The Crack of Doom

  CHAPTER XV.

  "IF NOT TOO LATE!"

  When I came on deck next morning the coast of Arabia was rising, a thinthread of hazy blue between the leaden grey of the sea and the soft greyof the sky. The morning was cloudy, and the blazing sunlight was veiledin atmospheric gauze. I had hardly put my foot on deck when NatalieBrande ran to meet me. I hung back guiltily.

  "I thought you would never come. There is dreadful news!" she cried.

  I muttered some incoherent words, to which she did not attend, but wenton hurriedly:

  "Rockingham has thrown himself overboard in a hysterical fit, brought onby the heat. The sailors heard the splash--"

  "I know they did." This escaped me unawares, and I instantlyprevaricated, "I have been told about that."

  "Do you know that Herbert is ill?"

  I could have conscientiously answered this question affirmatively also.Her sudden sympathy for human misadventure jarred upon me, as it haddone once before, when I thought of the ostensible object of the cruise.I said harshly:

  "Then Rockingham is at rest, and your brother is on the road to it." Itwas a brutal speech. It had a very different effect to that which Iintended.

  "True," she said. "But think of the awful consequences if, now thatRockingham is gone, Herbert should be seriously ill."

  "I do think of it," I said stiffly. Indeed, I could hardly keep fromadding that I had provided for it.

  "You must come to him at once. I have faith in you." This gave me atwinge. "I have no faith in Percival" (the ship's doctor).

  "You are nursing your brother?" I said with assumed carelessness.

  "Of course."

  "What is Percival giving him?"

  She described the treatment, and as this was exactly what I myself wouldhave prescribed to put my own previous interference right, I promised tocome at once, saying:

  "It is quite evident that Percival does not understand the case."

  "That is exactly what I thought," Natalie agreed, leading me to Brande'scabin. I found his vitality lower than I expected, and he was veryimpatient. The whole purpose of his life was at stake, dependent on hispreserving a healthy body, on which, in turn, a vigorous mind depends.

  "How soon can you get me up?" he asked sharply, when my pretendedexamination was over.

  "I should say a month at most."

  "That would be too long," he cried. "You must do it in less."

  "It does not depend on me--"

  "It does depend on you. I know life itself. You know the paltry scienceof organic life. I have had no time for such trivial study. Get me wellwithin three days, or--"

  "I am attending."

  "By the hold over my sister's imagination which I have gained, I willkill her on the fourth morning from now."

  "You will--_not_."

  "I tell you I will," Brande shrieked, starting up in his berth. "I coulddo it now."

  "You could--_not_."

  "Man, do you know what you are saying? You to bandy words with me! Aclod-brained fool to dare a man of science! Man of science forsooth!Your men of science are to me as brain-benumbed, as brain-bereft, asthat fly which I crush--thus!"

  The buzzing insect was indeed dead. But I was something more than a fly.At last I was on a fair field with this scientific magician or madman.And on a fair field I was not afraid of him.

  "You are agitating yourself unnecessarily and injuriously," I said in mybest professional manner. "And if you persist in doing so you will makemy one month three."

  In a voice of undisguised scorn, Brande exclaimed, without noticing myinterruption:

  "Bearded by a creature whose little mind is to me like the open page ofa book to read when the humour seizes me." Then with a fierce glance atme he cried:

  "I have read your mind before. I can read it now."

  "You can--_not_."

  He threw himself back in his berth and strove to concentrate his mind.For nearly five minutes he lay quite still, and then he said gently:

  "You are right. Have you, then, a higher power than I?"

  "No; a lower!"

  "A lower! What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I have merely paralysed your brain--that for many months tocome it will not be restored to its normal power--that it will neverreach its normal power again unless I choose."

  "Then all is lost--lost--lost!" he wailed out. "The end is as far off,and the journey as long, and the way as hard, as if I had never striven.And the tribute of human tears will be exacted to the uttermost. My lifehas been in vain!"

