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diff --git a/149-h/149-h.htm b/149-h/149-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22651d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/149-h/149-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6133 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Continent, by Edgar Rice Burroughs</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Continent, by Edgar Rice Burroughs + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: The Lost Continent + +Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs + +Release Date: July, 1994 [EBook #149] +[Most recently updated: November 29, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EBOOK THE LOST CONTINENT *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>The Lost Continent</h1> + +<h2>by Edgar Rice Burroughs</h2> + +<h4>The Lost Continent was originally published<br /> +under the title Beyond Thirty</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 30°W. or 175°W. From 30° to 175° is ours—from 30° to 175° is +peace, prosperity and happiness. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 30° or west of 175°. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, for over two hundred years no man crossed 30° to 175° 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 30° and +175° be removed forever. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 30° or 175°. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He drew the back of his forefinger nervously across his brow in a gesture that +was habitual with him in moments of mental stress. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Number two will keep us supplied,” I answered. “In the +meantime we will send a wireless for relief.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have we sufficient reserve screen to permit us to make land, or, at +least, meet our relief halfway?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” he replied gravely; “we are sinking now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you anything further to report?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The accident occurred directly over 30° and about 52° 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 30° only a few knots +astern. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +There has been in the past no excuse, no circumstance, that could palliate the +offense. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +In a way, the regulation was a good one, for it certainly accomplished that for +which it was intended. We all fought shy of 30° on the east and 175° 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 as +firmly convinced of the truth of this as I am that the compass finds the north +without recourse to tedious processes of reasoning. +</p> + +<p> +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 60°N. to 60°S. However, +I’d hate to vouch for this. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What now?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The wireless, sir!” he cried. “My God, sir, I cannot +send.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the emergency outfit?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I have tried everything, sir. I have exhausted every resource. We cannot +send,” and he drew himself up and saluted again. +</p> + +<p> +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 Coldwaterl’s equipment. There was no finer operator in +Pan-America than he. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 shipl’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Numbers one, two, and five engines have broken down, sir,” he +called. “Shall we force the remaining three?” +</p> + +<p> +“We can do nothing else,” I bellowed into the transmitter. +</p> + +<p> +“They won’t stand the gaff, sir,” he returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you suggest a better plan?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Then give them the gaff, lieutenant,” I shouted back, and hung up +the receiver. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“When Lieutenant Turck crosses thirty,” he said, “we shall +all cross with him, and God help the officer or the man who reproaches +him!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I place him under arrest?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall not,” I replied. “Nor shall anyone else.” +</p> + +<p> +“You become a party to his crime!” he cried angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I rejoiced that I should leave neither wife nor child to bear the burden of my +shame throughout their lives. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean to say that you will cross thirty without submitting to +arrest?” he almost shouted. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve repaired the engines and the generators both,” +exclaimed one of the men. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a part of the United States of North America that used to +be known to the ancients as New England,” he replied. “Is that +where you mean, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Snider,” I replied. “The England I refer to was an +island off the continent of Europe. It was the seat of a very powerful kingdom +that flourished over two hundred years ago. A part of the United States of +North America and all of the Federated States of Canada once belonged to this +ancient England.” +</p> + +<p> +“Europe,” breathed one of the men, his voice tense with excitement. +“My grandfather used to tell me stories of the world beyond thirty. He +had been a great student, and he had read much from forbidden books.” +</p> + +<p> +“In which I resemble your grandfather,” I said, “for I, too, +have read more even than naval officers are supposed to read, and, as you men +know, we are permitted a greater latitude in the study of geography and history +than men of other professions. +</p> + +<p> +“Among the books and papers of Admiral Porter Turck, who lived two +hundred years ago, and from whom I am descended, many volumes still exist, and +are in my possession, which deal with the history and geography of ancient +Europe. Usually I bring several of these books with me upon a cruise, and this +time, among others, I have maps of Europe and her surrounding waters. I was +studying them as we came away from the Coldwater this morning, and luckily I +have them with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are going to try to make Europe, sir?” asked Taylor, the young +man who had last spoken. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the nearest land,” I replied. “I have always wanted to +explore the forgotten lands of the Eastern Hemisphere. Here’s our chance. +To remain at sea is to perish. None of us ever will see home again. Let us make +the best of it, and enjoy while we do live that which is forbidden the balance +of our race—the adventure and the mystery which lie beyond thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +Taylor and Delcarte seized the spirit of my mood but Snider, I think, was a +trifle sceptical. +</p> + +<p> +“It is treason, sir,” I replied, “but there is no law which +compels us to visit punishment upon ourselves. Could we return to Pan-America, +I should be the first to insist that we face it. But we know thatl’s not +possible. Even if this craft would carry us so far, we haven’t enough +water or food for more than three days. +</p> + +<p> +“We are doomed, Snider, to die far from home and without ever again +looking upon the face of another fellow countryman than those who sit here now +in this boat. Isn’t that punishment sufficient for even the most exacting +judge?” +</p> + +<p> +Even Snider had to admit that it was. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then, let us live while we live, and enjoy to the fullest +whatever of adventure or pleasure each new day brings, since any day may be our +last, and we shall be dead for a considerable while.” +</p> + +<p> +I could see that Snider was still fearful, but Taylor and Delcarte responded +with a hearty, “Aye, aye, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +They were of different mold. Both were sons of naval officers. They represented +the aristocracy of birth, and they dared to think for themselves. +</p> + +<p> +Snider was in the minority, and so we continued toward the east. Beyond thirty, +and separated from my ship, my authority ceased. I held leadership, if I was to +hold it at all, by virtue of personal qualifications only, but I did not doubt +my ability to remain the director of our destinies in so far as they were +amenable to human agencies. I have always led. While my brain and brawn remain +unimpaired I shall continue always to lead. Following is an art which Turcks do +not easily learn. +</p> + +<p> +It was not until the third day that we raised land, dead ahead, which I took, +from my map, to be the isles of Scilly. But such a gale was blowing that I did +not dare attempt to land, and so we passed to the north of them, skirted +Landl’s End, and entered the English Channel. +</p> + +<p> +I think that up to that moment I had never experienced such a thrill as passed +through me when I realized that I was navigating these historic waters. The +lifelong dreams that I never had dared hope to see fulfilled were at last a +reality—but under what forlorn circumstances! +</p> + +<p> +Never could I return to my native land. To the end of my days I must remain in +exile. Yet even these thoughts failed to dampen my ardor. +</p> + +<p> +My eyes scanned the waters. To the north I could see the rockbound coast of +Cornwall. Mine were the first American eyes to rest upon it for more than two +hundred years. In vain, I searched for some sign of ancient commerce that, if +history is to be believed, must have dotted the bosom of the Channel with white +sails and blackened the heavens with the smoke of countless funnels, but as far +as eye could reach the tossing waters of the Channel were empty and deserted. +</p> + +<p> +Toward midnight the wind and sea abated, so that shortly after dawn I +determined to make inshore in an attempt to effect a landing, for we were sadly +in need of fresh water and food. +</p> + +<p> +According to my observations, we were just off Ram Head, and it was my +intention to enter Plymouth Bay and visit Plymouth. From my map it appeared +that this city lay back from the coast a short distance, and there was another +city given as Devonport, which appeared to lie at the mouth of the river Tamar. +</p> + +<p> +However, I knew that it would make little difference which city we entered, as +the English people were famed of old for their hospitality toward visiting +mariners. As we approached the mouth of the bay I looked for the fishing craft +which I expected to see emerging thus early in the day for their labors. But +even after we rounded Ram Head and were well within the waters of the bay I saw +no vessel. Neither was there buoy nor light nor any other mark to show larger +ships the channel, and I wondered much at this. +</p> + +<p> +The coast was densely overgrown, nor was any building or sign of man apparent +from the water. Up the bay and into the River Tamar we motored through a +solitude as unbroken as that which rested upon the waters of the Channel. For +all we could see, there was no indication that man had ever set his foot upon +this silent coast. +</p> + +<p> +I was nonplused, and then, for the first time, there crept over me an intuition +of the truth. +</p> + +<p> +Here was no sign of war. As far as this portion of the Devon coast was +concerned, that seemed to have been over for many years, but neither were there +any people. Yet I could not find it within myself to believe that I should find +no inhabitants in England. Reasoning thus, I discovered that it was improbable +that a state of war still existed, and that the people all had been drawn from +this portion of England to some other, where they might better defend +themselves against an invader. +</p> + +<p> +But what of their ancient coast defenses? What was there here in Plymouth Bay +to prevent an enemy landing in force and marching where they wished? Nothing. I +could not believe that any enlightened military nation, such as the ancient +English are reputed to have been, would have voluntarily so deserted an exposed +coast and an excellent harbor to the mercies of an enemy. +</p> + +<p> +I found myself becoming more and more deeply involved in quandary. The puzzle +which confronted me I could not unravel. We had landed, and I now stood upon +the spot where, according to my map, a large city should rear its spires and +chimneys. There was nothing but rough, broken ground covered densely with weeds +and brambles, and tall, rank grass. +</p> + +<p> +Had a city ever stood there, no sign of it remained. The roughness and +unevenness of the ground suggested something of a great mass of debris hidden +by the accumulation of centuries of undergrowth. +</p> + +<p> +I drew the short cutlass with which both officers and men of the navy are, as +you know, armed out of courtesy to the traditions and memories of the past, and +with its point dug into the loam about the roots of the vegetation growing at +my feet. +</p> + +<p> +The blade entered the soil for a matter of seven inches, when it struck upon +something stonelike. Digging about the obstacle, I presently loosened it, and +when I had withdrawn it from its sepulcher I found the thing to be an ancient +brick of clay, baked in an oven. +</p> + +<p> +Delcarte we had left in charge of the boat; but Snider and Taylor were with me, +and following my example, each engaged in the fascinating sport of prospecting +for antiques. Each of us uncovered a great number of these bricks, until we +commenced to weary of the monotony of it, when Snider suddenly gave an +exclamation of excitement, and, as I turned to look, he held up a human skull +for my inspection. +</p> + +<p> +I took it from him and examined it. Directly in the center of the forehead was +a small round hole. The gentleman had evidently come to his end defending his +country from an invader. +</p> + +<p> +Snider again held aloft another trophy of the search—a metal spike and +some tarnished and corroded metal ornaments. They had lain close beside the +skull. +</p> + +<p> +With the point of his cutlass Snider scraped the dirt and verdigris from the +face of the larger ornament. +</p> + +<p> +“An inscription,” he said, and handed the thing to me. +</p> + +<p> +They were the spike and ornaments of an ancient German helmet. Before long we +had uncovered many other indications that a great battle had been fought upon +the ground where we stood. But I was then, and still am, at loss to account for +the presence of German soldiers upon the English coast so far from London, +which history suggests would have been the natural goal of an invader. +</p> + +<p> +I can only account for it by assuming that either England was temporarily +conquered by the Teutons, or that an invasion of so vast proportions was +undertaken that German troops were hurled upon the England coast in huge +numbers and that landings were necessarily effected at many places +simultaneously. Subsequent discoveries tend to strengthen this view. +</p> + +<p> +We dug about for a short time with our cutlasses until I became convinced that +a city had stood upon the spot at some time in the past, and that beneath our +feet, crumbled and dead, lay ancient Devonport. +</p> + +<p> +I could not repress a sigh at the thought of the havoc war had wrought in this +part of England, at least. Farther east, nearer London, we should find things +very different. There would be the civilization that two centuries must have +wrought upon our English cousins as they had upon us. There would be mighty +cities, cultivated fields, happy people. There we would be welcomed as +long-lost brothers. There would we find a great nation anxious to learn of the +world beyond their side of thirty, as I had been anxious to learn of that which +lay beyond our side of the dead line. +</p> + +<p> +I turned back toward the boat. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, men!” I said. “We will go up the river and fill our +casks with fresh water, search for food and fuel, and then tomorrow be in +readiness to push on toward the east. I am going to London.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p> +The report of a gun blasted the silence of a dead Devonport with startling +abruptness. +</p> + +<p> +It came from the direction of the launch, and in an instant we three were +running for the boat as fast as our legs would carry us. As we came in sight of +it we saw Delcarte a hundred yards inland from the launch, leaning over +something which lay upon the ground. As we called to him he waved his cap, and +stooping, lifted a small deer for our inspection. +</p> + +<p> +I was about to congratulate him on his trophy when we were startled by a +horrid, half-human, half-bestial scream a little ahead and to the right of us. +It seemed to come from a clump of rank and tangled bush not far from where +Delcarte stood. It was a horrid, fearsome sound, the like of which never had +fallen upon my ears before. +</p> + +<p> +We looked in the direction from which it came. The smile had died from +Delcarte’s lips. Even at the distance we were from him I saw his face go +suddenly white, and he quickly threw his rifle to his shoulder. At the same +moment the thing that had given tongue to the cry moved from the concealing +brushwood far enough for us, too, to see it. +</p> + +<p> +Both Taylor and Snider gave little gasps of astonishment and dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, sir?” asked the latter. +</p> + +<p> +The creature stood about the height of a tall manl’s waist, and was long +and gaunt and sinuous, with a tawny coat striped with black, and with white +throat and belly. In conformation it was similar to a cat—a huge cat, +exaggerated colossal cat, with fiendish eyes and the most devilish cast of +countenance, as it wrinkled its bristling snout and bared its great yellow +fangs. +</p> + +<p> +It was pacing, or rather, slinking, straight for Delcarte, who had now leveled +his rifle upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, sir?” mumbled Snider again, and then a half-forgotten +picture from an old natural history sprang to my mind, and I recognized in the +frightful beast the Felis tigris of ancient Asia, specimens of which had, in +former centuries, been exhibited in the Western Hemisphere. +</p> + +<p> +Snider and Taylor were armed with rifles and revolvers, while I carried only a +revolver. Seizing Sniderl’s rifle from his trembling hands, I called to +Taylor to follow me, and together we ran forward, shouting, to attract the +beastl’s attention from Delcarte until we should all be quite close +enough to attack with the greatest assurance of success. +</p> + +<p> +I cried to Delcarte not to fire until we reached his side, for I was fearful +lest our small caliber, steel-jacketed bullets should, far from killing the +beast, tend merely to enrage it still further. But he misunderstood me, +thinking that I had ordered him to fire. +</p> + +<p> +With the report of his rifle the tiger stopped short in apparent surprise, then +turned and bit savagely at its shoulder for an instant, after which it wheeled +again toward Delcarte, issuing the most terrific roars and screams, and +launched itself, with incredible speed, toward the brave fellow, who now stood +his ground pumping bullets from his automatic rifle as rapidly as the weapon +would fire. +</p> + +<p> +Taylor and I also opened up on the creature, and as it was broadside to us it +offered a splendid target, though for all the impression we appeared to make +upon the great cat we might as well have been launching soap bubbles at it. +</p> + +<p> +Straight as a torpedo it rushed for Delcarte, and, as Taylor and I stumbled on +through the tall grass toward our unfortunate comrade, we saw the tiger rear +upon him and crush him to the earth. +</p> + +<p> +Not a backward step had the noble Delcarte taken. Two hundred years of peace +had not sapped the red blood from his courageous line. He went down beneath +that avalanche of bestial savagery still working his gun and with his face +toward his antagonist. Even in the instant that I thought him dead I could not +help but feel a thrill of pride that he was one of my men, one of my class, a +Pan-American gentleman of birth. And that he had demonstrated one of the +principal contentions of the army-and-navy adherents—that military +training was necessary for the salvation of personal courage in the +Pan-American race which for generations had had to face no dangers more grave +than those incident to ordinary life in a highly civilized community, +safeguarded by every means at the disposal of a perfectly organized and +all-powerful government utilizing the best that advanced science could suggest. +</p> + +<p> +As we ran toward Delcarte, both Taylor and I were struck by the fact that the +beast upon him appeared not to be mauling him, but lay quiet and motionless +upon its prey, and when we were quite close, and the muzzles of our guns were +at the animal’s head, I saw the explanation of this sudden cessation of +hostilities—Felis tigris was dead. +</p> + +<p> +One of our bullets, or one of the last that Delcarte fired, had penetrated the +heart, and the beast had died even as it sprawled forward crushing Delcarte to +the ground. +</p> + +<p> +A moment later, with our assistance, the man had scrambled from beneath the +carcass of his would-be slayer, without a scratch to indicate how close to +death he had been. +</p> + +<p> +Delcarte’s buoyance was entirely unruffled. He came from under the tiger +with a broad grin on his handsome face, nor could I perceive that a muscle +trembled or that his voice showed the least indication of nervousness or +excitement. +</p> + +<p> +With the termination of the adventure, we began to speculate upon the +explanation of the presence of this savage brute at large so great a distance +from its native habitat. My readings had taught me that it was practically +unknown outside of Asia, and that, so late as the twentieth century, at least, +there had been no savage beasts outside captivity in England. +</p> + +<p> +As we talked, Snider joined us, and I returned his rifle to him. Taylor and +Delcarte picked up the slain deer, and we all started down toward the launch, +walking slowly. Delcarte wanted to fetch the tigerl’s skin, but I had to +deny him permission, since we had no means to properly cure it. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the beach, we skinned the deer and cut away as much meat as we thought we +could dispose of, and as we were again embarking to continue up the river for +fresh water and fuel, we were startled by a series of screams from the bushes a +short distance away. +</p> + +<p> +“Another Felis tigris,” said Taylor. +</p> + +<p> +“Or a dozen of them,” supplemented Delcarte, and, even as he spoke, +there leaped into sight, one after another, eight of the beasts, full +grown—magnificent specimens. +</p> + +<p> +At the sight of us, they came charging down like infuriated demons. I saw that +three rifles would be no match for them, and so I gave the word to put out from +shore, hoping that the “tiger,” as the ancients called him, could +not swim. +</p> + +<p> +Sure enough, they all halted at the beach, pacing back and forth, uttering +fiendish cries, and glaring at us in the most malevolent manner. +</p> + +<p> +As we motored away, we presently heard the calls of similar animals far inland. +They seemed to be answering the cries of their fellows at the waterl’s +edge, and from the wide distribution and great volume of the sound we came to +the conclusion that enormous numbers of these beasts must roam the adjacent +country. +</p> + +<p> +“They have eaten up the inhabitants,” murmured Snider, shuddering. +</p> + +<p> +“I imagine you are right,” I agreed, “for their extreme +boldness and fearlessness in the presence of man would suggest either that man +is entirely unknown to them, or that they are extremely familiar with him as +their natural and most easily procured prey.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where did they come from?” asked Delcarte. “Could they +have traveled here from Asia?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. The thing was a puzzle to me. I knew that it was practically +beyond reason to imagine that tigers had crossed the mountain ranges and rivers +and all the great continent of Europe to travel this far from their native +lairs, and entirely impossible that they should have crossed the English +Channel at all. Yet here they were, and in great numbers. +</p> + +<p> +We continued up the Tamar several miles, filled our casks, and then landed to +cook some of our deer steak, and have the first square meal that had fallen to +our lot since the Coldwater deserted us. But scarce had we built our fire and +prepared the meat for cooking than Snider, whose eyes had been constantly +roving about the landscape from the moment that we left the launch, touched me +on the arm and pointed to a clump of bushes which grew a couple of hundred +yards away. +</p> + +<p> +Half concealed behind their screening foliage I saw the yellow and black of a +big tiger, and, as I looked, the beast stalked majestically toward us. A moment +later, he was followed by another and another, and it is needless to state that +we beat a hasty retreat to the launch. +</p> + +<p> +The country was apparently infested by these huge Carnivora, for after three +other attempts to land and cook our food we were forced to abandon the idea +entirely, as each time we were driven off by hunting tigers. +</p> + +<p> +It was also equally impossible to obtain the necessary ingredients for our +chemical fuel, and, as we had very little left aboard, we determined to step +our folding mast and proceed under sail, hoarding our fuel supply for use in +emergencies. +</p> + +<p> +I may say that it was with no regret that we bid adieu to Tigerland, as we +rechristened the ancient Devon, and, beating out into the Channel, turned the +launchl’s nose southeast, to round Bolt Head and continue up the coast +toward the Strait of Dover and the North Sea. +</p> + +<p> +I was determined to reach London as soon as possible, that we might obtain +fresh clothing, meet with cultured people, and learn from the lips of +Englishmen the secrets of the two centuries since the East had been divorced +from the West. +</p> + +<p> +Our first stopping place was the Isle of Wight. We entered the Solent about ten +o’clock one morning, and I must confess that my heart sank as we came +close to shore. No lighthouse was visible, though one was plainly indicated +upon my map. Upon neither shore was sign of human habitation. We skirted the +northern shore of the island in fruitless search for man, and then at last +landed upon an eastern point, where Newport should have stood, but where only +weeds and great trees and tangled wild wood rioted, and not a single manmade +thing was visible to the eye. +</p> + +<p> +Before landing, I had the men substitute soft bullets for the steel-jacketed +projectiles with which their belts and magazines were filled. Thus equipped, we +felt upon more even terms with the tigers, but there was no sign of the tigers, +and I decided that they must be confined to the mainland. +</p> + +<p> +After eating, we set out in search of fuel, leaving Taylor to guard the launch. +For some reason I could not trust Snider alone. I knew that he looked with +disapproval upon my plan to visit England, and I did not know but what at his +first opportunity, he might desert us, taking the launch with him, and attempt +to return to Pan-America. +</p> + +<p> +That he would be fool enough to venture it, I did not doubt. +</p> + +<p> +We had gone inland for a mile or more, and were passing through a park-like +wood, when we came suddenly upon the first human beings we had seen since we +sighted the English coast. +</p> + +<p> +There were a score of men in the party. Hairy, half-naked men they were, +resting in the shade of a great tree. At the first sight of us they sprang to +their feet with wild yells, seizing long spears that had lain beside them as +they rested. +</p> + +<p> +For a matter of fifty yards they ran from us as rapidly as they could, and then +they turned and surveyed us for a moment. Evidently emboldened by the scarcity +of our numbers, they commenced to advance upon us, brandishing their spears and +shouting horribly. +</p> + +<p> +They were short and muscular of build, with long hair and beards tangled and +matted with filth. Their heads, however, were shapely, and their eyes, though +fierce and warlike, were intelligent. +</p> + +<p> +Appreciation of these physical attributes came later, of course, when I had +better opportunity to study the men at close range and under circumstances less +fraught with danger and excitement. At the moment I saw, and with unmixed +wonder, only a score of wild savages charging down upon us, where I had +expected to find a community of civilized and enlightened people. +</p> + +<p> +Each of us was armed with rifle, revolver, and cutlass, but as we stood +shoulder to shoulder facing the wild men I was loath to give the command to +fire upon them, inflicting death or suffering upon strangers with whom we had +no quarrel, and so I attempted to restrain them for the moment that we might +parley with them. +</p> + +<p> +To this end I raised my left hand above my head with the palm toward them as +the most natural gesture indicative of peaceful intentions which occurred to +me. At the same time I called aloud to them that we were friends, though, from +their appearance, there was nothing to indicate that they might understand +Pan-American, or ancient English, which are of course practically identical. +</p> + +<p> +At my gesture and words they ceased their shouting and came to a halt a few +paces from us. Then, in deep tones, one who was in advance of the others and +whom I took to be the chief or leader of the party replied in a tongue which +while intelligible to us, was so distorted from the English language from which +it evidently had sprung, that it was with difficulty that we interpreted it. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you,” he asked, “and from what country?” +</p> + +<p> +I told him that we were from Pan-America, but he only shook his head and asked +where that was. He had never heard of it, or of the Atlantic Ocean which I told +him separated his country from mine. +</p> + +<p> +“It has been two hundred years,” I told him, “since a +Pan-American visited England.” +</p> + +<p> +“England?” he asked. “What is England?