The Catastrophe

: The Crack Of Doom

The Esmeralda was putting out to sea when I thought of a last

expedient to draw the attention of her captain. Filling my revolver with

cartridges which I had loose in my pockets, I fired all the chambers as

fast as I could snap the trigger.



My signals were heard, and Anderson proved true to his bargain. He

immediately reversed his engines, and, when he had backed in as close as

he thought safe, sent a boa ashore for us. We got into it without any

obstruction from the cowering natives, who only shrank from us in

horror, now that their prayers had failed to move us. The moment our

boat was made fast to the steamer's davit ropes and we were pulled out

of the water, "full speed ahead" was rung from the bridge. We were

raised to the deck while the vessel was getting up speed.



I crawled up the ladder to the bridge feebly, for I was becoming stiff

from the bruises of the fall from my horse. Anderson received me coldly,

and listened indifferently to my thanks. An agreement such as ours

hardly prepared me for his loyalty.



"Oh, as to that," he interrupted, "when I make a bargain my word is my

bond. On this occasion I am inclined to think the indenture will be a

final one."



His bargain was a hard one, but, having made it, he abided faithfully by

its conditions. He was honest, therefore, in his own way.



"How far can you get out in fifteen minutes?" I asked.



"We may make six or seven knots. But what is the good of that? There

will be an earthquake on that island on a liberal scale--on such a scale

that this ship would have very little chance in the wave that will

follow us if we were fifty miles at sea."



"You have taken every precaution, of course--"



Anderson here looked at me contemptuously, and, with an air of sarcastic

admiration, he said:



"You have guessed it at the first try. That is precisely what I have

done."



"Pshaw! don't take offence at trifles at a time like this," I said

testily. "If you knew as much about that earthquake as I do, you would

be in no humour for bandying phrases."



"Might I ask how much you do know about it? You could not have foreseen

the trouble more clearly if you had made it yourself."



"I did not make it myself, but I know the means which the man who did

employed, and but for me that earthquake would have wrecked this earth."



Anderson made no direct answer to this, but he said earnestly:



"You will now go below, sir. You are done up. Roberts will take you to

the doctor."



"I am not done up, and I mean to see it out," I retorted doggedly. My

nervous system was completely unhinged, and a fit of stupid obstinacy

came on me which rendered any interference with my actions intolerable.



"Then you cannot see it out upon my bridge," Anderson said. The

determined tone in which he spoke only added to my impotent wrath.



"Very well, I will return to the deck, and if any of your men should

attempt to interfere with me he will do so at his peril." With that, I

slung my revolver round so as to have it ready to my hand. I was beside

myself. My conduct was already bad enough, but I made it worse before I

left the bridge.



"And if you, Anderson, disobey my orders--my orders, do you hear?--an

explosion such as took place in the middle of the English channel shall

take place in the middle of this ship."



"For God's sake leave the bridge. I want my wits about me, and I have no

intention of earning another exhibition of your devilries."



"Then be careful not to trouble me again." Thus after having passed

through much danger with a spirit not unbecoming--as I hope--an English

gentleman, I acted, when the worst was passed, like a peevish schoolboy.

I am ashamed of my conduct in this small matter, and trust it will pass

without much notice in the narrative of events of greater moment.



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."



"Oh no," she answered, "I'm all right; a little faint after that ride. I

shall be better soon."



Natalie turned her weird eyes on me and said in the hollow voice we had

heard once before--when she spoke to us on the island--"That is her way

of telling you that your horse broke her right arm when she caught him

for you. She held him, you remember, with her left hand. The doctor has

set the limb. She will not suffer long."



"Heaven help us, this awful night," Edith cried. "How do you know that,

Natalie?"



"I know much now, but I shall know more soon." After this she would not

speak again.



With every pound of steam on that the Esmeralda's boilers would bear

without bursting, we were now plunging through the great rollers of the

Arafura Sea. Everything had indeed been done to put the vessel in trim.

She was cleared for action, so to speak. And a gallant fight she made

when the issue was knit. When the hour of midnight must be near at

hand, I looked at my watch. It was one minute to twelve o'clock.



Thirty seconds more!



The stupendous corona of flame which hung over the island was pierced by

long lines of smoke that stretched far above the glare and clutched with

sooty fingers at the stars, now fitfully coming back to view at our

distance. The rumbling of internal thunder waxed louder.



Fifteen seconds now!



Fearful peals rent the atmosphere. Vast tongues of flame protruded

heavenward. The elements must be melting in that fervent heat. The

blazing bowels of the earth were pouring forth.



Twelve, midnight!



A reverberation thundered out which shook the solid earth, and a roaring

hell-breath of flame and smoke belched up so awful in its dread

magnificence that every man who saw it and lived to tell his story might

justly have claimed to have seen perdition. In that hurricane of

incandescent matter the island was blotted out for ever from the map of



this world.



Notwithstanding the speed of the Esmeralda she was a sloth when

compared with the speed of the wave from such an earthquake. From the

glare of the illumination to perfect darkness the contrast was sudden

and extreme. But the blackness of the ocean was soon whitened by the

snowy plumes of the avalanche of water which was now racing us, far

astern as yet, but gaining fast. I, who had no business about the ship

requiring my presence in any special part, decided to wait on deck and

lash myself to the forward, which would be practically the lee-side of a

deckhouse. Edith Metford we prevailed on to go below, that she might not

run the risk of further injury to her fractured arm. As she left us she

whispered to me, "So Natalie will be with you at the end, and I--" a sob

stopped her. And it came into my mind at that moment that this girl had

acted very nobly, and that I had hardly appreciated her and all that she

had done for me.



Natalie refused to leave the deck. I lashed her securely beside me.

Together we awaited the end. When the roar of the following wave came

close, so close that the voices of the officers of the ship could be no

longer heard, Natalie spoke. The hollow sound was no longer in her

voice. Her own soft sweet tones had come back.



"Arthur," she asked, "is this the end?"



"I fear it is," I answered, speaking close to her ear so that she might

hear.



"Then we have little time, and I have something which I must say, which

you must promise me to remember when--when--I am no longer with you."



"You will be always with me while we live. I think I deserve that at

last."



"Yes, you deserve that and more. I will be with you while I live, but

that will not be for long."



I was about to interrupt her when she put her soft little hand upon my

lips and said:



"Listen, there is very little time. It is all a mistake. I mean Herbert

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.