  The absolute agony in his voice, the note of almost superhuman sufferingand despair, was so intense, that, without thinking of what it was thisman was grieving over, I found myself saying soothingly:

  "No, no! Nothing is lost. It is only your own overstrained nervoussystem which sends these fantastic nightmares to your brain. I will soonmake you all right if you will listen to reason."

  He turned to me with the most appealing look which I had ever seen inhuman eyes save once before--when Natalie pleaded with me.

  "I had forgotten," he said, "the issue now lies in your hands. Chooserightly. Choose mercy."

  "I will," I answered shortly, for his request brought me back with ajerk to his motive.

  "Then you will get me well as soon as your skill can do it?"

  "I will keep you in your present condition until I have your most solemnassurance that you will neither go farther yourself nor instigate othersto go farther with this preposterous scheme of yours."

  "Bah!" Brande ejaculated contemptuously, and lay back with a suddencontent. "My brain is certainly out of order, else I should not haveforgotten--until your words recalled it--the Labrador expedition."

  "The Labrador expedition?"

  "Yes. On the day we sailed for the Arafura Sea, Grey started withanother party for Labrador. If we fail to act before the 31st December,in the year 1900, he will proceed. And the end of the century will bethe date of the end of the earth. I will signal to him now."

  His face changed suddenly. For a moment I thought he was dead. Then thedreadful fact came home to me. He was telegraphing telepathically toGrey. So the murder that was upon my soul had been done in vain. Thenanother life must be taken. Better a double crime than one resultlesstragedy. I was spared this.

  Brande opened his eyes wearily, and sighed as if fatigued. The effort,short as it was, must have been intense. He was prostrated. His voicewas low, almost a whisper, as he said:

  "You have succeeded beyond belief. I cannot even signal him, much lessexchange ideas." With that he turned his face from me, and instantlyfell into a deep sleep.

  I left the cabin and went on deck. As usual, it was fairly sprinkledover with the passengers, but owing to the strong head-wind caused bythe speed of the steamer, there was a little nook in the bow where therewas no one to trouble me with unwelcome company.

  I sat down on an arm of the starboard anchor and tried to think. Thegame which seemed so nearly won had all to be played over again from thefirst move. If I had killed Brande--which surely would have beenjustifiable--the other expedition would go on from where he left off.And how should I find them? And who would believe my story when I gotback to England?

  Brande must go on. His attempt to wreck the earth, even if the power heclaimed were not overrated, would fail. For if the compounds of a commonexplosive must be so nicely balanced as they require to be, surely theaddition of the figures which I had made in his formula would upset thebalance of constituents in an agent so delicate, though so powerful, asthat which he had invented. When the master failed, it was more thanprobable that the pupil would distrust the invention, and return toLondon for fresh experiments. Then a clean sweep must be made of thewhole party. Meantime, it was plain that Brande must be allowed theopportunity of failing. And this it would be my hazardous duty tosuperintend.

  I returned to Brande's cabin with my mind made up. He was awake, andlooked at me eagerly, but waited for me to speak. Our conversation wasbrief, for I had little sy
mpathy with my patient, and the only anxiety Iexperienced about his health was the hope that he would not die untilhe had served my purpose.

  "I have decided to get you up," I said curtly.

  "You have decided well," he answered, with equal coldness.

  That was the whole interview--on which so much depended.

  After this I did not speak to Brande on any subject but that of hissymptoms, and before long he was able to come on deck. The month I spokeof as the duration of his illness was an intentional exaggeration on mypart.

  Rockingham was forgotten with a suddenness and completeness that wasalmost ghastly. The Society claimed to have improved the old maxim tospeak nothing of the dead save what is good. Of the dead they spoke notat all. It is a callous creed, but in this instance it pleased me well.