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why this is a part of England!” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“This is Grubitten,” he assured me. “I know nothing about +England, and I have lived here all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +It was not until long after that the derivation of Grubitten occurred to me. +Unquestionably it is a corruption of Great Britain, a name formerly given to +the large island comprising England, Scotland and Wales. Subsequently we heard +it pronounced Grabrittin and Grubritten. +</p> + +<p> +I then asked the fellow if he could direct us to Ryde or Newport; but again he +shook his head, and said that he never had heard of such countries. And when I +asked him if there were any cities in this country he did not know what I +meant, never having heard the word cities. +</p> + +<p> +I explained my meaning as best I could by stating that by city I referred to a +place where many people lived together in houses. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” he exclaimed, “you mean a camp! Yes, there are two +great camps here, East Camp and West Camp. We are from East Camp.” +</p> + +<p> +The use of the word camp to describe a collection of habitations naturally +suggested war to me, and my next question was as to whether the war was over, +and who had been victorious. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he replied to this question. “The war is not yet over. +But it soon will be, and it will end, as it always does, with the Westenders +running away. We, the Eastenders, are always victorious.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said, seeing that he referred to the petty tribal wars of +his little island, “I mean the Great War, the war with Germany. Is it +ended—and who was victorious?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“I never heard,” he said, “of any of these strange countries +of which you speak.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed incredible, and yet it was true. These people living at the very seat +of the Great War knew nothing of it, though but two centuries had passed since, +to our knowledge, it had been running in the height of its titanic +frightfulness all about them, and to us upon the far side of the Atlantic still +was a subject of keen interest. +</p> + +<p> +Here was a lifelong inhabitant of the Isle of Wight who never had heard of +either Germany or England! I turned to him quite suddenly with a new question. +</p> + +<p> +“What people live upon the mainland?” I asked, and pointed in the +direction of the Hants coast. +</p> + +<p> +“No one lives there,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Long ago, it is said, my people dwelt across the waters upon that other +land; but the wild beasts devoured them in such numbers that finally they were +driven here, paddling across upon logs and driftwood, nor has any dared return +since, because of the frightful creatures which dwell in that horrid +country.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do no other peoples ever come to your country in ships?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He never heard the word ship before, and did not know its meaning. But he +assured me that until we came he had thought that there were no other peoples +in the world other than the Grubittens, who consist of the Eastenders and the +Westenders of the ancient Isle of Wight. +</p> + +<p> +Assured that we were inclined to friendliness, our new acquaintances led us to +their village, or, as they call it, camp. There we found a thousand people, +perhaps, dwelling in rude shelters, and living upon the fruits of the chase and +such sea food as is obtainable close to shore, for they had no boats, nor any +knowledge of such things. +</p> + +<p> +Their weapons were most primitive, consisting of rude spears tipped with pieces +of metal pounded roughly into shape. They had no literature, no religion, and +recognized no law other than the law of might. They produced fire by striking a +bit of flint and steel together, but for the most part they ate their food raw. +Marriage is unknown among them, and while they have the word, mother, they did +not know what I meant by “father.” The males fight for the favor of +the females. They practice infanticide, and kill the aged and physically unfit. +</p> + +<p> +The family consists of the mother and the children, the men dwelling sometimes +in one hut and sometimes in another. Owing to their bloody duels, they are +always numerically inferior to the women, so there is shelter for them all. +</p> + +<p> +We spent several hours in the village, where we were objects of the greatest +curiosity. The inhabitants examined our clothing and all our belongings, and +asked innumerable questions concerning the strange country from which we had +come and the manner of our coming. +</p> + +<p> +I questioned many of them concerning past historical events, but they knew +nothing beyond the narrow limits of their island and the savage, primitive life +they led there. London they had never heard of, and they assured me that I +would find no human beings upon the mainland. +</p> + +<p> +Much saddened by what I had seen, I took my departure from them, and the three +of us made our way back to the launch, accompanied by about five hundred men, +women, girls, and boys. +</p> + +<p> +As we sailed away, after procuring the necessary ingredients of our chemical +fuel, the Grubittens lined the shore in silent wonder at the strange sight of +our dainty craft dancing over the sparkling waters, and watched us until we +were lost to their sight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p> +It was during the morning of July 6, 2137, that we entered the mouth of the +Thames—to the best of my knowledge the first Western keel to cut those +historic waters for two hundred and twenty-one years! +</p> + +<p> +But where were the tugs and the lighters and the barges, the lightships and the +buoys, and all those countless attributes which went to make up the myriad life +of the ancient Thames? +</p> + +<p> +Gone! All gone! Only silence and desolation reigned where once the commerce of +the world had centered. +</p> + +<p> +I could not help but compare this once great water-way with the waters about +our New York, or Rio, or San Diego, or Valparaiso. They had become what they +are today during the two centuries of the profound peace which we of the navy +have been prone to deplore. And what, during this same period, had shorn the +waters of the Thames of their pristine grandeur? +</p> + +<p> +Militarist that I am, I could find but a single word of explanation—war! +</p> + +<p> +I bowed my head and turned my eyes downward from the lonely and depressing +sight, and in a silence which none of us seemed willing to break, we proceeded +up the deserted river. +</p> + +<p> +We had reached a point which, from my map, I imagined must have been about the +former site of Erith, when I discovered a small band of antelope a short +distance inland. As we were now entirely out of meat once more, and as I had +given up all expectations of finding a city upon the site of ancient London, I +determined to land and bag a couple of the animals. +</p> + +<p> +Assured that they would be timid and easily frightened, I decided to stalk them +alone, telling the men to wait at the boat until I called to them to come and +carry the carcasses back to the shore. +</p> + +<p> +Crawling carefully through the vegetation, making use of such trees and bushes +as afforded shelter, I came at last almost within easy range of my quarry, when +the antlered head of the buck went suddenly into the air, and then, as though +in accordance with a prearranged signal, the whole band moved slowly off, +farther inland. +</p> + +<p> +As their pace was leisurely, I determined to follow them until I came again +within range, as I was sure that they would stop and feed in a short time. +</p> + +<p> +They must have led me a mile or more at least before they again halted and +commenced to browse upon the rank, luxuriant grasses. All the time that I had +followed them I had kept both eyes and ears alert for sign or sound that would +indicate the presence of Felis tigris; but so far not the slightest indication +of the beast had been apparent. +</p> + +<p> +As I crept closer to the antelope, sure this time of a good shot at a large +buck, I suddenly saw something that caused me to forget all about my prey in +wonderment. +</p> + +<p> +It was the figure of an immense grey-black creature, rearing its colossal +shoulders twelve or fourteen feet above the ground. Never in my life had I seen +such a beast, nor did I at first recognize it, so different in appearance is +the live reality from the stuffed, unnatural specimens preserved to us in our +museums. +</p> + +<p> +But presently I guessed the identity of the mighty creature as Elephas +africanus, or, as the ancients commonly described it, African elephant. +</p> + +<p> +The antelope, although in plain view of the huge beast, paid not the slightest +attention to it, and I was so wrapped up in watching the mighty pachyderm that +I quite forgot to shoot at the buck and presently, and in quite a startling +manner, it became impossible to do so. +</p> + +<p> +The elephant was browsing upon the young and tender shoots of some low bushes, +waving his great ears and switching his short tail. The antelope, scarce twenty +paces from him, continued their feeding, when suddenly, from close beside the +latter, there came a most terrifying roar, and I saw a great, tawny body shoot, +from the concealing verdure beyond the antelope, full upon the back of a small +buck. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly the scene changed from one of quiet and peace to indescribable chaos. +The startled and terrified buck uttered cries of agony. His fellows broke and +leaped off in all directions. The elephant raised his trunk, and, trumpeting +loudly, lumbered off through the wood, crushing down small trees and trampling +bushes in his mad flight. +</p> + +<p> +Growling horribly, a huge lion stood across the body of his prey—such a +creature as no Pan-American of the twenty-second century had ever beheld until +my eyes rested upon this lordly specimen of “the king of beasts.” +But what a different creature was this fierce-eyed demon, palpitating with life +and vigor, glossy of coat, alert, growling, magnificent, from the dingy, +moth-eaten replicas beneath their glass cases in the stuffy halls of our public +museums. +</p> + +<p> +I had never hoped or expected to see a living lion, tiger, or +elephant—using the common terms that were familiar to the ancients, since +they seem to me less unwieldy than those now in general use among us—and +so it was with sentiments not unmixed with awe that I stood gazing at this +regal beast as, above the carcass of his kill, he roared out his challenge to +the world. +</p> + +<p> +So enthralled was I by the spectacle that I quite forgot myself, and the better +to view him, the great lion, I had risen to my feet and stood, not fifty paces +from him, in full view. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment he did not see me, his attention being directed toward the +retreating elephant, and I had ample time to feast my eyes upon his splendid +proportions, his great head, and his thick black mane. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, what thoughts passed through my mind in those brief moments as I stood +there in rapt fascination! I had come to find a wondrous civilization, and +instead I found a wild-beast monarch of the realm where English kings had +ruled. A lion reigned, undisturbed, within a few miles of the seat of one of +the greatest governments the world has ever known, his domain a howling +wilderness, where yesterday fell the shadows of the largest city in the world. +</p> + +<p> +It was appalling; but my reflections upon this depressing subject were doomed +to sudden extinction. The lion had discovered me. +</p> + +<p> +For an instant he stood silent and motionless as one of the mangy effigies at +home, but only for an instant. Then, with a most ferocious roar, and without +the slightest hesitancy or warning, he charged upon me. +</p> + +<p> +He forsook the prey already dead beneath him for the pleasures of the +delectable tidbit, man. From the remorselessness with which the great Carnivora +of modern England hunted man, I am constrained to believe that, whatever their +appetites in times past, they have cultivated a gruesome taste for human flesh. +</p> + +<p> +As I threw my rifle to my shoulder, I thanked God, the ancient God of my +ancestors, that I had replaced the hard-jacketed bullets in my weapon with +soft-nosed projectiles, for though this was my first experience with Felis leo, +I knew the moment that I faced that charge that even my wonderfully perfected +firearm would be as futile as a peashooter unless I chanced to place my first +bullet in a vital spot. +</p> + +<p> +Unless you had seen it you could not believe credible the speed of a charging +lion. Apparently the animal is not built for speed, nor can he maintain it for +long. But for a matter of forty or fifty yards there is, I believe, no animal +on earth that can overtake him. +</p> + +<p> +Like a bolt he bore down upon me, but, fortunately for me, I did not lose my +head. I guessed that no bullet would kill him instantly. I doubted that I could +pierce his skull. There was hope, though, in finding his heart through his +exposed chest, or, better yet, of breaking his shoulder or foreleg, and +bringing him up long enough to pump more bullets into him and finish him. +</p> + +<p> +I covered his left shoulder and pulled the trigger as he was almost upon me. It +stopped him. With a terrific howl of pain and rage, the brute rolled over and +over upon the ground almost to my feet. As he came I pumped two more bullets +into him, and as he struggled to rise, clawing viciously at me, I put a bullet +in his spine. +</p> + +<p> +That finished him, and I am free to admit that I was mighty glad of it. There +was a great tree close behind me, and, stepping within its shade, I leaned +against it, wiping the perspiration from my face, for the day was hot, and the +exertion and excitement left me exhausted. +</p> + +<p> +I stood there, resting, for a moment, preparatory to turning and retracing my +steps to the launch, when, without warning, something whizzed through space +straight toward me. There was a dull thud of impact as it struck the tree, and +as I dodged to one side and turned to look at the thing I saw a heavy spear +imbedded in the wood not three inches from where my head had been. +</p> + +<p> +The thing had come from a little to one side of me, and, without waiting to +investigate at the instant, I leaped behind the tree, and, circling it, peered +around the other side to get a sight of my would-be murderer. +</p> + +<p> +This time I was pitted against men—the spear told me that all too +plainly—but so long as they didn’t take me unawares or from behind +I had little fear of them. +</p> + +<p> +Cautiously I edged about the far side of the trees until I could obtain a view +of the spot from which the spear must have come, and when I did I saw the head +of a man just emerging from behind a bush. +</p> + +<p> +The fellow was quite similar in type to those I had seen upon the Isle of +Wight. He was hairy and unkempt, and as he finally stepped into view I saw that +he was garbed in the same primitive fashion. +</p> + +<p> +He stood for a moment gazing about in search of me, and then he advanced. As he +did so a number of others, precisely like him, stepped from the concealing +verdure of nearby bushes and followed in his wake. Keeping the trees between +them and me, I ran back a short distance until I found a clump of underbrush +that would effectually conceal me, for I wished to discover the strength of the +party and its armament before attempting to parley with it. +</p> + +<p> +The useless destruction of any of these poor creatures was the farthest idea +from my mind. I should have liked to have spoken with them, but I did not care +to risk having to use my high-powered rifle upon them other than in the last +extremity. +</p> + +<p> +Once in my new place of concealment, I watched them as they approached the +tree. There were about thirty men in the party and one woman—a girl whose +hands seemed to be bound behind her and who was being pulled along by two of +the men. +</p> + +<p> +They came forward warily, peering cautiously into every bush and halting often. +At the body of the lion, they paused, and I could see from their gesticulations +and the higher pitch of their voices that they were much excited over my kill. +</p> + +<p> +But presently they resumed their search for me, and as they advanced I became +suddenly aware of the unnecessary brutality with which the girl’s guards +were treating her. She stumbled once, not far from my place of concealment, and +after the balance of the party had passed me. As she did so one of the men at +her side jerked her roughly to her feet and struck her across the mouth with +his fist. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly my blood boiled, and forgetting every consideration of caution, I +leaped from my concealment, and, springing to the manl’s side, felled him +with a blow. +</p> + +<p> +So unexpected had been my act that it found him and his fellow unprepared; but +instantly the latter drew the knife that protruded from his belt and lunged +viciously at me, at the same time giving voice to a wild cry of alarm. +</p> + +<p> +The girl shrank back at sight of me, her eyes wide in astonishment, and then my +antagonist was upon me. I parried his first blow with my forearm, at the same +time delivering a powerful blow to his jaw that sent him reeling back; but he +was at me again in an instant, though in the brief interim I had time to draw +my revolver. +</p> + +<p> +I saw his companion crawling slowly to his feet, and the others of the party +racing down upon me. There was no time to argue now, other than with the +weapons we wore, and so, as the fellow lunged at me again with the +wicked-looking knife, I covered his heart and pulled the trigger. +</p> + +<p> +Without a sound, he slipped to the earth, and then I turned the weapon upon the +other guard, who was now about to attack me. He, too, collapsed, and I was +alone with the astonished girl. +</p> + +<p> +The balance of the party was some twenty paces from us, but coming rapidly. I +seized her arm and drew her after me behind a nearby tree, for I had seen that +with both their comrades down the others were preparing to launch their spears. +</p> + +<p> +With the girl safe behind the tree, I stepped out in sight of the advancing +foe, shouting to them that I was no enemy, and that they should halt and listen +to me. But for answer they only yelled in derision and launched a couple of +spears at me, both of which missed. +</p> + +<p> +I saw then that I must fight, yet still I hated to slay them, and it was only +as a final resort that I dropped two of them with my rifle, bringing the others +to a temporary halt. Again, I appealed to them to desist. But they only mistook +my solicitude for them for fear, and, with shouts of rage and derision, leaped +forward once again to overwhelm me. +</p> + +<p> +It was now quite evident that I must punish them severely, +or—myself—die and relinquish the girl once more to her captors. +Neither of these things had I the slightest notion of doing, and so I again +stepped from behind the tree, and, with all the care and deliberation of target +practice, I commenced picking off the foremost of my assailants. +</p> + +<p> +One by one the wild men dropped, yet on came the others, fierce and vengeful, +until, only a few remaining, these seemed to realize the futility of combating +my modern weapon with their primitive spears, and, still howling wrathfully, +withdrew toward the west. +</p> + +<p> +Now, for the first time, I had an opportunity to turn my attention toward the +girl, who had stood, silent and motionless, behind me as I pumped death into my +enemies and hers from my automatic rifle. +</p> + +<p> +She was of medium height, well formed, and with fine, clear-cut features. Her +forehead was high, and her eyes both intelligent and beautiful. Exposure to the +sun had browned a smooth and velvety skin to a shade which seemed to enhance +rather than mar an altogether lovely picture of youthful femininity. +</p> + +<p> +A trace of apprehension marked her expression—I cannot call it fear since +I have learned to know her—and astonishment was still apparent in her +eyes. She stood quite erect, her hands still bound behind her, and met my gaze +with level, proud return. +</p> + +<p> +“What language do you speak?” I asked. “Do you understand +mine?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she replied. “It is similar to my own. I am Grabritin. +What are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a Pan-American,” I answered. She shook her head. “What +is that?” +</p> + +<p> +I pointed toward the west. “Far away, across the ocean.” +</p> + +<p> +Her expression altered a trifle. A slight frown contracted her brow. The +expression of apprehension deepened. +</p> + +<p> +“Take off your cap,” she said, and when, to humor her strange +request, I did as she bid, she appeared relieved. Then she edged to one side +and leaned over seemingly to peer behind me. I turned quickly to see what she +discovered, but finding nothing, wheeled about to see that her expression was +once more altered. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not from there?” and she pointed toward the east. It was a +half question. “You are not from across the water there?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I assured her. “I am from Pan-America, far away to the +west. Have you ever heard of Pan-America?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head in negation. “I do not care where you are from,” +she explained, “if you are not from there, and I am sure you are not, for +the men from there have horns and tails.” +</p> + +<p> +It was with difficulty that I restrained a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are the men from there?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“They are bad men,” she replied. “Some of my people do not +believe that there are such creatures. But we have a legend—a very old, +old legend, that once the men from there came across to Grabritin. They came +upon the water, and under the water, and even in the air. They came in great +numbers, so that they rolled across the land like a great gray fog. They +brought with them thunder and lightning and smoke that killed, and they fell +upon us and slew our people by the thousands and the hundreds of thousands. But +at last we drove them back to the waterl’s edge, back into the sea, where +many were drowned. Some escaped, and these our people followed—men, +women, and even children, we followed them back. That is all. The legend says +our people never returned. Maybe they were all killed. Maybe they are still +there. But this, also, is in the legend, that as we drove the men back across +the water they swore that they would return, and that when they left our shores +they would leave no human being alive behind them. I was afraid that you were +from there.” +</p> + +<p> +“By what name were these men called?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“We call them only the ‘men from there,’” she replied, +pointing toward the east. “I have never heard that they had another +name.” +</p> + +<p> +In the light of what I knew of ancient history, it was not difficult for me to +guess the nationality of those she described simply as “the men from over +there.” But what utter and appalling devastation the Great War must have +wrought to have erased not only every sign of civilization from the face of +this great land, but even the name of the enemy from the knowledge and language +of the people. +</p> + +<p> +I could only account for it on the hypothesis that the country had been +entirely depopulated except for a few scattered and forgotten children, who, in +some marvelous manner, had been preserved by Providence to re-populate the +land. These children had, doubtless, been too young to retain in their memories +to transmit to their children any but the vaguest suggestion of the cataclysm +which had overwhelmed their parents. +</p> + +<p> +Professor Cortoran, since my return to Pan-America, has suggested another +theory which is not entirely without claim to serious consideration. He points +out that it is quite beyond the pale of human instinct to desert little +children as my theory suggests the ancient English must have done. He is more +inclined to believe that the expulsion of the foe from England was synchronous +with widespread victories by the allies upon the continent, and that the people +of England merely emigrated from their ruined cities and their devastated, +blood-drenched fields to the mainland, in the hope of finding, in the domain of +the conquered enemy, cities and farms which would replace those they had lost. +</p> + +<p> +The learned professor assumes that while a long-continued war had strengthened +rather than weakened the instinct of paternal devotion, it had also dulled +other humanitarian instincts, and raised to the first magnitude the law of the +survival of the fittest, with the result that when the exodus took place the +strong, the intelligent, and the cunning, together with their offspring, +crossed the waters of the Channel or the North Sea to the continent, leaving in +unhappy England only the helpless inmates of asylums for the feebleminded and +insane. +</p> + +<p> +My objections to this, that the present inhabitants of England are mentally +fit, and could therefore not have descended from an ancestry of undiluted +lunacy he brushes aside with the assertion that insanity is not necessarily +hereditary; and that even though it was, in many cases a return to natural +conditions from the state of high civilization, which is thought to have +induced mental disease in the ancient world, would, after several generations, +have thoroughly expunged every trace of the affliction from the brains and +nerves of the descendants of the original maniacs. +</p> + +<p> +Personally, I do not place much stock in Professor Cortoranl’s theory, +though I admit that I am prejudiced. Naturally one does not care to believe +that the object of his greatest affection is descended from a gibbering idiot +and a raving maniac. +</p> + +<p> +But I am forgetting the continuity of my narrative—a continuity which I +desire to maintain, though I fear that I shall often be led astray, so numerous +and varied are the bypaths of speculation which lead from the present day story +of the Grabritins into the mysterious past of their forbears. +</p> + +<p> +As I stood talking with the girl I presently recollected that she still was +bound, and with a word of apology, I drew my knife and cut the rawhide thongs +which confined her wrists at her back. +</p> + +<p> +She thanked me, and with such a sweet smile that I should have been amply +repaid by it for a much more arduous service. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” I said, “let me accompany you to your home and see +you safely again under the protection of your friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said, with a hint of alarm in her voice; “you must +not come with me—Buckingham will kill you.” +</p> + +<p> +Buckingham. The name was famous in ancient English history. Its survival, with +many other illustrious names, is one of the strongest arguments in refutal of +Professor Cortoranl’s theory; yet it opens no new doors to the past, and, +on the whole, rather adds to than dissipates the mystery. +</p> + +<p> +“And who is Buckingham,” I asked, “and why should he wish to +kill me?” +</p> + +<p> +“He would think that you had stolen me,” she replied, “and as +he wishes me for himself, he will kill any other whom he thinks desires me. He +killed Wettin a few days ago. My mother told me once that Wettin was my father. +He was king. Now Buckingham is king.” +</p> + +<p> +Here, evidently, were a people slightly superior to those of the Isle of Wight. +These must have at least the rudiments of civilized government since they +recognized one among them as ruler, with the title, king. Also, they retained +the word father. The girl’s pronunciation, while far from identical with +ours, was much closer than the tortured dialect of the Eastenders of the Isle +of Wight. The longer I talked with her the more hopeful I became of finding +here, among her people, some records, or traditions, which might assist in +clearing up the historic enigma of the past two centuries. I asked her if we +were far from the city of London, but she did not know what I meant. When I +tried to explain, describing mighty buildings of stone and brick, broad +avenues, parks, palaces, and countless people, she but shook her head sadly. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no such place near by,” she said. “Only the Camp of +the Lions has places of stone where the beasts lair, but there are no people in +the Camp of the Lions. Who would dare go there!” And she shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +“The Camp of the Lions,” I repeated. “And where is that, and +what?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is there,” she said, pointing up the river toward the west. +“I have seen it from a great distance, but I have never been there. We +are much afraid of the lions, for this is their country, and they are angry +that man has come to live here. +</p> + +<p> +“Far away there,” and she pointed toward the south-west, “is +the land of tigers, which is even worse than this, the land of the lions, for +the tigers are more numerous than the lions and hungrier for human flesh. There +were tigers here long ago, but both the lions and the men set upon them and +drove them off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did these savage beasts come from?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she replied, “they have been here always. It is their +country.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do they not kill and eat your people?