The Crack of Doom
was wrong. He might as well have let me have my earthly span of
happiness or folly--call it what you will."
"You see that now--thank God!"
"Yes, but I see it too late, I did not know it until--until I was dead.
Hush!" Again I tried to interrupt her, for I thought her mind was
wandering. "I died psychically with Herbert. That was when we first saw
the light on the island. Since then I have lived mechanically, but it
has only been life in so low a form that I do not now know what has
happened between that time and this. And I could not now speak as I am
speaking save by a will power which is costing me very dear. But it is
the only voice you could hear. I do not therefore count the cost. My
brother's brain so far overmatched my own that it first absorbed and
finally destroyed my mental vitality. This influence removed, I am a
rudderless ship at sea--bound to perish."
"May his torments endure for ever. May the nethermost pit of hell
receive him!" I said with a groan of agony.
But Natalie said: "Hush! I might have lingered on a little longer, but I
chose to concentrate the vital force which would have lasted me a few
more senile years into the minutes necessary for this message from me to
you--a message I could not have given you if he were not dead. And I am
dying so that you may hear it. Dying! My God! I am already dead."
She seemed to struggle against some force that battled with her, and the
roar of many waters was louder around us before she was able to speak
again.
"Bend lower, Arthur; my strength is failing, and I have not yet said
that for which I am here. Lower still.
"I said it is all a mistake--a hideous mistake. Existence as we know it
is ephemeral. Suffering is ephemeral. There is nothing everlasting but
love. There is nothing eternal but mind. Your mind is mine. Your love is
mine. Your human life may belong to whomsoever you will it. It ought to
belong to that brave girl below. I do not grudge it to her, for I have
_you_. We two shall be together through the ages--for ever and for ever.
Heart of my heart, you have striven manfully and well, and if you did
not altogether succeed in saving my flesh from premature corruption, be
satisfied in that you have my soul. Ah!"
She pressed her hands to her head as if in dreadful pain. When she spoke
again her voice came in short gasps.
"My brain is reeling. I do not know what I am saying," she cried,
distraught. "I do not know whether I am saying what is true or only what
I imagine to be true. I know nothing but this. I was mesmerised. I have
been so for two years. But for that I would have been happy in your
love--for I was a woman before this hideous influence benumbed me. They
told me it was only a fool's paradise that I missed. But I only know
that I have missed it. Missed it--and the darkness of death is upon me."
She ceased to speak. A shudder convulsed her, and then her head sank
gently on my shoulder.
At that moment the great wave broke over the vessel, whirling her
helpless like a cork on the ripples of a mill pond; lashing her with
mighty strokes; sweeping in giant cataracts from stern to stem;
smashing, tearing everything; deluging her with hissing torrents;
crushing her with avalanches of raging foam. Then the ocean tornado
passed on and left the _Esmeralda_ behind, with half the crew disabled
and many lost, her decks a mass of wreckage, her masts gone. The
crippled ship barely floated. When the last torrent of spray passed, and
I was able to look to Natalie, her head had drooped down on her breast.
I raised her face gently and looked into her wide open eyes.
She was dead.
CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION.
Taking up my girl's body in my arms, I stumbled over the
wreck-encumbered deck, and bore it to the state-room she had occupied on
the outward voyage. Percival was too busy attending to wounded sailors
to be interrupted. His services, I knew, were useless now, but I wanted
him to refute or corroborate a conviction which my own medical knowledge
had forced upon me. The thought was so repellent, I clung to any hope
which might lead to its dispersion. I waited alone with my dead.
Percival came after an hour, which seemed to me an eternity. He
stammered out some incoherent words of sympathy as soon as he looked in
my face. But this was not the purpose for which I had detached him from
his pressing duties elsewhere. I made a gesture towards the dead girl.
He attended to it immediately. I watched closely and took care that the
light should be on his face, so that I might read his eyes rather than
listen to his words.
"She has fainted!" he exclaimed, as he approached the rigid figure. I
said nothing until he turned and faced me. Then I read his eyes. He said
slowly: "You are aware, Marcel, that--that she is dead?"
"I am."
"That she has been dead--several hours?"
"I am."
"But let me think. It was only an hour--"
"No; do not think," I interrupted. "There are things in this voyage
which will not bear to be thought of. I thank you for coming so soon.
You will forgive me for troubling you when you have so much to do
elsewhere. And now leave us alone. I mean, leave me alone."
He pressed my hand, and went away without a word. I am that man's
friend.
They buried her at sea.
I was happily unconscious at the time, and so was spared that scene.
Edith Metford, weak and suffering as she was, went through it all. She
has told me nothing about it, save that it was done. More than that I
could not bear. And I have borne much.
The voyage home was a dreary episode. There is little more to tell, and
it must be told quickly. Percival was kind, but it distressed me to find
that he now plainly regarded me as weak-minded from the stress of my
trouble. Once, in the extremity of my misery, I began a relation of my
adventures to him, for I wanted his help. The look upon his face was
enough for me. I did not make the same mistake again.
