It was with some relief, I admit, that I felt my hand gradually revert to its state of normal strength; but not without a sensation of painful cramp that lasted for several minutes and caused me agonies of suffering. I could neither flex nor extend it, but laid it down upon the table while it passed through its transition. Eventually the pain abated. I tested my fingers and palm, and found them receptive to ordinary stimuli with no great increase of strength. I did not wish to inflict any pain upon my subject, of course, but I solaced myself with the knowledge that it would not be of any long duration. And surely the dead would react differently from the living?
A week after the experiment I had gone out onto the jetty to witness the effects of a London storm; it was a winter’s tale indeed, with great peals of thunder echoing down the chasms and the caverns of the streets while the lightning flash lit up the steeples of the churches and the dome of St. Paul ’s. The spectacle of the awful and majestic in nature has always the effect of solemnising my mind, especially when it was here so mixed with the haunts of men. All then becomes one life. My reverie was broken by the sight of a small boat making its way to the jetty; the heavy swell and the departing tide seemed to make it ride across the water, and I feared for the safety of its solitary occupant. But he seemed to be a skilful boatman and, when he came closer to the foreshore, I saw that it was Lane. “You have come on a foul night,” I said to him as I helped him to secure the rope around the landing post.
“I have never known such a night as this. Boothroyd sent me.” I gained the impression that Boothroyd’s commands were to be respected.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing the matter. The boy is going fast. It will be tomorrow or tomorrow night. Be prepared for your body.” He asked me for a flask of brandy spirit, which I willingly gave him, and he drank half of it down before venturing once more upon the Thames. The lightning flash seemed to accompany him onto the water, and his shape was soon lost to sight in the veil of rain.
I was deeply interested by the news of Jack’s decline. He would come to me within an hour of death, as fresh as if he had fallen asleep, and I would be able to restore his natural warmth and motion. I would awaken him. I had no thought beyond that first moment of resurrection, but now my imagination began to conjure visions of his wonder and gratitude at being restored to life. I busied myself in the workshop, preparing everything for the solemn moment of the electrical charge. I must have gone out to the jetty a thousand times, braving the wind and the rain, in order to look for the resurrectionists and their cargo. I waited throughout that night-sleep was not a consideration for me-and, when dawn came, the rain ceased. All was calm and quiet. Once more I could hear the Thames lapping against the wooden posts of my jetty. Then I heard another sound-the sound of oars splashing in the water. I jumped up from my chair and ran outside to see Boothroyd and Miller rowing quickly towards the shore. Lane stood at the prow with the landing rope in his hands, and there was another person lying at the back of the boat. It was him. They had not put him in a sack but had lain him carefully in the stern: one arm was hanging over the side, its hand trailing in the water.
I could not keep my eyes from the body as Lane secured the boat. Boothroyd and Miller leapt out, and then knelt down to take it onto the jetty. “Be careful,” I murmured. “For his sake.”
“Dead only an hour ago,” Boothroyd said. “He is served up nice and fresh.”
They carried the body into the workshop, and laid it down upon the long wooden table that I had set up. Boothroyd looked upon it with a certain satisfaction, as if he had despatched him himself. “It is the neatest job I have ever done,” he said.
I paid them ten guineas, as they had requested, and they returned to their boat. I could hear them laughing as they rowed away across the water.
11
HIS WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CORPSE I had ever seen. It seemed that the flush had not left the cheeks, and that the mouth was curved in the semblance of a smile. There was no expression of sadness or of horror upon the face but, rather, one of sublime resignation. The body itself was muscular and firmly knit; the phthisis had removed any trace of superfluous fat, and the chest, abdomen and thighs were perfectly formed. The legs were fine and muscular, the arms most elegantly proportioned. The hair was full and thick, curling at the back and sides, and I noticed that there was a small scar above the left eyebrow. That was the only defect I could find.
There was no time to lose: perhaps I might still catch the fluttering spirit, too dazed or bruised to have yet left the body. I placed the metal bands across the head, and a strip across the forehead, before I began the procedure of covering the major nerves and organs with the electrical points. The wrists, the ankles and the neck were also bound with bracelets of brass since I believed that the electrical fluid at these points would bolster the circulation of the blood. The body was soft to the touch, and I hastened my work to ensure that the stiffness of death would not intervene. I even took a certain pleasure in arranging him upon the table, as if I were a sculptor or painter completing my composition. I intended to employ both electrical columns, to ensure that the greatest possible charge was available to me, but I had taken the precaution of firing them from several batteries so that I could lower the strength at a moment of danger.
With trembling hands I engaged the power of both and watched in fascination and excitement as the electrical fluid surged through the young body. There was the slightest agitation and then, to my alarm, dark red blood seeped out of his nose and ears; yet I reassured myself that this was an excellent sign of arterial movement. If the blood was circulating through his body, then a first stage had been accomplished. His heart then began to beat very quickly and, when I placed my hand upon his chest, there was a definite sensation of warmth. To my horror I sensed a smell of burning. There was smoke coming from his lower limbs, and I saw at once that the soles of his feet were becoming horribly blistered. I was tempted to lower the charge at once but then the crisis passed; the smoke disappeared, together with the smell of burning. I believed this sudden heat to be the effect of the lightning which I had observed around myself, in the earlier experiment, which had departed after a few seconds. His teeth then began to chatter, with such violence that I feared he might bite off his tongue; I placed a wooden spatula between his open lips. At this point I noticed that his penis had become erect, with a small bead of seminal fluid at its tip; then, mirabile dictu, tears began to roll down his face. I could not believe that he wept. I could only surmise that it was some organic or instinctive reaction to the changes wrought in his body. The tear ducts are notoriously weak.
What occurred in the next few minutes has left so deep and frightful a hold upon my imagination that I can never forget it, night or day; it haunts my sleeping as well as my waking hours, with a horror that is hardly capable of being endured. I noticed first the alteration to his hair: from lustrous black it changed by degrees to a ghastly yellow, and from its curled state it became lank and lifeless.
There is a fear of the dead coming alive, but this was more frightfuclass="underline" in a moment the body in front of me had gone through all the stages of decomposition before being reclaimed and restored to life. His skin seemed to quiver, with a motion like that of waves. But then he grew still. Now his appearance resembled nothing so much as wickerwork. His eyes had opened, but where before they had been of a blue-green hue they were now grey. The body itself had not been deformed in any way: it was as compact and as muscular as before, but it was of a different texture. It looked as if it had been baked. The face still had the remnants of beauty but was now utterly changed in hue, with the curious pattern of wickerwork I had already observed. All this was the work of an instant.