count in space than
a dew-drop in an ocean--and all its sorrow and pain, its trials and
temptations, all the pathos and bathos of our tragic human farce, the
end is near. The way has been hard, and the journey overlong, and the
burden often beyond man's strength. But that long-drawn sorrow now shall
cease. The tears will be wiped away. The burden will fall from weary
shoulders. For the fulness of time has come. This earth shall die! And
death is peace.

"I stand," he cried out in a strident voice, raising his arm aloft, "I
may say, with one foot on sea and one on land, for I hold the elemental
secret of them both. And I swear by the living god--Science
incarnate--that the suffering of the centuries is over, that for this
earth and all that it contains, from this night and for ever, _Time
will be no more!_"

A great cry rose from the people. "Give us another day--only another
day!"

But Brande made answer: "It is now too late."

"Too late!" the people wailed.

"Yes, too late. I warned you long ago. Are you not yet ready? In two
hours the disintegrating agent will enter on its work. No human power
could stop it now. Not if every particle of the material I have
compounded were separated and scattered to the winds. Before I set my
foot upon this rock I applied the key which will release its inherent
energy. I myself am powerless."

"Powerless," sobbed the auditors.

"Powerless! And if I had ten thousand times the power which I have
called forth from the universal element, I would use it towards the
issue I have forecast."

Thereupon he turned away. Doom sounded in his words. The hand of Death
laid clammy fingers on us. Edith Metford's strength failed at last. It
had been sorely tested. She sank into my arms.

"Courage, true heart, our time has come," I whispered. "We start for the
steamer at once. The horses are ready." My arrangements had been already
made. My plan had been as carefully matured as any ever made by Brande
himself.

"How many horses?"

"Three. One for you; another for Natalie; the third for myself. The rest
must accept the fate they have selected."

The girl shuddered as she said, "But your interference with the formula?
You are sure it will destroy the effect?"

"I am certain that the particular result on which Brande calculates will
not take place. But short of that, he has still enough explosive matter
stored to cause an earthquake. We are not safe within a radius of fifty
miles. It wil