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The Lost Continent
THE LOST CONTINENT
Edgar Rice Burroughs
1
Since earliest childhood I have been strangely fascinated by the
mystery surrounding the history of the last days of twentieth century
Europe. My interest is keenest, perhaps, not so much in relation to
known facts as to speculation upon the unknowable of the two centuries
that have rolled by since human intercourse between the Western and
Eastern Hemispheres ceased--the mystery of Europe's state following
the termination of the Great War--provided, of course, that the war
had been terminated.
From out of the meagerness of our censored histories we learned that
for fifteen years after the cessation of diplomatic relations between
the United States of North America and the belligerent nations of the
Old World, news of more or less doubtful authenticity filtered, from
time to time, into the Western Hemisphere from the Eastern.
Then came the fruition of that historic propaganda which is best
described by its own slogan: "The East for the East-- the West for the
West," and all further intercourse was stopped by statute.
Even prior to this, transoceanic commerce had practically ceased,
owing to the perils and hazards of the mine-strewn waters of both the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Just when submarine activities ended we
do not know but the last vessel of this type sighted by a Pan-American
merchantman was the huge Q 138, which discharged twenty-nine torpedoes
at a Brazilian tank steamer off the Bermudas in the fall of 1972. A
heavy sea and the excellent seamanship of the master of the Brazilian
permitted the Pan-American to escape and report this last of a long
series of outrages upon our commerce. God alone knows how many
hundreds of our ancient ships fell prey to the roving steel sharks of
blood-frenzied Europe. Countless were the vessels and men that passed
over our eastern and western horizons never to return; but whether
they met their fates before the belching tubes of submarines or among
the aimlessly drifting mine fields, no man lived to tell.
And then came the great Pan-American Federation which linked the
Western Hemisphere from pole to pole under a single flag, which joined
the navies of the New World into the mightiest fighting force that
ever sailed the seven seas-- the greatest argument for peace the world
had ever known.
Since that day peace had reigned from the western shores of the Azores
to the western shores of the Hawaiian Islands, nor has any man of
either hemisphere dared cross 30dW. or 175dW. From 30d to 175d is
ours--from 30d to 175d is peace, prosperity and happiness.
Beyond was the great unknown. Even the geographies of my boyhood
showed nothing beyond. We were taught of nothing beyond. Speculation
was discouraged. For two hundred years the Eastern Hemisphere had
been wiped from the maps and histories of Pan-America. Its mention in
fiction, even, was forbidden.
Our ships of peace patrol thirty and one hundred seventy- five. What
ships from beyond they have warned only the secret archives of
government show; but, a naval officer myself, I have gathered from the
traditions of the service that it has been fully two hundred years
since smoke or sail has been sighted east of 30d or west of 175d. The
fate of the relinquished provinces which lay beyond the dead lines we
could only speculate upon. That they were taken by the military
power, which rose so suddenly in China after the fall of the republic,
and which wrested Manchuria and Korea from Russia and Japan, and also
absorbed the Philippines, is quite within the range of possibility.
It was the commander of a Chinese man-of-war who received a copy of
the edict of 1972 from the hand of my illustrious ancestor, Admiral
Turck, on one hundred seventy-five, two hundred and six years ago, and
from the yellowed pages of the admiral's diary I learned that the fate
of the Philippines was even then presaged by these Chinese naval
officers.
Yes, for over two hundred years no man crossed 30d to 175d and lived
to tell his story--not until chance drew me across and back again, and
public opinion, revolting at last against the drastic regulations of
our long-dead forbears, demanded that my story be given to the world,
and that the narrow interdict which commanded peace, prosperity, and
happiness to halt at 30d and 175d be removed forever.
I am glad that it was given to me to be an instrument in the hands of
Providence for the uplifting of benighted Europe, and the amelioration
of the suffering, degradation, and abysmal ignorance in which I found
her.
I shall not live to see the complete regeneration of the savage hordes
of the Eastern Hemisphere--that is a work which will require many
generations, perhaps ages, so complete has been their reversion to
savagery; but I know that the work has been started, and I am proud of
the share in it which my generous countrymen have placed in my hands.