  We did not touch at Aden, and I was glad of it. The few attractions ofthe place, the diving boys and the like, may be a relief in ordinary seavoyages, but I was too much absorbed in my experiment on Brande to bearwith patience any delay which served to postpone the crisis of myscheme. I had treated him well, so far as his bodily health went, but Ideliberately continued to tamper with his brain, so that any return ofhis telepathic power was thus prevented. Indeed, Brande himself was notanxious for such return. The power was always exercised at an extremenervous strain, and it was now, he said, unnecessary to his purpose.

  In consequence of this determination, I modified the already minutedoses of the drug I was giving him. This soon told with advantage on hishealth. His physical improvement partly restored his confidence in me,so that he followed my instructions faithfully. He evidently recognisedthat he was in my power; that if I did not choose to restore him fullyno other man could.

  Of the ship's officers, Anderson, who was in command, and Percival, thedoctor, were men of some individuality. The captain was a good sailorand an excellent man of business. In the first capacity, he was firm,exacting, and scrupulously conscientious. In the second, his consciencewas more elastic when he saw his way clear to his own advantage. He hadcertain rigid rules of conduct which he prided himself on observing tothe letter, without for a moment suspecting that their _raison d'etre_lay in his own interests. His commercial morality only required him tokeep within the law. His final contract with myself was, I admit,faithfully carried out, but the terms of it would not have discreditedthe most predatory business man in London town.

  Percival was the opposite pole of such a character. He was a clever man,who might have risen in his profession but for his easy-going indolence.I spent many an hour in his cabin. He was a sportsman and a skilled_raconteur_. His anecdotes helped to while the weary time away. Heexaggerated persistently, but this did not disturb me. Besides, if inhis narratives he lengthened out the hunt a dozen miles and increasedthe weight of the fish to an impossible figure, made the brace a dozenand the ten-ton boat a man-of-war, it was not because he wasdeliberately untruthful. He looked back on his feats through thetelescope of a strongly magnifying memory. It was more agreeable to meto hear him boast his prowess than have him inquire after the health andtreatment of my patient Brande. On this matter he was naturally verycurious, and I very reticent.

  That Brande did not entirely trust me was evident from his confusionwhen I surprised him once reading his formula. His anxiety to convinceme that it was only a commonplace memorandum was almost ludicrous. I wasglad to see him anxious about that document. The more carefully hepreserved it, and the more faithfully he adhered to its conditions, thebetter for my experiment. A sense of security followed this incident. Itdid not last long. It ended that evening.

  After a day of almost unendurable heat, I went on deck for a breath ofair. We were well out in the Indian Ocean, and soundings were beingattempted by some of our naturalists. I sat alone and watched the sunsink down into the glassy ocean on which our rushing vessel was the onlything that moved. As the darkness of that hot, still night gathered,weird gleams of phosphorus broke from the steamer's bows and streamedaway behind us in long lines of flashing spangles. Where the swellcaused by the passage of the ship rose in curling waves, these, as theysplashed into mimic breakers, burst into showers of flamboyant light.The water from the discharge-pipe poured down in a cascade, that shonelike silver. Every turn of the screw dashed a thousand flashes on eitherside, and the heaving of the lead was like the flight of a meteor, as itplunged with a luminous trail far down into the dark unfathomable depthsbelow.

  My name was spoken softly. Natalie Brande stood beside me. The spell wascomplete. The unearthly glamour of the magical scene had been compassedby her. She had called it forth and could disperse it by an effort ofher will. I wrenched my mind free from the foolish phantasmagoria.

  "I have good news," Natalie said in a low voice. Her tones were soft,musical; her manner caressing. Happiness was in her whole bearing,tenderness in her eyes. Dread oppressed me. "Herbert is now well again."

  "He has been well for some time," I said, my heart beating fast.

  "He is not thoroughly restored even yet. But this evening he was able toreceive a message from me by the thought waves. He thinks you areplotting injury to him. His brain is not yet sufficiently strong to showhow foolish this fugitive fancy is. Perhaps you would go to him. He istroubling himself over this. You can set his mind at rest."

  "I can--and will--if I am not too late," I answered.