lice. You'd come back here tomorrow if I didn't."
She twisted suddenly out of my now relaxed grasp. But she didn't run. She faced me, and now her face was a beautiful mask of feminine anger. There were even tears of vexation on her lashes; such glistening tears. I gave up, and believed every word she had said. I'm only a man.
"You stupid animal."
She was getting madder, her lovely face flushed, her teeth glittered and that perfume was getting under my skin, too.
"Look here, if you don't believe me. . . ."
She turned, tore at her black dress. The silk parted in her hands, slid down revealing to my now interested—nay, fascinated—eyes a smooth and undeniably lovely back. Probably her best feature, my cynical soul insisted on remarking to my gullible ego—but somewhat defeatedly. Across the smoothness ran a series of welts, and around her arm at the arm pit ran a raw, red place where perhaps a strap had held her against the agony of the beating.
"Do you think that was fun? The old woman is a witch, and that strap mark is from the witch's cradle! But of course you would know about such things. You . . . you law-abider . . . you! Do you think I like what I go through? I don't know what to do, where to turn! At the first move from me, my brother would die; and no one would find or arrest the devils. Police search like blind men on a picnic!"
I LOOKED at her, my mental processes stymied. The sudden realization that what she was saying was fully true and the plight she was in a genuine case of sadistic enslavement was too much for me. After all, I am only a man.
All the tales of witchcraft I had read as a boy—including the beautiful maiden's rescue by the so-charming prince—rose up to confound my cynicism. I swallowed the whole thing; hook, line and sinker.
"Maybe I can help you where no one else could for bungling. I am not entirely a fool. My invention could prove useful. I think I see an idea."
She followed demurely through the bedroom into the bleak workroom which I managed to pay for out of a far-too-slender income. I motioned to a chair. From the case on the work-bench I took my batteries and hung the case over my shoulder. I attached the cables to the little metal bands, slid them under my shirt, fastened them about my arms. I was ready.
The juice in that battery gave me the strength of four or five ordinary' men, and the batteries were good for several days. It was just a much greater supply of the same electric which the cells of the body manufacture and store. Crile says the electric is produced by oxidation of the lipoid films of the cell's exterior—an oxidation of the oil of the film. Using Geo. Crile's work to produce a battery like the human cell had been my life work so far. It had also been Herrera's, the Mexican scientist. I had succeeded. But I'm not famous—yet.
The brain controls that energy of the body, directing where it should go and when. The heart of my device was a simple little switch operated by a tiny toggle. My harness placed one of these switches on every large muscle of the body. When the brain contracted a muscle the little toggle switch operated, releasing a flood of energy into the body from the big battery. Then the toggle-spring shut off. If the muscle remained contracted, the toggle went on again—and so on till the muscle was contracted by the brain when it remained off. This little switch made the energy from the life-battery as fully controlled as the body's own energy—except there was a lot more of it. It was a perfect tool of the mind, giving the body a vastly greater supply of work-energy.
Just for a demonstration I lifted a 900 lb. bar-bell for the smooth dream-face who had tried to burgle me. I bought that barbell for just that purpose—demonstration—but had never had a chance to use it. She was surprised, and those sparkling eyes registered a lot of admiration for my physique, a glow I did not miss as I held the 900 lbs. aloft, a feat no ordinary man performs without world-wide publicity. But I was no showman or I would have seen the chances of getting attention from it.
"Now don't you think we could walk into that place, overpower the people you profess to fear so much, and walk out with your brother? This device gives me a lot of strength."
"They'd shoot you, the first move. But I'm tempted to let you try—if you are brave enough? It would be hard to refuse you anything, if you did succeed. . . ." Her voice drawled this last huskily, like a radio