The government already possesses a complete official report of my
adventures beyond thirty. In the narrative I purpose telling my story
in a less formal, and I hope, a more entertaining, style; though,
being only a naval officer and without claim to the slightest literary
ability, I shall most certainly fall far short of the possibilities
which are inherent in my subject. That I have passed through the most
wondrous adventures that have befallen a civilized man during the past
two centuries encourages me in the belief that, however ill the
telling, the facts themselves will command your interest to the final
page.
Beyond thirty! Romance, adventure, strange peoples, fearsome
beasts--all the excitement and scurry of the lives of the twentieth
century ancients that have been denied us in these dull days of peace
and prosaic prosperity--all, all lay beyond thirty, the invisible
barrier between the stupid, commercial present and the carefree,
barbarous past.
What boy has not sighed for the good old days of wars, revolutions,
and riots; how I used to pore over the chronicles of those old days,
those dear old days, when workmen went armed to their labors; when
they fell upon one another with gun and bomb and dagger, and the
streets ran red with blood! Ah, but those were the times when life
was worth the living; when a man who went out by night knew not at
which dark corner a "footpad" might leap upon and slay him; when wild
beasts roamed the forest and the jungles, and there were savage men,
and countries yet unexplored.
Now, in all the Western Hemisphere dwells no man who may not find a
school house within walking distance of his home, or at least within
flying distance.
The wildest beast that roams our waste places lairs in the frozen
north or the frozen south within a government reserve, where the
curious may view him and feed him bread crusts from the hand with
perfect impunity.
But beyond thirty! And I have gone there, and come back; and now you
may go there, for no longer is it high treason, punishable by disgrace
or death, to cross 30d or 175d.
My name is Jefferson Turck. I am a lieutenant in the navy-- in the
great Pan-American navy, the only navy which now exists in all the
world.
I was born in Arizona, in the United States of North America, in the
year of our Lord 2116. Therefore, I am twenty-one years old.
In early boyhood I tired of the teeming cities and overcrowded rural
districts of Arizona. Every generation of Turcks for over two
centuries has been represented in the navy. The navy called to me, as
did the free, wide, unpeopled spaces of the mighty oceans. And so I
joined the navy, coming up from the ranks, as we all must, learning
our craft as we advance. My promotion was rapid, for my family seems
to inherit naval lore. We are born officers, and I reserve to myself
no special credit for an early advancement in the service.
At twenty I found myself a lieutenant in command of the aero-submarine
Coldwater, of the SS-96 class. The Coldwater was one of the first of
the air and underwater craft which have been so greatly improved since
its launching, and was possessed of innumerable weaknesses which,
fortunately, have been eliminated in more recent vessels of similar
type.
Even when I took command, she was fit only for the junk pile; but the
world-old parsimony of government retained her in active service, and
sent two hundred men to sea in her, with myself, a mere boy, in
command of her, to patrol thirty from Iceland to the Azores.
Much of my service had been spent aboard the great merchantmen-of-war.
These are the utility naval vessels that have transformed the navies
of old, which burdened the peoples with taxes for their support, into
the present day fleets of self-supporting ships that find ample time
for target practice and gun drill while they bear freight and the
mails from the continents to the far-scattered island of Pan-America.
This change in service was most welcome to me, especially as it
brought with it coveted responsibilities of sole command, and I was
prone to overlook the deficiencies of the Coldwater in the natural
pride I felt in my first ship.
The Coldwater was fully equipped for two months' patrolling-- the
ordinary length of assignment to this service--and a month had already
passed, its monotony entirely unrelieved by sight of another craft,
when the first of our misfortunes befell.
We had been riding out a storm at an altitude of about three thousand
feet. All night we had hovered above the tossing billows of the
moonlight clouds. The detonation of the thunder and the glare of
lightning through an occasional rift in the vaporous wall proclaimed
the continued fury of the tempest upon the surface of the sea; but we,
far above it all, rode in comparative ease upon the upper gale. With
the coming of dawn the clouds beneath us became a glorious sea of gold
and silver, soft and beautiful; but they could not deceive us as to
the blackness and the terrors of the storm-lashed ocean which they
hid.
