“I would like to see him,” I said. “At the time you have arranged to pass him the money, I wish to be in the vicinity. Then, on my agreement, I will give you the guineas.” They consented to this, not without bargaining for a “cut” of ten further guineas for managing the transaction.
I WAITED BY THE FORTUNE OF WAR. It was a night of fierce rain, such as only London can produce. It rose like smoke all around me, and I sheltered underneath the cabmen’s stand just beyond the gate of St. Bartholomew. Boothroyd, Lane and Miller had placed themselves upon a bench by the window overlooking the gate; they had also taken the precaution of placing an oil-lamp on the table in front of them, so that despite the rain I could clearly see their features and gestures. Then I noticed a young man crossing the square, holding his cloak against the driving rain; he walked quickly and purposefully, with no sign of any weakness, but paused for a moment before entering the inn. I saw him for a moment in the flickering light outside the tavern. He had dark curling hair, and in that moment when I saw his bright eyes and full mouth I recognised that this was Jack Keat. He had worked with me in the dissection room of St. Thomas ’s Hospital. Then he entered the Fortune of War. I crept closer to the window, and watched with dismay as he came up to the resurrectionists and joined them. He seemed uneasy in their company-a circumstance that did not in the least surprise me-but he smiled and said something to Lane. At that moment Boothroyd looked at me through the window. I had told him to expect me there. I nodded, and put up my right hand. That was the signal arranged between us. He came outside and, without saying a word, I passed him the purse of guineas. What else could I have done? The imminent death of Jack troubled and saddened me but, as he had told me himself, we must take courage in the pursuit of our researches. The enlightenment and improvement of the world depended upon human valour. That was what he had said. Was I now to abandon his, and my, beliefs for the sake of my conscience? Yet there was still the possibility-the likelihood-that my electrical treatment would restore him to life. Would he live to smile and to laugh, to walk again with the same quick step? This was not known to me, or to any other being in the world.
I went back to Jermyn Street, where Fred prepared for me the mixture of saloop that always had a curiously soothing effect upon me. I asked him about the business of the day, and he informed me that three brides had married three brothers in the church of St. James across the street, and that the old man who sold the birds on the corner had dropped dead. The birds had not escaped, but had stayed quiet within their little wicker cages. “Nothing else,” he said, “has happened in London.” I was pleased to hear it, and prepared myself for bed in equable spirits-fully aware, naturally, of the great experiment that lay ahead of me. I could not calculate how long Jack Keat might live, but his pale features were a token of his gathering sickness.
I TRAVELLED DOWN TO LIMEHOUSE that morning in a carriage. I took care to hire a different cab each day, so far as this was possible, in order to avoid any easy recognition. The people of Limehouse I never saw. I always alighted by an empty brick warehouse, built between the river and a lonely path that went across the marshes of the neighbourhood. From there it was a swift journey to my workshop across the debris of the foreshore, where only the gulls observed me with suspicious eyes. There was a path that led from my workshop into the settlement at Limehouse itself, but over the months I had rendered it intractable and even dangerous. I had placed broken glass, and wooden posts, and various pieces of river wreckage, across the track so that no horse or carriage would wish to venture there. The bargees of Limehouse had their own jetty further downstream, and had no reason to cross this land. I had also placed notices saying Private on its boundaries. The only true means of access to my workshop, therefore, was by water.
Despite the winter chill I stood upon my wooden quay, wrapped in my greatcoat. I had taken to smoking a pipe, in the manner of the Londoners, and I waited expectantly for any sight or sound of the resurrectionists. Of course I had no hope that their work would be so summarily executed-the young man had walked before me only the evening before-but I was so eager to begin my operation that I could think of nothing else. I had prepared the electrical columns with all the diligence that Hayman had demanded, and according to his strict injunctions, but then in my enforced idleness of waiting I conceived the idea of experimenting upon myself.
A moment’s thought would have convinced me of the rashness of my plan; but I was seized with a sudden desire to feel the electrical fluid in as intimate a manner as possible. What was the sensation when it coursed through the fibres and muscles of the body, illuminating and energising every pathway? I was not so lunatic as to test the whole of my body, but instead I placed a metallic band upon my wrist and a small cap or thimble of brass upon each of my fingertips; I chose a relatively low level of current but, even so, when I turned on the column I was at once surrounded by what I can only call a flash of lightning. I had never witnessed this as an observer, so I surmised that the lightning could only be seen by the subject. It lasted no more than two or three seconds, but it seemed to me to have a wave-like pattern. It resembled a curtain of light being shaken.
As the sensation passed I became aware that my hand was trembling violently with some voluntary impulse: it wished to do something and quite by instinct I took up the pen and paper which I always kept by my equipment. My hand seized the pen and immediately began to write in a large and florid manner that I did not recognise as my own. It was the strangest communication I had ever received. I cannot think of external things as having an external existence, it wrote, and I commune with everything I see as something not apart from but inherent in my own nature. To feel is to exist. Then my hand rested, only to begin again with the same florid and energetic motion. I am suspended among uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any recourse to fact or reason. At this point I decided to remove, with my free hand, the metal band and the thimbles of brass.
I was perfectly astonished at the outcome of the experiment, and for the next few minutes I wandered around the workshop in a feverish state of excitation. From whom, or where, had these words sprung? Clearly they derived from me in some occluded way. But I had never represented them to myself or, as far as I was aware, ever dreamed of conceiving them. What secret voice was manifesting itself within the power of the electrical fluid? I banged my fist against the wooden side-table by my chair, and at once it splintered into fragments. I seemed to have acquired some fresh access of strength. I went over to the wooden door that separated two of the rooms of the workshop, and with immense ease I struck and shattered one of its panels. I examined my hand with interest, and saw that it was perfectly unharmed by its exertions. I tested it upon the cast-iron stairway leading down into the basement, and realised at once that it was of immense power. The electrical fluid had strengthened it immeasurably, so that I was now capable of curling in my fist a portion of the iron fabric. My other hand retained its normal strength. “I must make sure,” I said aloud, “that I do not shake hands with anyone.” This was a new power of unutterable consequence. If I had electrified the whole of my body, I would have been resurrected as a being of vast strength. And what of Jack Keat who would soon be entering the workshop? Would he also be endowed with supernatural might?