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Often, when we meet them by accident, and we are too few to slay them, +or when one goes too close to their camp. But seldom do they hunt us, for they +find what food they need among the deer and wild cattle, and, too, we make them +gifts, for are we not intruders in their country? Really we live upon good +terms with them, though I should not care to meet one were there not many +spears in my party.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to visit this Camp of the Lions,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, you must not!” cried the girl. “That would be +terrible. They would eat you.” For a moment, then, she seemed lost in +thought, but presently she turned upon me with: “You must go now, for any +minute Buckingham may come in search of me. Long since should they have learned +that I am gone from the camp—they watch over me very closely—and +they will set out after me. Go! I shall wait here until they come in search of +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I told her. “I’ll not leave you alone in a land +infested by lions and other wild beasts. If you won’t let me go as far as +your camp with you, then I’ll wait here until they come in search of +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please go!” she begged. “You have saved me, and I would save +you, but nothing will save you if Buckingham gets his hands on you. He is a bad +man. He wishes to have me for his woman so that he may be king. He would kill +anyone who befriended me, for fear that I might become anotherl’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you say that Buckingham is already the king?” I +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“He is. He took my mother for his woman after he had killed Wettin. But +my mother will die soon—she is very old—and then the man to whom I +belong will become king.” +</p> + +<p> +Finally, after much questioning, I got the thing through my head. It appears +that the line of descent is through the women. A man is merely head of his +wife’s family—that is all. If she chances to be the oldest female +member of the “royal” house, he is king. Very naively the girl +explained that there was seldom any doubt as to whom a childl’s mother +was. +</p> + +<p> +This accounted for the girl’s importance in the community and for +Buckinghaml’s anxiety to claim her, though she told me that she did not +wish to become his woman, for he was a bad man and would make a bad king. But +he was powerful, and there was no other man who dared dispute his wishes. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not come with me,” I suggested, “if you do not wish to +become Buckinghaml’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where would you take me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Where, indeed! I had not thought of that. But before I could reply to her +question she shook her head and said, “No, I cannot leave my people. I +must stay and do my best, even if Buckingham gets me, but you must go at once. +Do not wait until it is too late. The lions have had no offering for a long +time, and Buckingham would seize upon the first stranger as a gift to +them.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not perfectly understand what she meant, and was about to ask her when a +heavy body leaped upon me from behind, and great arms encircled my neck. I +struggled to free myself and turn upon my antagonist, but in another instant I +was overwhelmed by a half dozen powerful, half-naked men, while a score of +others surrounded me, a couple of whom seized the girl. +</p> + +<p> +I fought as best I could for my liberty and for hers, but the weight of numbers +was too great, though I had the satisfaction at least of giving them a good +fight. +</p> + +<p> +When they had overpowered me, and I stood, my hands bound behind me, at the +girl’s side, she gazed commiseratingly at me. +</p> + +<p> +“It is too bad that you did not do as I bid you,” she said, +“for now it has happened just as I feared—Buckingham has +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which is Buckingham?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I am Buckingham,” growled a burly, unwashed brute, swaggering +truculently before me. “And who are you who would have stolen my +woman?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl spoke up then and tried to explain that I had not stolen her; but on +the contrary I had saved her from the men from the “Elephant +Country” who were carrying her away. +</p> + +<p> +Buckingham only sneered at her explanation, and a moment later gave the command +that started us all off toward the west. We marched for a matter of an hour or +so, coming at last to a collection of rude huts, fashioned from branches of +trees covered with skins and grasses and sometimes plastered with mud. All +about the camp they had erected a wall of saplings pointed at the tops and fire +hardened. +</p> + +<p> +This palisade was a protection against both man and beasts, and within it dwelt +upward of two thousand persons, the shelters being built very close together, +and sometimes partially underground, like deep trenches, with the poles and +hides above merely as protection from the sun and rain. +</p> + +<p> +The older part of the camp consisted almost wholly of trenches, as though this +had been the original form of dwellings which was slowly giving way to the +drier and airier surface domiciles. In these trench habitations I saw a +survival of the military trenches which formed so famous a part of the +operation of the warring nations during the twentieth century. +</p> + +<p> +The women wore a single light deerskin about their hips, for it was summer, and +quite warm. The men, too, were clothed in a single garment, usually the pelt of +some beast of prey. The hair of both men and women was confined by a rawhide +thong passing about the forehead and tied behind. In this leathern band were +stuck feathers, flowers, or the tails of small mammals. All wore necklaces of +the teeth or claws of wild beasts, and there were numerous metal wristlets and +anklets among them. +</p> + +<p> +They wore, in fact, every indication of a most primitive people—a race +which had not yet risen to the heights of agriculture or even the possession of +domestic animals. They were hunters—the lowest plane in the evolution of +the human race of which science takes cognizance. +</p> + +<p> +And yet as I looked at their well shaped heads, their handsome features, and +their intelligent eyes, it was difficult to believe that I was not among my +own. It was only when I took into consideration their mode of living, their +scant apparel, the lack of every least luxury among them, that I was forced to +admit that they were, in truth, but ignorant savages. +</p> + +<p> +Buckingham had relieved me of my weapons, though he had not the slightest idea +of their purpose or uses, and when we reached the camp he exhibited both me and +my arms with every indication of pride in this great capture. +</p> + +<p> +The inhabitants flocked around me, examining my clothing, and exclaiming in +wonderment at each new discovery of button, buckle, pocket, and flap. It seemed +incredible that such a thing could be, almost within a stone’s throw of +the spot where but a brief two centuries before had stood the greatest city of +the world. +</p> + +<p> +They bound me to a small tree that grew in the middle of one of their crooked +streets, but the girl they released as soon as we had entered the enclosure. +The people greeted her with every mark of respect as she hastened to a large +hut near the center of the camp. +</p> + +<p> +Presently she returned with a fine looking, white-haired woman, who proved to +be her mother. The older woman carried herself with a regal dignity that seemed +quite remarkable in a place of such primitive squalor. +</p> + +<p> +The people fell aside as she approached, making a wide way for her and her +daughter. When they had come near and stopped before me the older woman +addressed me. +</p> + +<p> +“My daughter has told me,” she said, “of the manner in which +you rescued her from the men of the elephant country. If Wettin lived you would +be well treated, but Buckingham has taken me now, and is king. You can hope for +nothing from such a beast as Buckingham.” +</p> + +<p> +The fact that Buckingham stood within a pace of us and was an interested +listener appeared not to temper her expressions in the slightest. +</p> + +<p> +“Buckingham is a pig,” she continued. “He is a coward. He +came upon Wettin from behind and ran his spear through him. He will not be king +for long. Some one will make a face at him, and he will run away and jump into +the river.” +</p> + +<p> +The people began to titter and clap their hands. Buckingham became red in the +face. It was evident that he was far from popular. +</p> + +<p> +“If he dared,” went on the old lady, “he would kill me now, +but he does not dare. He is too great a coward. If I could help you I should +gladly do so. But I am only queen—the vehicle that has helped carry down, +unsullied, the royal blood from the days when Grabritin was a mighty +country.” +</p> + +<p> +The old queenl’s words had a noticeable effect upon the mob of curious +savages which surrounded me. The moment they discovered that the old queen was +friendly to me and that I had rescued her daughter they commenced to accord me +a more friendly interest, and I heard many words spoken in my behalf, and +demands were made that I not be harmed. +</p> + +<p> +But now Buckingham interfered. He had no intention of being robbed of his prey. +Blustering and storming, he ordered the people back to their huts, at the same +time directing two of his warriors to confine me in a dugout in one of the +trenches close to his own shelter. +</p> + +<p> +Here they threw me upon the ground, binding my ankles together and trussing +them up to my wrists behind. There they left me, lying upon my stomach—a +most uncomfortable and strained position, to which was added the pain where the +cords cut into my flesh. +</p> + +<p> +Just a few days ago my mind had been filled with the anticipation of the +friendly welcome I should find among the cultured Englishmen of London. Today I +should be sitting in the place of honor at the banquet board of one of +Londonl’s most exclusive clubs, feted and lionized. +</p> + +<p> +The actuality! Here I lay, bound hand and foot, doubtless almost upon the very +site of a part of ancient London, yet all about me was a primeval wilderness, +and I was a captive of half-naked wild men. +</p> + +<p> +I wondered what had become of Delcarte and Taylor and Snider. Would they search +for me? They could never find me, I feared, yet if they did, what could they +accomplish against this horde of savage warriors? +</p> + +<p> +Would that I could warn them. I thought of the girl—doubtless she could +get word to them, but how was I to communicate with her? Would she come to see +me before I was killed? It seemed incredible that she should not make some +slight attempt to befriend me; yet, as I recalled, she had made no effort to +speak with me after we had reached the village. She had hastened to her mother +the moment she had been liberated. Though she had returned with the old queen, +she had not spoken to me, even then. I began to have my doubts. +</p> + +<p> +Finally, I came to the conclusion that I was absolutely friendless except for +the old queen. For some unaccountable reason my rage against the girl for her +ingratitude rose to colossal proportions. +</p> + +<p> +For a long time I waited for some one to come to my prison whom I might ask to +bear word to the queen, but I seemed to have been forgotten. The strained +position in which I lay became unbearable. I wriggled and twisted until I +managed to turn myself partially upon my side, where I lay half facing the +entrance to the dugout. +</p> + +<p> +Presently my attention was attracted by the shadow of something moving in the +trench without, and a moment later the figure of a child appeared, creeping +upon all fours, as, wide-eyed, and prompted by childish curiosity, a little +girl crawled to the entrance of my hut and peered cautiously and fearfully in. +</p> + +<p> +I did not speak at first for fear of frightening the little one away. But when +I was satisfied that her eyes had become sufficiently accustomed to the subdued +light of the interior, I smiled. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly the expression of fear faded from her eyes to be replaced with an +answering smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you, little girl?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Mary,” she replied. “I am Victoryl’s +sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“And who is Victory?” +</p> + +<p> +“You do not know who Victory is?” she asked, in astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head in negation. +</p> + +<p> +“You saved her from the elephant country people, and yet you say you do +not know her!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, so she is Victory, and you are her sister! I have not heard her name +before. That is why I did not know whom you meant,” I explained. Here was +just the messenger for me. Fate was becoming more kind. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you do something for me, Mary?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“If I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go to your mother, the queen, and ask her to come to me,” I said. +“I have a favor to ask.” +</p> + +<p> +She said that she would, and with a parting smile she left me. +</p> + +<p> +For what seemed many hours I awaited her return, chafing with impatience. The +afternoon wore on and night came, and yet no one came near me. My captors +brought me neither food nor water. I was suffering considerable pain where the +rawhide thongs cut into my swollen flesh. I thought that they had either +forgotten me, or that it was their intention to leave me here to die of +starvation. +</p> + +<p> +Once I heard a great uproar in the village. Men were shouting—women were +screaming and moaning. After a time this subsided, and again there was a long +interval of silence. +</p> + +<p> +Half the night must have been spent when I heard a sound in the trench near the +hut. It resembled muffled sobs. Presently a figure appeared, silhouetted +against the lesser darkness beyond the doorway. It crept inside the hut. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you here?” whispered a childlike voice. +</p> + +<p> +It was Mary! She had returned. The thongs no longer hurt me. The pangs of +hunger and thirst disappeared. I realized that it had been loneliness from +which I suffered most. +</p> + +<p> +“Mary!” I exclaimed. “You are a good girl. You have come +back, after all. I had commenced to think that you would not. Did you give my +message to the queen? Will she come? Where is she?” +</p> + +<p> +The childl’s sobs increased, and she flung herself upon the dirt floor of +the hut, apparently overcome by grief. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” I asked. “Why do you cry?” +</p> + +<p> +“The queen, my mother, will not come to you,” she said, between +sobs. “She is dead. Buckingham has killed her. Now he will take Victory, +for Victory is queen. He kept us fastened up in our shelter, for fear that +Victory would escape him, but I dug a hole beneath the back wall and got out. I +came to you, because you saved Victory once before, and I thought that you +might save her again, and me, also. Tell me that you will.