I was at breakfast when my chief engineer entered and saluted. His
face was grave, and I thought he was even a trifle paler than usual.
"Well?" I asked.
He drew the back of his forefinger nervously across his brow in a
gesture that was habitual with him in moments of mental stress.
"The gravitation-screen generators, sir," he said. "Number one went
to the bad about an hour and a half ago. We have been working upon it
steadily since; but I have to report, sir, that it is beyond repair."
"Number two will keep us supplied," I answered. "In the meantime we
will send a wireless for relief."
"But that is the trouble, sir," he went on. "Number two has stopped.
I knew it would come, sir. I made a report on these generators three
years ago. I advised then that they both be scrapped. Their
principle is entirely wrong. They're done for." And, with a grim
smile, "I shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing my report
was accurate."
"Have we sufficient reserve screen to permit us to make land, or, at
least, meet our relief halfway?" I asked.
"No, sir," he replied gravely; "we are sinking now."
"Have you anything further to report?" I asked.
"No, sir," he said.
"Very good," I replied; and, as I dismissed him, I rang for my
wireless operator. When he appeared, I gave him a message to the
secretary of the navy, to whom all vessels in service on thirty and
one hundred seventy-five report direct. I explained our predicament,
and stated that with what screening force remained I should continue
in the air, making as rapid headway toward St. Johns as possible, and
that when we were forced to take to the water I should continue in the
same direction.
The accident occurred directly over 30d and about 52d N. The surface
wind was blowing a tempest from the west. To attempt to ride out such
a storm upon the surface seemed suicidal, for the Coldwater was not
designed for surface navigation except under fair weather conditions.
Submerged, or in the air, she was tractable enough in any sort of
weather when under control; but without her screen generators she was
almost helpless, since she could not fly, and, if submerged, could not
rise to the surface.
All these defects have been remedied in later models; but the
knowledge did not help us any that day aboard the slowly settling
Coldwater, with an angry sea roaring beneath, a tempest raging out of
the west, and 30d only a few knots astern.
To cross thirty or one hundred seventy-five has been, as you know, the
direst calamity that could befall a naval commander. Court-martial
and degradation follow swiftly, unless as is often the case, the
unfortunate man takes his own life before this unjust and heartless
regulation can hold him up to public scorn.
There has been in the past no excuse, no circumstance, that could
palliate the offense.
"He was in command, and he took his ship across thirty!" That was
sufficient. It might not have been in any way his fault, as, in the
case of the Coldwater, it could not possibly have been justly charged
to my account that the gravitation-screen generators were worthless;
but well I knew that should chance have it that we were blown across
thirty today--as we might easily be before the terrific west wind that
we could hear howling below us, the responsibility would fall upon my
shoulders.
In a way, the regulation was a good one, for it certainly accomplished
that for which it was intended. We all fought shy of 30d on the east
and 175d on the west, and, though we had to skirt them pretty close,
nothing but an act of God ever drew one of us across. You all are
familiar with the naval tradition that a good officer could sense
proximity to either line, and for my part, I am firmly convinced of
the truth of this as I am that the compass finds the north without
recourse to tedious processes of reasoning.
Old Admiral Sanchez was wont to maintain that he could smell thirty,
and the men of the first ship in which I sailed claimed that Coburn,
the navigating officer, knew by name every wave along thirty from
60dN. to 60dS. However, I'd hate to vouch for this.
Well, to get back to my narrative; we kept on dropping slowly toward
the surface the while we bucked the west wind, clawing away from
thirty as fast as we could. I was on the bridge, and as we dropped
from the brilliant sunlight into the dense vapor of clouds and on down
through them to the wild, dark storm strata beneath, it seemed that my
spirits dropped with the falling ship, and the buoyancy of hope ran
low in sympathy.
