Part 3 (1/2)
John Pride was about to speak but the young man stayed him with a sudden intense look. ”One thing however is very clear to me.”
”And that is--?”
”The face of my mother.”
”The woman who held you in her arms in the hotel suite?”
”No, I do not think so. But I see a face clearly in my mind. A sad and beautiful face. There is a marked resemblance between it and what I see in that mirror. She is the most beautiful woman who ever lived and I yearn to find her and take her in my arms.”
”I hope you succeed.”
A tragic light appeared in the young man's eyes. ”But where is she?
How can I find her? Why did she leave me in this place?”
”I do not have the answers to those questions. But I have a theory concerning you and the elapsed years.”
”Tell me!”
John Pride spoke firmly but with obvious awe. ”I think you were brought here as an infant for some reason known only to the one who called himself C. D. Bram.”
”Or Portox.”
”Perhaps. I think you were placed in that bed and left there for one hundred years.”
”But--”
”Consider. That door has never been opened. There is certainly no other exit to this cavern.”
”And I have no recollection of ever having lived before,” the young man said slowly.
”Yet you can converse with me. You obviously have been given an education.”
”But how?”
”It is known that knowledge can be injected into the subconscious while the receiver sleeps. I'm sure the man you insist upon calling Portox was aware of this--this and perhaps other scientific miracles.
Who are we to say that you were not nourished by some means beyond our knowledge?”
But that investigation was never to be made because as John Pride extended his hand to touch the box it suddenly burst into a glow and he withdrew his fingers quickly.
Before the younger man could answer a glowing point of light sprang into being and brightened and a wave of searing heat erupted from the walls of the room, searing the eyes of John Pride and leaving him to grope helplessly as in the heart of a furnace. The younger man was beyond his reach. Blinding pain caused him to reel.
CHAPTER V
_Question Upon Question_