To Anderson I made amends for my extravagant display of temper. He
received me more kindly than I expected. I no longer thought of the
money that had passed between us. And, to do him tardy justice, I do not
think he thought of it either. At least he did not offer any of it back.
His scruples, I presume, were conscientious. Indeed, I was no longer
worth a man's enmity. Sympathy was now the only indignity that could be
put upon me. And Anderson did not trespass in that direction. My misery
was, I thought, complete. One note must still be struck in that long
discord of despair.
We were steaming along the southern coast of Java. For many hours the
rugged cliffs and giant rocks which fence the island against the
onslaught of the Indian Ocean had passed before us as in review, and
we--Edith Metford and I--sat on the deck silently, with many thoughts in
common, but without the interchange of a spoken word. The stern,
forbidding aspect of that iron coast increased the gloom which had
settled on my brain. Its ramparts of lonely sea-drenched crags depressed
me below the mental zero that was now habitual with me. The sun went
down in a red glare, which moved me not. The short twilight passed
quickly, but I noticed nothing. Then night came. The restless sea
disappeared in darkness. The grand march past of the silent stars began.
But I neither knew nor cared.
A soft whisper stirred me.
"Arthur, for God's sake rouse yourself! You are brooding a great deal
too much. It will destroy you."
Listlessly I put my hand in hers, and clasped her fingers gently.
"Bear with me!" I pleaded.
"I will bear with you for ever. But you must fight on. You have not won
yet."
"No, nor ever shall. I have fought my last fight. The victory may go to
whosoever desires it."
On this she wept. I could not bear that she should suffer from my
misery, and so, guarding carefully her injured arm, I drew her close to
me. And then, out of the darkness of the night, far over the solitude of
the sea, there came to us the sound of a voice. That voice was a woman's
wail. The girl beside me shuddered and drew back. I did not ask her if
she had heard. I knew she had heard.
We arose and stood apart without any explanation. From that moment a
caress would have been a sacrilege. I did not hear that weird sound
again, nor aught else for an hour or more save the bursting of the
breakers on the crags of Java.
I kept no record of the commonplaces of our voyage thereafter. It only
remains for me to say that I arrived in England broken in health and
bankrupt in fortune. Brande left no money. His formula for the
transmutation of metals is unintelligible to me. I can make no use of
it.
Edith Metford remains my friend. To part utterly after what we have
undergone together is beyond our strength. But between us there is a
nameless shadow, reminiscent of that awful night in the Arafura Sea,
when death came very near to us. And in my ears there is always the echo
of that voice which I heard by the shores of Java when the misty
borderland between life and death seemed clear.
My story is told. I cannot prove its truth, for there is much in it to
which I am the only living witness. I cannot prove whether Herbert
Brande was a scientific magician possessed of _all_ the powers he
claimed, or merely a mad physicist in charge of a new and terrible
explosive; nor whether Edward Grey ever started for Labrador. The
burthen of the proof of this last must be borne by others--unless it be
left to Grey himself to show whether my evidence is false or true. If
it be left to him, a few years will decide the issue.
I am content to wait.
THE END.
LONDON: DIGBY, LONG AND CO., PUBLISHERS, 18 BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET
STREET, E.C.
ROBERT CROMIE'S BOOKS
_OPINIONS OF THE PRESS_
A PLUNGE INTO SPACE
WITH PREFACE BY JULES VERNE
_Times._--The story is written with considerable liveliness, the
scientific jargon is sufficiently perplexing, and the characters are
sketched with some humour.
_Chronicle._--A strange, weird, mysterious story that holds the reader
spell-bound, from the first page to the last.
_Athenaeum._--Mr. Cromie's Utopia is charming, and the quasi-scientific
detail of the expedition is given with so much integrity that we hardly
wonder at the marvellous results accomplished.
_Truth._--A very clever description of a flight through space to Mars
... the book is extremely interesting and suggestive; especially,
perhaps, where it attacks the theories of Mr. George and "Looking
Backwards."
_Court Journal._--Mr. Robert Cromie's remarkably clever and entertaining
volume is told with much of the vivid fancy of a Jules Verne--with
remarkable picturesqueness, and the experiences of mortals in Mars are
described with considerable humour.
_Review of Reviews._--An unquestionably interesting story. The
adventures of the hero and his friends are in no small degree thrilling.
_Glasgow Herald._--The imagination is brilliant, the scientific details
are skilfully worked in, the dialogues and descriptions are lively and
interesting, and the pictures of Martian life and scenery are
remarkable--a decidedly clever book.
FOR ENGLAND'S SAKE
_Academy._--There is not a dull page in the story.
_Army and Navy Gazette._--A capital little story of military life, full
of bright word-painting.
_Literary World._--This exciting chapter in the history of the future is
written with a great deal of enthusiasm, and a great deal of common
sense to boot.
_Irish Times._--The plot is well conceived, and the interest throughout
is well maintained.
_Belfast Northern Whig._--The author displays much constructive and
descriptive power. He is most felicitous in his word pictures of
scenery, and imparts a fascinating dash to his military scenes.
_Belfast Morning News._--Deeply interesting without being sensational,