The waves were running to tremendous heights, and the Coldwater was
not designed to meet such waves head on. Her elements were the blue
ether, far above the raging storm, or the greater depths of ocean,
which no storm could ruffle.
As I stood speculating upon our chances once we settled into the
frightful Maelstrom beneath us and at the same time mentally computing
the hours which must elapse before aid could reach us, the wireless
operator clambered up the ladder to the bridge, and, disheveled and
breathless, stood before me at salute. It needed but a glance at him
to assure me that something was amiss.
"What now?" I asked.
"The wireless, sir!" he cried. "My God, sir, I cannot send."
"But the emergency outfit?" I asked.
"I have tried everything, sir. I have exhausted every resource. We
cannot send," and he drew himself up and saluted again.
I dismissed him with a few kind words, for I knew that it was through
no fault of his that the mechanism was antiquated and worthless, in
common with the balance of the Coldwater's equipment. There was no
finer operator in Pan- America than he.
The failure of the wireless did not appear as momentous to me as to
him, which is not unnatural, since it is but human to feel that when
our own little cog slips, the entire universe must necessarily be put
out of gear. I knew that if this storm were destined to blow us
across thirty, or send us to the bottom of the ocean, no help could
reach us in time to prevent it. I had ordered the message sent solely
because regulations required it, and not with any particular hope that
we could benefit by it in our present extremity.
I had little time to dwell upon the coincidence of the simultaneous
failure of the wireless and the buoyancy generators, since very
shortly after the Coldwater had dropped so low over the waters that
all my attention was necessarily centered upon the delicate business
of settling upon the waves without breaking my ship's back. With our
buoyancy generators in commission it would have been a simple thing to
enter the water, since then it would have been but a trifling matter
of a forty-five degree dive into the base of a huge wave. We should
have cut into the water like a hot knife through butter, and have been
totally submerged with scarce a jar--I have done it a thousand
times--but I did not dare submerge the Coldwater for fear that it
would remain submerged to the end of time--a condition far from
conducive to the longevity of commander or crew.
Most of my officers were older men than I. John Alvarez, my first
officer, is twenty years my senior. He stood at my side on the bridge
as the ship glided closer and closer to those stupendous waves. He
watched my every move, but he was by far too fine an officer and
gentleman to embarrass me by either comment or suggestion.
When I saw that we soon would touch, I ordered the ship brought around
broadside to the wind, and there we hovered a moment until a huge wave
reached up and seized us upon its crest, and then I gave the order
that suddenly reversed the screening force, and let us into the ocean.
Down into the trough we went, wallowing like the carcass of a dead
whale, and then began the fight, with rudder and propellers, to force
the Coldwater back into the teeth of the gale and drive her on and on,
farther and farther from relentless thirty.
I think that we should have succeeded, even though the ship was
wracked from stem to stern by the terrific buffetings she received,
and though she were half submerged the greater part of the time, had
no further accident befallen us.
We were making headway, though slowly, and it began to look as though
we were going to pull through. Alvarez never left my side, though I
all but ordered him below for much-needed rest. My second officer,
Porfirio Johnson, was also often on the bridge. He was a good
officer, but a man for whom I had conceived a rather unreasoning
aversion almost at the first moment of meeting him, an aversion which
was not lessened by the knowledge which I subsequently gained that he
looked upon my rapid promotion with jealousy. He was ten years my
senior both in years and service, and I rather think he could never
forget the fact that he had been an officer when I was a green
apprentice.
As it became more and more apparent that the Coldwater, under my
seamanship, was weathering the tempest and giving promise of pulling
through safely, I could have sworn that I perceived a shade of
annoyance and disappointment growing upon his dark countenance. He
left the bridge finally and went below. I do not know that he is
directly responsible for what followed so shortly after; but I have
always had my suspicions, and Alvarez is even more prone to place the
blame upon him than I.
It was about six bells of the forenoon watch that Johnson returned to
the bridge after an absence of some thirty minutes. He seemed nervous
and ill at ease--a fact which made little impression on me at the
time, but which both Alvarez and I recalled subsequently.
Not three minutes after his reappearance at my side the Coldwater
suddenly commenced to lose headway. I seized the telephone at my
elbow, pressing upon the button which would call the chief engineer to
the instrument in the bowels of the ship, only to find him already at
the receiver attempting to reach me.
"Numbers one, two, and five engines have broken down, sir," he called.
"Shall we force the remaining three?"
"We can do nothing else," I bellowed into the transmitter.
"They won't stand the gaff, sir," he returned.
"Can you suggest a better plan?" I asked.
"No, sir," he replied.
"Then give them the gaff, lieutenant," I shouted back, and hung up the
receiver.
For twenty minutes the Coldwater bucked the great seas with her three
engines. I doubt if she advanced a foot; but it was enough to keep
her nose in the wind, and, at least, we were not drifting toward
thirty.
Johnson and Alvarez were at my side when, without warning, the bow
swung swiftly around and the ship fell into the trough of the sea.
"The other three have gone," I said, and I happened to be looking at
Johnson as I spoke. Was it the shadow of a satisfied smile that
crossed his thin lips? I do not know; but at least he did not weep.
"You always have been curious, sir, about the great unknown beyond
thirty," he said. "You are in a good way to have your curiosity
satisfied." And then I could not mistake the slight sneer that curved
his upper lip. There must have been a trace of disrespect in his tone
or manner which escaped me, for Alvarez turned upon him like a flash.
"When Lieutenant Turck crosses thirty," he said, "we shall all cross
with him, and God help the officer or the man who reproaches him!"
"I shall not be a party to high treason," snapped Johnson. "The
regulations are explicit, and if the Coldwater crosses thirty it
devolves upon you to place Lieutenant Turck under arrest and
immediately exert every endeavor to bring the ship back into
Pan-American waters."
"I shall not know," replied Alvarez, "that the Coldwater passes
thirty; nor shall any other man aboard know it," and, with his words,
he drew a revolver from his pocket, and before either I or Johnson
could prevent it had put a bullet into every instrument upon the
bridge, ruining them beyond repair.
And then he saluted me, and strode from the bridge, a martyr to
loyalty and friendship, for, though no man might know that Lieutenant
Jefferson Turck had taken his ship across thirty, every man aboard
would know that the first officer had committed a crime that was
punishable by both degradation and death. Johnson turned and eyed me
narrowly.
"Shall I place him under arrest?" he asked.
"You shall not," I replied. "Nor shall anyone else."
"You become a party to his crime!" he cried angrily.
"You may go below, Mr. Johnson," I said, "and attend to the work of
unpacking the extra instruments and having them properly set upon the
bridge."
He saluted, and left me, and for some time I stood, gazing out upon
the angry waters, my mind filled with unhappy reflections upon the
unjust fate that had overtaken me, and the sorrow and disgrace that I
had unwittingly brought down upon my house.
I rejoiced that I should leave neither wife nor child to bear the
burden of my shame throughout their lives.
As I thought upon my misfortune, I considered more clearly than ever
before the unrighteousness of the regulation which was to prove my
doom, and in the natural revolt against its injustice my anger rose,
and there mounted within me a feeling which I imagine must have
paralleled that spirit that once was prevalent among the ancients
called anarchy.
For the first time in my life I found my sentiments arraying
themselves against custom, tradition, and even government. The wave of
rebellion swept over me in an instant, beginning with an heretical
doubt as to the sanctity of the established order of things--that
fetish which has ruled Pan-Americans for two centuries, and which is
based upon a blind faith in the infallibility of the prescience of the
long-dead framers of the articles of Pan-American federation--and
ending in an adamantine determination to defend my honor and my life
to the last ditch against the blind and senseless regulation which
assumed the synonymity of misfortune and treason.
I would replace the destroyed instruments upon the bridge; every
officer and man should know when we crossed thirty. But then I should
assert the spirit which dominated me, I should resist arrest, and
insist upon bringing my ship back across the dead line, remaining at
my post until we had reached New York. Then I should make a full
report, and with it a demand upon public opinion that the dead lines
be wiped forever from the seas.
I knew that I was right. I knew that no more loyal officer wore the
uniform of the navy. I knew that I was a good officer and sailor, and
I didn't propose submitting to degradation and discharge because a lot
of old, preglacial fossils had declared over two hundred years before
that no man should cross thirty.
Even while these thoughts were passing through my mind I was busy with
the details of my duties. I had seen to it that a sea anchor was
rigged, and even now the men had completed their task, and the
Coldwater was swinging around rapidly, her nose pointing once more
into the wind, and the frightful rolling consequent upon her wallowing
in the trough was happily diminishing.
It was then that Johnson came hurrying to the bridge. One of his eyes
was swollen and already darkening, and his lip was cut and bleeding.
Without even the formality of a salute, he burst upon me, white with
fury.
"Lieutenant Alvarez attacked me!" he cried. "I demand that he be
placed under arrest. I found him in the act of destroying the reserve
instruments, and when I would have interfered to protect them he fell
upon me and beat me. I demand that you arrest him!"
"You forget yourself, Mr. Johnson," I said. "You are not in command
of the ship. I deplore the action of Lieutenant Alvarez, but I cannot
expunge from my mind the loyalty and self-sacrificing friendship which
has prompted him to his acts. Were I you, sir, I should profit by the
example he has set. Further, Mr. Johnson, I intend retaining command
of the ship, even though she crosses thirty, and I shall demand
implicit obedience from every officer and man aboard until I am
properly relieved from duty by a superior officer in the port of New
York."
"You mean to say that you will cross thirty without submitting to
arrest?" he almost shouted.
"I do, sir," I replied. "And now you may go below, and, when again
you find it necessary to address me, you will please be so good as to
bear in mind the fact that I am your commanding officer, and as such
entitled to a salute."
He flushed, hesitated a moment, and then, saluting, turned upon his
heel and left the bridge. Shortly after, Alvarez appeared. He was
pale, and seemed to have aged ten years in the few brief minutes since
I last had seen him. Saluting, he told me very simply what he had
done, and asked that I place him under arrest.
I put my hand on his shoulder, and I guess that my voice trembled a
trifle as, while reproving him for his act, I made it plain to him
that my gratitude was no less potent a force than his loyalty to me.
Then it was that I outlined to him my purpose to defy the regulation
that had raised the dead lines, and to take my ship back to New York
myself.
I did not ask him to share the responsibility with me. I merely
stated that I should refuse to submit to arrest, and that I should
demand of him and every other officer and man implicit obedience to my
every command until we docked at home.
His face brightened at my words, and he assured me that I would find
him as ready to acknowledge my command upon the wrong side of thirty
as upon the right, an assurance which I hastened to tell him I did not
need.
The storm continued to rage for three days, and as far as the wind
scarce varied a point during all that time, I knew that we must be far
beyond thirty, drifting rapidly east by south. All this time it had
been impossible to work upon the damaged engines or the gravity-screen
generators; but we had a full set of instruments upon the bridge, for
Alvarez, after discovering my intentions, had fetched the reserve
instruments from his own cabin, where he had hidden them. Those which
Johnson had seen him destroy had been a third set which only Alvarez
had known was aboard the Coldwater.
We waited impatiently for the sun, that we might determine our exact
location, and upon the fourth day our vigil was rewarded a few minutes
before noon.
Every officer and man aboard was tense with nervous excitement as we
awaited the result of the reading. The crew had known almost as soon
as I that we were doomed to cross thirty, and I am inclined to believe
that every man jack of them was tickled to death, for the spirits of
adventure and romance still live in the hearts of men of the
twenty-second century, even though there be little for them to feed
upon between thirty and one hundred seventy-five.
The men carried none of the burdens of responsibility. They might
cross thirty with impunity, and doubtless they would return to be
heroes at home; but how different the home- coming of their commanding
officer!
The wind had dropped to a steady blow, still from west by north, and
the sea had gone down correspondingly. The crew, with the exception
of those whose duties kept them below, were ranged on deck below the
bridge. When our position was definitely fixed I personally announced
it to the eager, waiting men.
"Men," I said, stepping forward to the handrail and looking down into
their upturned, bronzed faces, "you are anxiously awaiting information
as to the ship's position. It has been determined at latitude fifty
degrees seven minutes north, longitude twenty degrees sixteen minutes
west."
I paused and a buzz of animated comment ran through the massed men
beneath me. "Beyond thirty. But there will be no change in
commanding officers, in routine or in discipline, until after we have
docked again in New York."
As I ceased speaking and stepped back from the rail there was a roar
of applause from the deck such as I never before had heard aboard a
ship of peace. It recalled to my mind tales that I had read of the
good old days when naval vessels were built to fight, when ships of
peace had been man-of-war, and guns had flashed in other than futile
target practice, and decks had run red with blood.
With the subsistence of the sea, we were able to go to work upon the
damaged engines to some effect, and I also set men to examining the
gravitation-screen generators with a view to putting them in working
order should it prove not beyond our resources.
For two weeks we labored at the engines, which indisputably showed
evidence of having been tampered with. I appointed a board to
investigate and report upon the disaster. But it accomplished nothing
other than to convince me that there were several officers upon it who
were in full sympathy with Johnson, for, though no charges had been
preferred against him, the board went out of its way specifically to
exonerate him in its findings.
All this time we were drifting almost due east. The work upon the
engines had progressed to such an extent that within a few hours we
might expect to be able to proceed under our own power westward in the
direction of Pan- American waters.
To relieve the monotony I had taken to fishing, and early that morning
I had departed from the Coldwater in one of the boats on such an
excursion. A gentle west wind was blowing. The sea shimmered in the
sunlight. A cloudless sky canopied the west for our sport, as I had
made it a point never voluntarily to make an inch toward the east that
I could avoid. At least, they should not be able to charge me with a
willful violation of the dead lines regulation.
I had with me only the boat's ordinary complement of men-- three in
all, and more than enough to handle any small power boat. I had not
asked any of my officers to accompany me, as I wished to be alone, and
very glad am I now that I had not. My only regret is that, in view of
what befell us, it had been necessary to bring the three brave fellows
who manned the boat.
Our fishing, which proved excellent, carried us so far to the west
that we no longer could see the Coldwater. The day wore on, until at
last, about mid-afternoon, I gave the order to return to the ship.
We had proceeded but a short distance toward the east when one of the
men gave an exclamation of excitement, at the same time pointing
eastward. We all looked on in the direction he had indicated, and
there, a short distance above the horizon, we saw the outlines of the
Coldwater silhouetted against the sky.
"They've repaired the engines and the generators both," exclaimed one
of the men.
It seemed impossible, but yet it had evidently been done. Only that
morning, Lieutenant Johnson had told me that he feared that it would
be impossible to repair the generators. I had put him in charge of
this work, since he always had been accounted one of the best
gravitation-screen men in the navy. He had invented several of the
improvements that are incorporated in the later models of these
generators, and I am convinced that he knows more concerning both the
theory and the practice of screening gravitation than any living
Pan-American.
At the sight of the Coldwater once more under control, the three men
burst into a glad cheer. But, for some reason which I could not then
account, I was strangely overcome by a premonition of personal
misfortune. It was not that I now anticipated an early return to
Pan-America and a board of inquiry, for I had rather looked forward to
the fight that must follow my return. No, there was something else,
something indefinable and vague that cast a strange gloom upon me as I
saw my ship rising farther above the water and making straight in our
direction.
I was not long in ascertaining a possible explanation of my
depression, for, though we were plainly visible from the bridge of the
aero-submarine and to the hundreds of men who swarmed her deck, the
ship passed directly above us, not five hundred feet from the water,
and sped directly westward.
We all shouted, and I fired my pistol to attract their attention,
though I knew full well that all who cared to had observed us, but the
ship moved steadily away, growing smaller and smaller to our view
until at last she passed completely out of sight.