The Universe A Mistake!

: The Crack Of Doom

"The Universe is a mistake!"



Thus spake Herbert Brande, a passenger on the Majestic, making for

Queenstown Harbour, one evening early in the past year. Foolish as the

words may seem, they were partly influential in leading to my terrible

association with him, and all that is described in this book.



Brande was standing beside me on the starboard side of the vessel. We

had been discussing a cu rent astronomical essay, as we watched the hazy

blue line of the Irish coast rise on the horizon. 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? Why

limit oneself to a mere million of years for a dramatic illustration,

when there is a star in space distant so far from us that if a telegram

left the earth for it this very night, and maintained for ever its

initial velocity, it would never reach that star?"



He said this without any apparent effort after rhetorical effect; but

the suddenness with which he had presented a very obvious truism in a

fresh light to me made the conception of the vastness of space

absolutely oppressive. In the hope of changing the subject I replied:



"Nothing is gained by dwelling on these scientific speculations. The

mind is only bewildered. The Universe is inexplicable."



"The Universe!" he exclaimed. "That is easily explained. The Universe is

a mistake!"



"The greatest mistake of the century, I suppose," I added, somewhat

annoyed, for I thought Brande was laughing at me.



"Say, of Time, and I agree with you," he replied, careless of my

astonishment.



I did not answer him for some moments.



This man Brande was young in years, but middle-aged in the expression of

his pale, intellectual face, and old--if age be synonymous with

knowledge--in his ideas. His knowledge, indeed, was so exhaustive that

the scientific pleasantries to which he was prone could always be

justified, dialectically at least, by him when he was contradicted.

Those who knew him well did not argue with him. I was always stumbling

into intellectual pitfalls, for I had only known him since the steamer

left New York.



As to myself, there is little to be told. My history prior to my

acquaintance with Brande was commonplace. I was merely an active,

athletic Englishman, Arthur Marcel by name. I had studied medicine, and

was a doctor in all but the degree. This certificate had been dispensed

with owing to an unexpected legacy, on receipt of which I determined to

devote it to the furtherance of my own amusement. In the pursuit of this

object, I had visited many lands and had become familiar with most of

the beaten tracks of travel. I was returning to England after an absence

of three years spent in aimless roaming. My age was thirty-one years,

and my salient characteristic at the time was to hold fast by anything

that interested me, until my humour changed. Brande's conversational

vagaries had amused me on the voyage. His extraordinary comment on the

Universe decided me to cement our shipboard acquaintance before reaching

port.



"That explanation of yours," I said, lighting a fresh cigar, and

returning to a subject which I had so recently tried to shelve, "isn't

it rather vague?"



"For the present it must serve," he answered absently.



To force him into admitting that his phrase was only a thoughtless

exclamation, or induce him to defend it, I said:



"It does not serve any reasonable purpose. It adds nothing to knowledge.

As it stands, it is neither academic nor practical."



Brande looked at me earnestly for a moment, and then said gravely:



"The academic value of the explanation will be shown to you if you will

join a society I have founded; and its practicalness will soon be made

plain whether you join or not."



"What do you call this club of yours?" I asked.



"We do not call it a club. We call it a Society--the Cui Bono

Society," he answered coldly.



"I like the name," I returned. "It is suggestive. It may mean

anything--or nothing."



"You will learn later that the Society means something; a good deal, in

fact."



This was said in the dry, unemotional tone which I afterwards found was

the only sign of displeasure Brande ever permitted himself to show. His

arrangements for going on shore at Queenstown had been made early in the

day, but he left me to look for his sister, of whom I had seen very

little on the voyage. The weather had been rough, and as she was not a

good sailor, I had only had a rare glimpse of a very dark and handsome

girl, whose society possessed for me a strange attraction, although we



were then almost strangers. Indeed, I regretted keenly, as the time of

our separation approached, having registered my luggage (consisting

largely of curios and mementoes of my travels, of which I was very

careful) for Liverpool. My own time was valueless, and it would have

been more agreeable to me to continue the journey with the Brandes, no

matter where they went.



There was a choppy sea on when we reached the entrance to the harbour,

so the Majestic steamed in between the Carlisle and Camden forts, and

on to the man-of-war roads, where the tender met us. By this time,

Brande and his sister were ready to go on shore; but as there was a

heavy mail to be transhipped, we had still an hour at our disposal. For

some time we paced the deck, exchanging commonplaces on the voyage and

confidences as to our future plans. It was almost dark, but not dark

enough to prevent us from seeing those wonderfully green hills which

landlock the harbour. To me the verdant woods and hills were delightful

after the brown plains and interminable prairies on which I had spent

many months. As the lights of Queenstown began to speck the slowly

gathering gloom, Miss Brande asked me to point out Rostellan Castle. It

could not be seen from the vessel, but the familiar legend was easily

recalled, and this led us to talk about Irish tradition with its weird

romance and never failing pathos. This interested her. Freed now from

the lassitude of sea-sickness, the girl became more fascinating to me

every moment. Everything she said was worth listening to, apart from the

charming manner in which it was said.



To declare that she was an extremely pretty girl would not convey the

strange, almost unearthly, beauty of her face--as intellectual as her

brother's--and of the charm of her slight but exquisitely moulded

figure. In her dark eyes there was a sympathy, a compassion, that was

new to me. It thrilled me with an emotion different from anything that

my frankly happy, but hitherto wholly selfish life had known. There was

only one note in her conversation which jarred upon me. She was apt to

drift into the extraordinary views of life and death which were

interesting when formulated by her eccentric brother, but pained me

coming from her lips. In spite of this, the purpose I had contemplated

of joining Brande's Society--evoked as it had been by his own whimsical

observation--now took definite form. I would join that Society. It would

be the best way of keeping near to Natalie Brande.



Her brother returned to us to say that the tender was about to leave the

ship. He had left us for half an hour. I did not notice his absence

until he himself announced it. As we shook hands, I said to him:



"I have been thinking about that Society of yours. I mean to join it."



"I am very glad," he replied. "You will find it a new sensation, quite

outside the beaten track, which you know so well."



There was a shade of half-kindly contempt in his voice, which missed me

at the moment. I answered gaily, knowing that he would not be offended

by what was said in jest:



"I am sure I shall. If all the members are as mad as yourself, it will

be the most interesting experience outside Bedlam that any man could

wish for."



I had a foretaste of that interest soon.



As Miss Brande was walking to the gangway, a lamp shone full upon her

gypsy face. The blue-black hair, the dark eyes, and a deep red rose she

wore in her bonnet, seemed to me an exquisite arrangement of harmonious

colour. And the thought flashed into my mind very vividly, however

trivial it may seem here, when written down in cold words: "The queen of

women, and the queen of flowers." That is not precisely how my thought

ran, but I cannot describe it better. The finer subtleties of the brain

do not bear well the daylight of language.



Brande drew her back and whispered to her. Then the sweet face, now

slightly flushed, was turned to me again.



"Oh, thank you for that pretty thought," she said with a pleasant smile.

"You are too flattering. The 'queen of flowers' is very true, but the

'queen of women!' Oh, no!" She made a graceful gesture of dissent, and

passed down the gangway.



As the tender disappeared into the darkness, a tiny scrap of lace waved,

and I knew vaguely that she was thinking of me. But how she read my

thought so exactly I could not tell.



That knowledge it has been my fate to gain.