In a voice of undisguised scorn, Brande exclaimed, without noticing my interruption: "Bearded by a creature whose little mind is to me like the open page of a book to read when the humour seizes me." Then with a fierce glance at me 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 to come it will not be restored to its normal power--that it will never reach 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 life has been in vain!" The absolute agony in his voice, the note of almost superhuman suffering and despair, was so intense, that, without thinking of what it was this man was grieving over, I found myself saying soothingly: "No, no! Nothing is lost. It is only your own overstrained nervous system which sends these fantastic nightmares to your brain. I will soon make you all right if you will listen to reason." He turned to me with the most appealing look which I had ever seen in human eyes save once before--when Natalie pleaded with me. "I had forgotten," he said, "the issue now lies in your hands. Choose rightly. Choose mercy." "I will," I answered shortly, for his request brought me back with a jerk 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 solemn assurance that you will neither go farther yourself nor instigate others to go farther with this preposterous scheme of yours." "Bah!" Brande ejaculated contemptuously, and lay back with a sudden content. "My brain is certainly out of order, else I should not have forgotten--until your words recalled it--the Labrador expedition." "The Labrador expedition?" "Yes. On the day we sailed for the Arafura Sea, Grey started with another 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 be the 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 the dreadful fact came home to me. He was telegraphing telepathically to Grey. So the murder that was upon my soul had been done in vain. Then another life must be taken. Better a double crime than one resultless tragedy. 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 voice was low, almost a whisper, as he said: