The Lost Continent
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 shipl’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 men-of-war, and guns had flashed in other than futile target
practice, and decks had run red with blood.
With the subsidence 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 boatl’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.
CHAPTER II.
What could it mean? I had left Alvarez in command. He was my most loyal
subordinate. It was absolutely beyond the pale of possibility that
Alvarez should desert me. No, there was some other explanation.
Something occurred to place my second officer, Porfirio Johnson, in
command. I was sure of it but why speculate? The futility of conjecture
was only too palpable. The Coldwater had abandoned us in midocean.
Doubtless none of us would survive to know why.
The young man at the wheel of the power boat had turned her nose about
as it became evident that the ship intended passing over us, and now he
still held her in futile pursuit of the Coldwater.
“Bring her about, Snider,” I directed, “and hold her due east. We can’t
catch the Coldwater, and we can’t cross the Atlantic in this. Our only
hope lies in making the nearest land, which, unless I am mistaken, is
the Scilly Islands, off the southwest coast of England. Ever heard of
England, Snider?”