The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix | Page 7

a minute, and shortly
was sitting up and looking around. And Smith, ordinarily unobservant of the other sex,
found himself staring with all his eyes.
She was young; for that matter, the man was under thirty, also. And the white bandage on
her forehead only emphasized the dark eyes and vivid coloring of her face. Smith was
half angry that he could not see her more distinctly. He decided that every feature was
exquisitely modeled, that he had never seen such delicate lines, nor eyes as large, as
appealing and as soft.
Then he was watching the man again. He approached the woman and took her
outstretched hand. He was laughing easily; she, smiling tremulously and gratefully. They
looked into one another's eyes quite as though there were no one else in the cabin to be
looked at. Next second one of the doctors stepped up bruskly, and Smith saw a swift
blush come to the girl's cheeks. The man reddened, too, and turned away laughing to hide
his confusion.
Smith's connection with his agent ended right there. When he reported to the other three,
later on, he had to admit that, so far as he knew, the man and the girl were still holding
hands.

IV
NEW HEARTS FOR OLD

Billie's experience was totally different. She found herself transformed into a mental
humming-bird.
Her mind seemed to be darting with infinite rapidity, here and there throughout the
universe. She got only the most lightninglike glimpse of any one spot; flash after flash of
unfamiliar, indescribable situations succeeded each other like the speeded-up scenes of a
photoplay farce. For an unguessable length of time this helter-skelter process occupied
her mind.
Then there came a scene which stayed. It was dim at first; she was more thoroughly
aware of the sound of voices than anything else. Then she saw clearly.
She--that is, her agent--was in some sort of a room, giving instructions to a group of
white-clad figures. Before Billie could concentrate upon what was being said the talk
ceased; and next moment, amid perfect silence, the agent bent over something which lay
on a high table.
Whereupon Billie got a severe jolt. For, unless she was most woefully mistaken, the thing
she was now looking at was the unconscious form of a patient; the place was the
operating-room of a hospital; and the eyes she was using belonged to a surgeon.
She watched breathlessly. The surgeon's nimble fingers proceeded with the utmost
unconcern to open wide the patient's torso. Other pairs of hands, belonging to nurses,
aided in this; and Billie found the intricate process decidedly interesting rather than
otherwise. Of course she was spared the odor of blood.
As soon as the ribs were entirely displaced, the lungs were carefully laid aside.
Extraordinary delicacy seemed called for here. Billie shortly began to wonder if it were
not high time to quit when her agent, assisted as before, calmly exposed the patient's

heart to full view.
Billie could see it throbbing; more, she could hear it. She watched in wonder for the next
step.
They consisted in forcibly untangling the mass of tubes and arteries all about the organ.
Presently everything was clear; and then, without delay, the nurses brought forward a
strange-looking device.
It was of silver, shaped like a flattened egg, and a trifle smaller than that laboring, human
blood-pump; To it was attached a pair of long, flexible, silver pipes, which led to Billie
knew not where. And near one extremity the egg was provided with eight curious
nozzles.
At times the flying hands partly interfered with Billie's vision; yet she saw nearly all that
amazing process, from beginning to end. To put it briefly, the eight nozzles were boldly
introduced, almost at a single operation, into tiny incisions in the eight corresponding
tubes of the heart. In they were forced, until they filled the arteries and veins; and once
inserted, silver clamps were instantly tightened on the outsides of the tubes. All this was
done in two or three seconds; and when all was complete, the heart itself had been
entirely isolated and its place absolutely taken by that little silver egg.
The patient gave no sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. Not a drop of
blood had been spilled except in the process of getting at the organ; but now, with a few
deft motions of certain instruments, the heart was sliced away from the surrounding
tissues, the tubes were severed, and the whole powerful pump, still beating faintly, was
removed from the body altogether.
Next, the surgeon proceeded to stanch the bleeding of the tubes; that is, of the stubs
projecting below those tight silver nozzles. This done, the nimble fingers calmly replaced
the lungs and other items, quite as