He subsided, and resumed a conversational tone.
“It would surprise you to know what things are told in the mountains. Huitzilopotchli is coming back . . . of that there can be no doubt. Any peon south of Mexico City can tell you that. But I meant to do nothing about it. I went home, as I tell you, again and again, and was going to benefit society with my electric executioner when that cursed Albany legislature adopted the other way. A joke, sir, a joke! Grandfather’s chair — sit by the fireside — Hawthorne—”
The man was chuckling with a morbid parody of good nature.
“Why, sir, I’d like to be the first man to sit in their damned chair and feel their little two-bit battery current! It wouldn’t make a frog’s legs dance! And they expect to kill murderers with it — reward of merit — everything! But then, young man, I saw the uselessness — the pointless illogicality, as it were — of killing just a few. Everybody is a murderer — they murder ideas — steal inventions — stole mine by watching, and watching, and watching—”
The man choked and paused, and I spoke soothingly.
“I’m sure your invention was much the better, and probably they’ll come to use it in the end.”
Evidently my tact was not great enough, for his response shewed fresh irritation.
“‘Sure,’ are you? Nice, mild, conservative assurance! Cursed lot you care — but you’ll soon know! Why, damn you, all the good there ever will be in that electric chair will have been stolen from me. The ghost of Nezahualpilli told me that on the sacred mountain. They watched, and watched, and watched—”
He choked again, then gave another of those gestures in which he seemed to shake both his head and his facial expression. That seemed temporarily to steady him.
“What my invention needs is testing. That is it — here. The wire hood or head-net is flexible, and slips on easily. Neckpiece binds but doesn’t choke. Electrodes touch forehead and base of cerebellum — all that’s necessary. Stop the head, and what else can go? The fools up at Albany, with their carved oak easy-chair, think they’ve got to make it a head-to-foot affair. Idiots! — don’t they know that you don’t need to shoot a man through the body after you’ve plugged him through the brain? I’ve seen men die in battle — I know better. And then their silly high-power circuit — dynamos — all that. Why didn’t they see what I’ve done with the storage-battery? Not a hearing — nobody knows — I alone have the secret — that’s why I and Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopotchli will rule the world alone — I and they, if I choose to let them. . . . But I must have experimental subjects — subjects — do you know whom I’ve chosen for the first?”
I tried jocoseness, quickly merging into friendly seriousness, as a sedative. Quick thought and apt words might save me yet.
“Well, there are lots of fine subjects among the politicians of San Francisco, where I come from! They need your treatment, and I’d like to help you introduce it! But really, I think I can help you in all truth. I have some influence in Sacramento, and if you’ll go back to the States with me after I’m through with my business in Mexico, I’ll see that you get a hearing.”
He answered soberly and civilly.
“No — I can’t go back. I swore not to when those criminals at Albany turned down my invention and set spies to watch me and steal from me. But I must have American subjects. Those greasers are under a curse, and would be too easy; and the full-blood Indians — the real children of the feathered serpent — are sacred and inviolate except for proper sacrificial victims . . . and even those must be slain according to ceremony. I must have Americans without going back — and the first man I choose will be signally honoured. Do you know who he is?”
I temporised desperately.
“Oh, if that’s all the trouble, I’ll find you a dozen first-rate Yankee specimens as soon as we get to Mexico City! I know where there are lots of small mining men who wouldn’t be missed for days—”
But he cut me short with a new and sudden air of authority which had a touch of real dignity in it.
“That’ll do — we’ve trifled long enough. Get up and stand erect like a man. You’re the subject I’ve chosen, and you’ll thank me for the honour in the other world, just as the sacrificial victim thanks the priest for transferring him to eternal glory. A new principle — no other man alive has dreamed of such a battery, and it might never again be hit on if the world experimented a thousand years. Do you know that atoms aren’t what they seem? Fools! A century after this some dolt would be guessing if I were to let the world live!”