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This conversation was interrupted by Brande, who said, impatiently: "Why tell us of stars distant so far from this insignificant little world of ours so insignificant that even its own inhabitants speak disrespectfully of it that it would take hundreds of years to telegraph to some of them, thousands to others, and millions to the rest?
I did not trust the man. Miss Metford was not so easily suppressed. She said leisurely, "I meant to say like you, and this over-nervous but otherwise admirable boy. If you think 'sheep' derogatory, pray make it 'goats." I hurried them on board. Brande welcomed us at the gangway. The vessel was his own, so he was as much at home on the ship as in his country house.
As that would be difficult, I must ask you to accept my personal assurance that you witnessed a fact, not a fiction of my imagination." "And your instrument is so perfect that it not only renders molecules and atoms but their diffusion visible? It is a microscopic impossibility. At least it is amazing." "Pshaw!" Brande exclaimed impatiently.
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.
My additions, when the ink was dry, could only have been discovered by one who was informed that the document had been tampered with. It was probable that a drawer which stood open with the keys in the lock was the place where Brande kept this paper; where he would look for it on awaking. I locked it in the drawer and put the keys into his pocket.
On deck, Natalie Brande, Edith Metford, and Percival were standing together, their eyes fixed on the island. Edith's face was deathly white, even in the ruddy glow which was now over land and sea. When I saw her pallor, my evil temper passed away. "It would be impossible for you to be quite well," I said to her anxiously; "but has anything happened since I left you? You are very pale."
Edith, how can you say that?" Natalie Brande exclaimed, still trembling. "Such dreadful violence! The poor men knew no better." "Poor fiddlesticks! It is well for you that Marcel is a man of violence. He's worth a dozen sheep like " "Like whom, Miss Metford?" Rockingham asked, glaring at her so viciously that I interposed with a hasty entreaty that all should hurry to the ship.
Not a word more was spoken until Brande, who was standing, watch in hand, beside the light from the deckhouse, came aft and said: "You will see the explosion in ten seconds." He could not have spoken more indifferently if the catastrophe he had planned was only the firing of a penny squib.
Now that the hour had come, they who had believed their courage secure felt it wither. They, the people with us, begged for a little longer time to brace themselves for the great crisis the plunge into an eternity from which there would be no resurrection, neither of matter nor of mind. Brande heeded them not.
"So be it, until the proper time shall come." "It will never come," Brande said firmly. "We shall see," I replied as firmly as himself. Next evening as we were steaming down the blue waters deep blue they always seemed to me of the Red Sea, I was sitting on the foredeck smoking and trying to think. I did not notice how the time passed.
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