingers three times, and presto! The spell was broken! The full magical effect of his audacious undertaking was evident, for scarcely had the last syllable of those mysterious and incomprehensible words left his shriveled lips, when a sudden tremor shook the frame of Margaret and, with a subdued groan, indicative more of a sensation of bliss than of pain, she opened her eyes. A triumphant smile pervaded her countenance, as if awakening from an Utopian dream. Dr. Ben Raaba, meanwhile perceiving the crowning success of his work, and standing beside her, began to exclaim with rapturous joy, “Metempsychosis! Metempsychosis!” The patient at once became conscious that her bodily transformation was complete, for it did not take her long to realize it as HE stood there, a beautiful specimen of manhood! [115] This miraculous transformation brought to light another remarkable mental discovery. It was discovered by the Doctor that all the accomplishments, knowledge and mental attributes possessed by Margaret, prior to her re-incarnation, had been intensified a hundredfold in their entity into those of aggressive, daring and strenuous masculinity. Margaret, assuming forthwith a masculine name, remained a few months under the care and tutelage of Ben Raaba, in order to acquire further important knowledge in hypnotism, diplomacy, etc., that would be of invaluable service in his future career, and it was not until September, almost one year after the advent of the patient, that he reluctantly bade good-bye to Hyder Ben Raaba, and was again lost in the vortex of humanity. [116] </div> </div> <div id="ch11" class="div1 chapter">[Contents] <div class="divHead"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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