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am bound and helpless, Mary,” I replied. “Otherwise I +would do what I could to save you and your sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will set you free!” cried the girl, creeping up to my side. +“I will set you free, and then you may come and slay Buckingham.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gladly!” I assented. +</p> + +<p> +“We must hurry,” she went on, as she fumbled with the hard knots in +the stiffened rawhide, “for Buckingham will be after you soon. He must +make an offering to the lions at dawn before he can take Victory. The taking of +a queen requires a human offering!” +</p> + +<p> +“And I am to be the offering?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, tugging at a knot. “Buckingham has been +wanting a sacrifice ever since he killed Wettin, that he might slay my mother +and take Victory.” +</p> + +<p> +The thought was horrible, not solely because of the hideous fate to which I was +condemned, but from the contemplation it engendered of the sad decadence of a +once enlightened race. To these depths of ignorance, brutality, and +superstition had the vaunted civilization of twentieth century England been +plunged, and by what? War! I felt the structure of our time-honored +militaristic arguments crumbling about me. +</p> + +<p> +Mary labored with the thongs that confined me. They proved +refractory—defying her tender, childish fingers. She assured me, however, +that she would release me, if “they” did not come too soon. +</p> + +<p> +But, alas, they came. We heard them coming down the trench, and I bade Mary +hide in a corner, lest she be discovered and punished. There was naught else +she could do, and so she crawled away into the Stygian blackness behind me. +</p> + +<p> +Presently two warriors entered. The leader exhibited a unique method of +discovering my whereabouts in the darkness. He advanced slowly, kicking out +viciously before him. Finally he kicked me in the face. Then he knew where I +was. +</p> + +<p> +A moment later I had been jerked roughly to my feet. One of the fellows stopped +and severed the bonds that held my ankles. I could scarcely stand alone. The +two pulled and hauled me through the low doorway and along the trench. A party +of forty or fifty warriors were awaiting us at the brink of the excavation some +hundred yards from the hut. +</p> + +<p> +Hands were lowered to us, and we were dragged to the surface. Then commenced a +long march. We stumbled through the underbrush wet with dew, our way lighted by +a score of torchbearers who surrounded us. But the torches were not to light +the way—that was but incidental. They were carried to keep off the huge +Carnivora that moaned and coughed and roared about us. +</p> + +<p> +The noises were hideous. The whole country seemed alive with lions. +Yellow-green eyes blazed wickedly at us from out the surrounding darkness. My +escort carried long, heavy spears. These they kept ever pointed toward the +beast of prey, and I learned from snatches of the conversation I overheard that +occasionally there might be a lion who would brave even the terrors of fire to +leap in upon human prey. It was for such that the spears were always couched. +</p> + +<p> +But nothing of the sort occurred during this hideous death march, and with the +first pale heralding of dawn we reached our goal—an open place in the +midst of a tangled wildwood. Here rose in crumbling grandeur the first +evidences I had seen of the ancient civilization which once had graced fair +Albion—a single, time-worn arch of masonry. +</p> + +<p> +“The entrance to the Camp of the Lions!” murmured one of the party +in a voice husky with awe. +</p> + +<p> +Here the party knelt, while Buckingham recited a weird, prayer-like chant. It +was rather long, and I recall only a portion of it, which ran, if my memory +serves me, somewhat as follows: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + +Lord of Grabritin, we<br /> +Fall on our knees to thee,<br /> +This gift to bring.<br /> +Greatest of kings are thou!<br /> +To thee we humbly bow!<br /> +Peace to our camp allow.<br /> +God save thee, king! +</p> + +<p> +Then the party rose, and dragging me to the crumbling arch, made me fast to a +huge, corroded, copper ring which was dangling from an eyebolt imbedded in the +masonry. +</p> + +<p> +None of them, not even Buckingham, seemed to feel any personal animosity toward +me. They were naturally rough and brutal, as primitive men are supposed to have +been since the dawn of humanity, but they did not go out of their way to +maltreat me. +</p> + +<p> +With the coming of dawn the number of lions about us seemed to have greatly +diminished—at least they made less noise—and as Buckingham and his +party disappeared into the woods, leaving me alone to my terrible fate, I could +hear the grumblings and growlings of the beasts diminishing with the sound of +the chant, which the party still continued. It appeared that the lions had +failed to note that I had been left for their breakfast, and had followed off +after their worshippers instead. +</p> + +<p> +But I knew the reprieve would be but for a short time, and though I had no wish +to die, I must confess that I rather wished the ordeal over and the peace of +oblivion upon me. +</p> + +<p> +The voices of the men and the lions receded in the distance, until finally +quiet reigned about me, broken only by the sweet voices of birds and the +sighing of the summer wind in the trees. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed impossible to believe that in this peaceful woodland setting the +frightful thing was to occur which must come with the passing of the next lion +who chanced within sight or smell of the crumbling arch. +</p> + +<p> +I strove to tear myself loose from my bonds, but succeeded only in tightening +them about my arms. Then I remained passive for a long time, letting the scenes +of my lifetime pass in review before my mindl’s eye. +</p> + +<p> +I tried to imagine the astonishment, incredulity, and horror with which my +family and friends would be overwhelmed if, for an instant, space could be +annihilated and they could see me at the gates of London. +</p> + +<p> +The gates of London! Where was the multitude hurrying to the marts of trade +after a night of pleasure or rest? Where was the clang of tramcar gongs, the +screech of motor horns, the vast murmur of a dense throng? +</p> + +<p> +Where were they? And as I asked the question a lone, gaunt lion strode from the +tangled jungle upon the far side of the clearing. Majestically and noiselessly +upon his padded feet the king of beasts moved slowly toward the gates of London +and toward me. +</p> + +<p> +Was I afraid? I fear that I was almost afraid. I know that I thought that fear +was coming to me, and so I straightened up and squared my shoulders and looked +the lion straight in the eyes—and waited. +</p> + +<p> +It is not a nice way to die—alone, with one’s hands fast bound, +beneath the fangs and talons of a beast of prey. No, it is not a nice way to +die, not a pretty way. +</p> + +<p> +The lion was halfway across the clearing when I heard a slight sound behind me. +The great cat stopped in his tracks. He lashed his tail against his sides now, +instead of simply twitching its tip, and his low moan became a thunderous roar. +</p> + +<p> +As I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of the thing that had aroused the fury +of the beast before me, it sprang through the arched gateway and was at my +side—with parted lips and heaving bosom and disheveled hair—a +bronzed and lovely vision to eyes that had never harbored hope of rescue. +</p> + +<p> +It was Victory, and in her arms she clutched my rifle and revolver. A long +knife was in the doeskin belt that supported the doeskin skirt tightly about +her lithe limbs. She dropped my weapons at my feet, and, snatching the knife +from its resting place, severed the bonds that held me. I was free, and the +lion was preparing to charge. +</p> + +<p> +“Run!” I cried to the girl, as I bent and seized my rifle. But she +only stood there at my side, her bared blade ready in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +The lion was bounding toward us now in prodigious leaps. I raised the rifle and +fired. It was a lucky shot, for I had no time to aim carefully, and when the +beast crumpled and rolled, lifeless, to the ground, I went upon my knees and +gave thanks to the God of my ancestors. +</p> + +<p> +And, still upon my knees, I turned, and taking the girl’s hand in mine, I +kissed it. She smiled at that, and laid her other hand upon my head. +</p> + +<p> +“You have strange customs in your country,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +I could not but smile at that when I thought how strange it would seem to my +countrymen could they but see me kneeling there on the site of London, kissing +the hand of Englandl’s queen. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” I said, as I rose, “you must return to the safety +of your camp. I will go with you until you are near enough to continue alone in +safety. Then I shall try to return to my comrades.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not return to the camp,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“But what shall you do?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know. Only I shall never go back while Buckingham lives. I +should rather die than go back to him. Mary came to me, after they had taken +you from the camp, and told me. I found your strange weapons and followed with +them. It took me a little longer, for often I had to hide in the trees that the +lions might not get me, but I came in time, and now you are free to go back to +your friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“And leave you here?” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded, but I could see through all her brave front that she was frightened +at the thought. I could not leave her, of course, but what in the world I was +to do, cumbered with the care of a young woman, and a queen at that, I was at a +loss to know. I pointed out that phase of it to her, but she only shrugged her +shapely shoulders and pointed to her knife. +</p> + +<p> +It was evident that she felt entirely competent to protect herself. +</p> + +<p> +As we stood there we heard the sound of voices. They were coming from the +forest through which we had passed when we had come from camp. +</p> + +<p> +“They are searching for me,” said the girl. “Where shall we +hide?” +</p> + +<p> +I didn’t relish hiding. But when I thought of the innumerable dangers +which surrounded us and the comparatively small amount of ammunition that I had +with me, I hesitated to provoke a battle with Buckingham and his warriors when, +by flight, I could avoid them and preserve my cartridges against emergencies +which could not be escaped. +</p> + +<p> +“Would they follow us there?” I asked, pointing through the archway +into the Camp of the Lions. +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” she replied, “for, in the first place, they would +know that we would not dare go there, and in the second they themselves would +not dare.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we shall take refuge in the Camp of the Lions,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +She shuddered and drew closer to me. +</p> + +<p> +“You dare?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” I returned. “We shall be safe from Buckingham, and +you have seen, for the second time in two days, that lions are harmless before +my weapons. Then, too, I can find my friends easiest in this direction, for the +River Thames runs through this place you call the Camp of the Lions, and it is +farther down the Thames that my friends are awaiting me. Do you not dare come +with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare follow wherever you lead,” she answered simply. +</p> + +<p> +And so I turned and passed beneath the great arch into the city of London. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p> +As we entered deeper into what had once been the city, the evidences of +manl’s past occupancy became more frequent. For a mile from the arch +there was only a riot of weeds and undergrowth and trees covering small mounds +and little hillocks that, I was sure, were formed of the ruins of stately +buildings of the dead past. +</p> + +<p> +But presently we came upon a district where shattered walls still raised their +crumbling tops in sad silence above the grass-grown sepulchers of their fallen +fellows. Softened and mellowed by ancient ivy stood these sentinels of sorrow, +their scarred faces still revealing the rents and gashes of shrapnel and of +bomb. +</p> + +<p> +Contrary to our expectations, we found little indication that lions in any +great numbers laired in this part of ancient London. Well-worn pathways, molded +by padded paws, led through the cavernous windows or doorways of a few of the +ruins we passed, and once we saw the savage face of a great, black-maned lion +scowling down upon us from a shattered stone balcony. +</p> + +<p> +We followed down the bank of the Thames after we came upon it. I was anxious to +look with my own eyes upon the famous bridge, and I guessed, too, that the +river would lead me into the part of London where stood Westminster Abbey and +the Tower. +</p> + +<p> +Realizing that the section through which we had been passing was doubtless +outlying, and therefore not so built up with large structures as the more +centrally located part of the old town, I felt sure that farther down the river +I should find the ruins larger. The bridge would be there in part, at least, +and so would remain the walls of many of the great edifices of the past. There +would be no such complete ruin of large structures as I had seen among the +smaller buildings. +</p> + +<p> +But when I had come to that part of the city which I judged to have contained +the relics I sought I found havoc that had been wrought there even greater than +elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +At one point upon the bosom of the Thames there rises a few feet above the +water a single, disintegrating mound of masonry. Opposite it, upon either bank +of the river, are tumbled piles of ruins overgrown with vegetation. +</p> + +<p> +These, I am forced to believe, are all that remain of London Bridge, for +nowhere else along the river is there any other slightest sign of pier or +abutment. +</p> + +<p> +Rounding the base of a large pile of grass-covered debris, we came suddenly +upon the best preserved ruin we had yet discovered. The entire lower story and +part of the second story of what must once have been a splendid public building +rose from a great knoll of shrubbery and trees, while ivy, thick and luxuriant, +clambered upward to the summit of the broken walls. +</p> + +<p> +In many places the gray stone was still exposed, its smoothly chiseled face +pitted with the scars of battle. The massive portal yawned, somber and +sorrowful, before us, giving a glimpse of marble halls within. +</p> + +<p> +The temptation to enter was too great. I wished to explore the interior of this +one remaining monument of civilization now dead beyond recall. Through this +same portal, within these very marble halls, had Gray and Chamberlin and +Kitchener and Shaw, perhaps, come and gone with the other great ones of the +past. +</p> + +<p> +I took Victoryl’s hand in mine. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” I said. “I do not know the name by which this great +pile was known, nor the purposes it fulfilled. It may have been the palace of +your sires, Victory. From some great throne within, your forebears may have +directed the destinies of half the world. Come!” +</p> + +<p> +I must confess to a feeling of awe as we entered the rotunda of the great +building. Pieces of massive furniture of another day still stood where man had +placed them centuries ago. They were littered with dust and broken stone and +plaster, but, otherwise, so perfect was their preservation I could hardly +believe that two centuries had rolled by since human eyes were last set upon +them. +</p> + +<p> +Through one great room after another we wandered, hand in hand, while Victory +asked many questions and for the first time I began to realize something of the +magnificence and power of the race from whose loins she had sprung. +</p> + +<p> +Splendid tapestries, now mildewed and rotting, hung upon the walls. There were +mural paintings, too, depicting great historic events of the past. For the +first time Victory saw the likeness of a horse, and she was much affected by a +huge oil which depicted some ancient cavalry charge against a battery of field +guns. +</p> + +<p> +In other pictures there were steamships, battleships, submarines, and quaint +looking railway trains—all small and antiquated in appearance to me, but +wonderful to Victory. She told me that she would like to remain for the rest of +her life where she could look at those pictures daily. +</p> + +<p> +From room to room we passed until presently we emerged into a mighty chamber, +dark and gloomy, for its high and narrow windows were choked and clogged by +ivy. Along one paneled wall we groped, our eyes slowly becoming accustomed to +the darkness. A rank and pungent odor pervaded the atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +We had made our way about half the distance across one end of the great +apartment when a low growl from the far end brought us to a startled halt. +</p> + +<p> +Straining my eyes through the gloom, I made out a raised dais at the extreme +opposite end of the hall. Upon the dais stood two great chairs, highbacked and +with great arms. +</p> + +<p> +The throne of England! But what were those strange forms about it? +</p> + +<p> +Victory gave my hand a quick, excited little squeeze. +</p> + +<p> +“The lions!” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, lions indeed! Sprawled about the dais were a dozen huge forms, while upon +the seat of one of the thrones a small cub lay curled in slumber. +</p> + +<p> +As we stood there for a moment, spellbound by the sight of those fearsome +creatures occupying the very thrones of the sovereigns of England, the low +growl was repeated, and a great male rose slowly to his feet. +</p> + +<p> +His devilish eyes bored straight through the semi-darkness toward us. He had +discovered the interloper. What right had man within this palace of the beasts? +Again he opened his giant jaws, and this time there rumbled forth a warning +roar. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly eight or ten of the other beasts leaped to their feet. Already the +great fellow who had spied us was advancing slowly in our direction. I held my +rifle ready, but how futile it appeared in the face of this savage horde. +</p> + +<p> +The foremost beast broke into a slow trot, and at his heels came the others. +All were roaring now, and the din of their great voices reverberating through +the halls and corridors of the palace formed the most frightful chorus of +thunderous savagery imaginable to the mind of man. +</p> + +<p> +And then the leader charged, and upon the hideous pandemonium broke the sharp +crack of my rifle, once, twice, thrice. Three lions rolled, struggling and +biting, to the floor. Victory seized my arm, with a quick, “This way! +Here is a door,” and a moment later we were in a tiny antechamber at the +foot of a narrow stone staircase. +</p> + +<p> +Up this we backed, Victory just behind me, as the first of the remaining lions +leaped from the throne room and sprang for the stairs. Again I fired, but +others of the ferocious beasts leaped over their fallen fellows and pursued us. +</p> + +<p> +The stairs were very narrow—that was all that saved us—for as I +backed slowly upward, but a single lion could attack me at a time, and the +carcasses of those I slew impeded the rushes of the others. +</p> + +<p> +At last we reached the top. There was a long corridor from which opened many +doorways. One, directly behind us, was tight closed. If we could open it and +pass into the chamber behind we might find a respite from attack. +</p> + +<p> +The remaining lions were roaring horribly. I saw one sneaking very slowly up +the stairs toward us. +</p> + +<p> +“Try that door,” I called to Victory. “See if it will +open.” +</p> + +<p> +She ran up to it and pushed. +</p> + +<p> +“Turn the knob!” I cried, seeing that she did not know how to open +a door, but neither did she know what I meant by knob. +</p> + +<p> +I put a bullet in the spine of the approaching lion and leaped to +Victoryl’s side. The door resisted my first efforts to swing it inward. +Rusted hinges and swollen wood held it tightly closed. But at last it gave, and +just as another lion mounted to the top of the stairway it swung in, and I +pushed Victory across the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +Then I turned to meet the renewed attack of the savage foe. One lion fell in +his tracks, another stumbled to my very feet, and then I leaped within and +slammed the portal to. +</p> + +<p> +A quick glance showed me that this was the only door to the small apartment in +which we had found sanctuary, and, with a sigh of relief, I leaned for a moment +against the panels of the stout barrier that separated us from the ramping +demons without. +</p> + +<p> +Across the room, between two windows, stood a flat-topped desk. A little pile +of white and brown lay upon it close to the opposite edge. After a moment of +rest I crossed the room to investigate. The white was the bleached human +bones—the skull, collar bones, arms, and a few of the upper ribs of a +man. The brown was the dust of a decayed military cap and blouse. In a chair +before the desk were other bones, while more still strewed the floor beneath +the desk and about the chair. A man had died sitting there with his face buried +in his arms—two hundred years ago. +</p> + +<p> +Beneath the desk were a pair of spurred military boots, green and rotten with +decay. In them were the leg bones of a man. Among the tiny bones of the hands +was an ancient fountain pen, as good, apparently, as the day it was made, and a +metal covered memoranda book, closed over the bones of an index finger. +</p> + +<p> +It was a gruesome sight—a pitiful sight—this lone inhabitant of +mighty London. +</p> + +<p> +I picked up the metal covered memoranda book. Its pages were rotten and stuck +together. Only here and there was a sentence or a part of a sentence legible. +The first that I could read was near the middle of the little volume: +</p> + +<p> +“His majesty left for Tunbridge Wells today, he ... jesty was stricken +... terday. God give she does not die ... am military governor of Lon +...” +</p> + +<p> +And farther on: +</p> + +<p> +“It is awful ... hundred deaths today ... worse than the bombardm +...” +</p> + +<p> +Nearer the end I picked out the following: +</p> + +<p> +“I promised his maj ... e will find me here when he ret ... alone.” +</p> + +<p> +The most legible passage was on the next page: +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God we drove them out. There is not a single ... man on British +soil today; but at what awful cost. I tried to persuade Sir Phillip to urge the +people to remain. But they are mad with fear of the Death, and rage at our +enemies. He tells me that the coast cities are packed ... waiting to be taken +across. What will become of England, with none left to rebuild her shattered +cities!” +</p> + +<p> +And the last entry: +</p> + +<p> +“... alone. Only the wild beasts ... A lion is roaring now beneath the +palace windows. I think the people feared the beasts even more than they did +the Death. But they are gone, all gone, and to what? How much better conditions +will they find on the continent? All gone—only I remain. I promised his +majesty, and when he returns he will find that I was true to my trust, for I +shall be awaiting him. God save the King!” +</p> + +<p> +That was all. This brave and forever nameless officer died nobly at his +post—true to his country and his king. It was the Death, no doubt, that +took him. +</p> + +<p> +Some of the entries had been dated. From the few legible letters and figures +which remained I judge the end came some time in August, 1937, but of that I am +not at all certain. +</p> + +<p> +The diary has cleared up at least one mystery that had puzzled me not a little, +and now I am surprised that I had not guessed its solution myself—the +presence of African and Asiatic beasts in England. +</p> + +<p> +Acclimated by years of confinement in the zoological gardens, they were fitted +to resume in England the wild existence for which nature had intended them, and +once free, had evidently bred prolifically, in marked contrast to the captive +exotics of twentieth century Pan-America, which had gradually become fewer +until extinction occurred some time during the twenty-first century. +</p> + +<p> +The palace, if such it was, lay not far from the banks of the Thames. The room +in which we were imprisoned overlooked the river, and I determined to attempt +to escape in this direction. +</p> + +<p> +To descend through the palace was out of the question, but outside we could +discover no lions. The stems of the ivy which clambered upward past the window +of the room were as large around as my arm. I knew that they would support our +weight, and as we could gain nothing by remaining longer in the palace, I +decided to descend by way of the ivy and follow along down the river in the +direction of the launch. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally I was much handicapped by the presence of the girl. But I could not +abandon her, though I had no idea what I should do with her after rejoining my +companions. That she would prove a burden and an embarrassment I was certain, +but she had made it equally plain to me that she would never return to her +people to mate with Buckingham. +</p> + +<p> +I owed my life to her, and, all other considerations aside, that was sufficient +demand upon my gratitude and my honor to necessitate my suffering every +inconvenience in her service. Too, she was queen of England. But, by far the +most potent argument in her favor, she was a woman in distress—and a +young and very beautiful one. +</p> + +<p> +And so, though I wished a thousand times that she was back in her camp, I never +let her guess it, but did all that lay within my power to serve and protect +her. I thank God now that I did so. +</p> + +<p> +With the lions still padding back and forth beyond the closed door, Victory and +I crossed the room to one of the windows. I had outlined my plan to her, and +she had assured me that she could descend the ivy without assistance. In fact, +she smiled a trifle at my question. +</p> + +<p> +Swinging myself outward, I began the descent, and had come to within a few feet +of the ground, being just opposite a narrow window, when I was startled by a +savage growl almost in my ear, and then a great taloned paw darted from the +aperture to seize me, and I saw the snarling face of a lion within the +embrasure. +</p> + +<p> +Releasing my hold upon the ivy, I dropped the remaining distance to the ground, +saved from laceration only because the lionl’s paw struck the thick stem +of ivy. +</p> + +<p> +The creature was making a frightful racket now, leaping back and forth from the +floor at the broad window ledge, tearing at the masonry with his claws in vain +attempts to reach me. But the opening was too narrow, and the masonry too +solid. +</p> + +<p> +Victory had commenced the descent, but I called to her to stop just above the +window, and, as the lion reappeared, growling and snarling, I put a .33 bullet +in his face, and at the same moment Victory slipped quickly past him, dropping +into my upraised arms that were awaiting her. +</p> + +<p> +The roaring of the beasts that had discovered us, together with the report of +my rifle, had set the balance of the fierce inmates of the palace into the most +frightful uproar I have ever heard. +</p> + +<p> +I feared that it would not be long before intelligence or instinct would draw +them from the interiors and set them upon our trail, the river. Nor had we much +more than reached it when a lion bounded around the corner of the edifice we +had just quitted and stood looking about as though in search of us. +</p> + +<p> +Following, came others, while Victory and I crouched in hiding behind a clump +of bushes close to the bank of the river. The beasts sniffed about the ground +for a while, but they did not chance to go near the spot where we had stood +beneath the window that had given us escape. +</p> + +<p> +Presently a black-maned male raised his head, and, with cocked ears and glaring +eyes, gazed straight at the bush behind which we lay. I could have sworn that +he had discovered us, and when he took a few short and stately steps in our +direction I raised my rifle and covered him. But, after a long, tense moment he +looked away, and turned to glare in another direction. +</p> + +<p> +I breathed a sigh of relief, and so did Victory. I could feel her body quiver +as she lay pressed close to me, our cheeks almost touching as we both peered +through the same small opening in the foliage. +</p> + +<p> +I turned to give her a reassuring smile as the lion indicated that he had not +seen us, and as I did so she, too, turned her face toward mine, for the same +purpose, doubtless. Anyway, as our heads turned simultaneously, our lips +brushed together. A startled expression came into Victoryl’s eyes as she +drew back in evident confusion. +</p> + +<p> +As for me, the strangest sensation that I have ever experienced claimed me for +an instant. A peculiar, tingling thrill ran through my veins, and my head swam. +I could not account for it. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, being a naval officer and consequently in the best society of the +federation, I have seen much of women. With others, I have laughed at the +assertions of the savants that modern man is a cold and passionless creation in +comparison with the males of former ages—in a word, that love, as the one +grand passion, had ceased to exist. +</p> + +<p> +I do not know, now, but that they were more nearly right than we have guessed, +at least in so far as modern civilized woman is concerned. I have kissed many +women—young and beautiful and middle aged and old, and many that I had no +business kissing—but never before had I experienced that remarkable and +altogether delightful thrill that followed the accidental brushing of my lips +against the lips of Victory. +</p> + +<p> +The occurrence interested me, and I was tempted to experiment further. But when +I would have essayed it another new and entirely unaccountable force restrained +me. For the first time in my life I felt embarrassment in the presence of a +woman. +</p> + +<p> +What further might have developed I cannot say, for at that moment a perfect +she-devil of a lioness, with keener eyes than her lord and master, discovered +us. She came trotting toward our place of concealment, growling and baring her +yellow fangs. +</p> + +<p> +I waited for an instant, hoping that I might be mistaken, and that she would +turn off in some other direction. But no—she increased her trot to a +gallop, and then I fired at her, but the bullet, though it struck her full in +the breast, didn’t stop her. +</p> + +<p> +Screaming with pain and rage, the creature fairly flew toward us. Behind her +came other lions. Our case looked hopeless. We were upon the brink of the +river. There seemed no avenue of escape, and I knew that even my modern +automatic rifle was inadequate in the face of so many of these fierce beasts. +</p> + +<p> +To remain where we were would have been suicidal. We were both standing now, +Victory keeping her place bravely at my side, when I reached the only decision +open to me. +</p> + +<p> +Seizing the girl’s hand, I turned, just as the lioness crashed into the +opposite side of the bushes, and, dragging Victory after me, leaped over the +edge of the bank into the river. +</p> + +<p> +I did not know that lions are not fond of water, nor did I know if Victory +could swim, but death, immediate and terrible, stared us in the face if we +remained, and so I took the chance. +</p> + +<p> +At this point the current ran close to the shore, so that we were immediately +in deep water, and, to my intense satisfaction, Victory struck out with a +strong, overhand stroke and set all my fears on her account at rest. +</p> + +<p> +But my relief was short-lived. That lioness, as I have said before, was a +veritable devil. She stood for a moment glaring at us, then like a shot she +sprang into the river and swam swiftly after us. +</p> + +<p> +Victory was a length ahead of me. +</p> + +<p> +“Swim for the other shore!” I called to her. +</p> + +<p> +I was much impeded by my rifle, having to swim with one hand while I clung to +my precious weapon with the other. The girl had seen the lioness take to the +water, and she had also seen that I was swimming much more slowly than she, and +what did she do? She started to drop back to my side. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on!” I cried. “Make for the other shore, and then follow +down until you find my friends. Tell them that I sent you, and with orders that +they are to protect you. Go on! Go on!” +</p> + +<p> +But she only waited until we were again swimming side by side, and I saw that +she had drawn her long knife, and was holding it between her teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Do as I tell you!” I said to her sharply, but she shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +The lioness was overhauling us rapidly. She was swimming silently, her chin +just touching the water, but blood was streaming from between her lips. It was +evident that her lungs were pierced. +</p> + +<p> +She was almost upon me. I saw that in a moment she would take me under her +forepaws, or seize me in those great jaws. I felt that my time had come, but I +meant to die fighting. And so I turned, and, treading water, raised my rifle +above my head and awaited her. +</p> + +<p> +Victory, animated by a bravery no less ferocious than that of the dumb beast +assailing us, swam straight for me. It all happened so swiftly that I cannot +recall the details of the kaleidoscopic action which ensued. I knew that I rose +high out of the water, and, with clubbed rifle, dealt the animal a terrific +blow upon the skull, that I saw Victory, her long blade flashing in her hand, +close, striking, upon the beast, that a great paw fell upon her shoulder, and +that I was swept beneath the surface of the water like a straw before the prow +of a freighter. +</p> + +<p> +Still clinging to my rifle, I rose again, to see the lioness struggling in her +death throes but an arml’s length from me. Scarcely had I risen than the +beast turned upon her side, struggled frantically for an instant, and then +sank. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p> +Victory was nowhere in sight. Alone, I floated upon the bosom of the Thames. In +that brief instant I believe that I suffered more mental anguish than I have +crowded into all the balance of my life before or since. A few hours before, I +had been wishing that I might be rid of her, and now that she was gone I would +have given my life to have her back again. +</p> + +<p> +Wearily I turned to swim about the spot where she had disappeared, hoping that +she might rise once at least, and I would be given the opportunity to save her, +and, as I turned, the water boiled before my face and her head shot up before +me. I was on the point of striking out to seize her, when a happy smile +illumined her features. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not dead!” she cried. “I have been searching the +bottom for you. I was sure that the blow she gave you must have disabled +you,” and she glanced about for the lioness. +</p> + +<p> +“She has gone?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Dead,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“The blow you struck her with the thing you call rifle stunned +her,” she explained, “and then I swam in close enough to get my +knife into her heart.” +</p> + +<p> +Ah, such a girl! I could not but wonder what one of our own Pan-American women +would have done under like circumstances. But then, of course, they have not +been trained by stern necessity to cope with the emergencies and dangers of +savage primeval life. +</p> + +<p> +Along the bank we had just quitted, a score of lions paced to and fro, growling +menacingly. We could not return, and we struck out for the opposite shore. I am +a strong swimmer, and had no doubt as to my ability to cross the river, but I +was not so sure about Victory, so I swam close behind her, to be ready to give +her assistance should she need it. +</p> + +<p> +She did not, however, reaching the opposite bank as fresh, apparently, as when +she entered the water. Victory is a wonder. Each day that we were together +brought new proofs of it. Nor was it her courage or vitality only which amazed +me. She had a head on those shapely shoulders of hers, and dignity! My, but she +could be regal when she chose! +</p> + +<p> +She told me that the lions were fewer upon this side of the river, but that +there were many wolves, running in great packs later in the year. Now they were +north somewhere, and we should have little to fear from them, though we might +meet with a few. +</p> + +<p> +My first concern was to take my weapons apart and dry them, which was rather +difficult in the face of the fact that every rag about me was drenched. But +finally, thanks to the sun and much rubbing, I succeeded, though I had no oil +to lubricate them. +</p> + +<p> +We ate some wild berries and roots that Victory found, and then we set off +again down the river, keeping an eye open for game on one side and the launch +on the other, for I thought that Delcarte, who would be the natural leader +during my absence, might run up the Thames in search of me. +</p> + +<p> +The balance of that day we sought in vain for game or for the launch, and when +night came we lay down, our stomachs empty, to sleep beneath the stars. We were +entirely unprotected from attack from wild beasts, and for this reason I +remained awake most of the night, on guard. But nothing approached us, though I +could hear the lions roaring across the river, and once I thought I heard the +howl of a beast north of us—it might have been a wolf. +</p> + +<p> +Altogether, it was a most unpleasant night, and I determined then that if we +were forced to sleep out again that I should provide some sort of shelter which +would protect us from attack while we slept. +</p> + +<p> +Toward morning I dozed, and the sun was well up when Victory aroused me by +gently shaking my shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Antelope!” she whispered in my ear, and, as I raised my head, she +pointed up-river. Crawling to my knees, I looked in the direction she +indicated, to see a buck standing upon a little knoll some two hundred yards +from us. There was good cover between the animal and me, and so, though I might +have hit him at two hundred yards, I preferred to crawl closer to him and make +sure of the meat we both so craved. +</p> + +<p> +I had covered about fifty yards of the distance, and the beast was still +feeding peacefully, so I thought that I would make even surer of a hit by going +ahead another fifty yards, when the animal suddenly raised his head and looked +away, up-river. His whole attitude proclaimed that he was startled by something +beyond him that I could not see. +</p> + +<p> +Realizing that he might break and run and that I should then probably miss him +entirely, I raised my rifle to my shoulder. But even as I did so the animal +leaped into the air, and simultaneously there was a sound of a shot from beyond +the knoll. +</p> + +<p> +For an instant I was dumbfounded. Had the report come from down-river, I should +have instantly thought that one of my own men had fired. But coming from +up-river it puzzled me considerably. Who could there be with firearms in +primitive England other than we of the Coldwater? +</p> + +<p> +Victory was directly behind me, and I motioned for her to lie down, as I did, +behind the bush from which I had been upon the point of firing at the antelope. +We could see that the buck was quite dead, and from our hiding place we waited +to discover the identity of his slayer when the latter should approach and +claim his kill. +</p> + +<p> +We had not long to wait, and when I saw the head and shoulders of a man appear +above the crest of the knoll, I sprang to my feet, with a heartfelt cry of joy, +for it was Delcarte. +</p> + +<p> +At the sound of my voice, Delcarte half raised his rifle in readiness for the +attack of an enemy, but a moment later he recognized me, and was coming rapidly +to meet us. Behind him was Snider. They both were astounded to see me upon the +north bank of the river, and much more so at the sight of my companion. +</p> + +<p> +Then I introduced them to Victory, and told them that she was queen of England. +They thought, at first, that I was joking. But when I had recounted my +adventures and they realized that I was in earnest, they believed me. +</p> + +<p> +They told me that they had followed me inshore when I had not returned from the +hunt, that they had met the men of the elephant country, and had had a short +and one-sided battle with the fellows. And that afterward they had returned to +the launch with a prisoner, from whom they had learned that I had probably been +captured by the men of the lion country. +</p> + +<p> +With the prisoner as a guide they had set off up-river in search of me, but had +been much delayed by motor trouble, and had finally camped after dark a half +mile above the spot where Victory and I had spent the night. They must have +passed us in the dark, and why I did not hear the sound of the propeller I do +not know, unless it passed me at a time when the lions were making an unusually +earsplitting din upon the opposite side. +</p> + +<p> +Taking the antelope with us, we all returned to the launch, where we found +Taylor as delighted to see me alive again as Delcarte had been. I cannot say +truthfully that Snider evinced much enthusiasm at my rescue. +</p> + +<p> +Taylor had found the ingredients for chemical fuel, and the distilling of them +had, with the motor trouble, accounted for their delay in setting out after me. +</p> + +<p> +The prisoner that Delcarte and Snider had taken was a powerful young fellow +from the elephant country. Notwithstanding the fact that they had all assured +him to the contrary, he still could not believe that we would not kill him. +</p> + +<p> +He assured us that his name was Thirty-six, and, as he could not count above +ten, I am sure that he had no conception of the correct meaning of the word, +and that it may have been handed down to him either from the military number of +an ancestor who had served in the English ranks during the Great War, or that +originally it was the number of some famous regiment with which a forbear +fought. +</p> + +<p> +Now that we were reunited, we held a council to determine what course we should +pursue in the immediate future. Snider was still for setting out to sea and +returning to Pan-America, but the better judgment of Delcarte and Taylor +ridiculed the suggestion—we should not have lived a fortnight. +</p> + +<p> +To remain in England, constantly menaced by wild beasts and men equally as +wild, seemed about as bad. I suggested that we cross the Channel and ascertain +if we could not discover a more enlightened and civilized people upon the +continent. I was sure that some trace of the ancient culture and greatness of +Europe must remain. Germany, probably, would be much as it was during the +twentieth century, for, in common with most Pan-Americans, I was positive that +Germany had been victorious in the Great War. +</p> + +<p> +Snider demurred at the suggestion. He said that it was bad enough to have come +this far. He did not want to make it worse by going to the continent. The +outcome of it was that I finally lost my patience, and told him that from then +on he would do what I thought best—that I proposed to assume command of +the party, and that they might all consider themselves under my orders, as much +so as though we were still aboard the Coldwater and in Pan-American waters. +</p> + +<p> +Delcarte and Taylor immediately assured me that they had not for an instant +assumed anything different, and that they were as ready to follow and obey me +here as they would be upon the other side of thirty. +</p> + +<p> +Snider said nothing, but he wore a sullen scowl. And I wished then, as I had +before, and as I did to a much greater extent later, that fate had not decreed +that he should have chanced to be a member of the launchl’s party upon +that memorable day when last we quitted the Coldwater. +</p> + +<p> +Victory, who was given a voice in our councils, was all for going to the +continent, or anywhere else, in fact, where she might see new sights and +experience new adventures. +</p> + +<p> +“Afterward we can come back to Grabritin,” she said, “and if +Buckingham is not dead and we can catch him away from his men and kill him, +then I can return to my people, and we can all live in peace and +happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke of killing Buckingham with no greater concern than one might evince +in the contemplated destruction of a sheep; yet she was neither cruel nor +vindictive. In fact, Victory is a very sweet and womanly woman. But human life +is of small account beyond thirty—a legacy from the bloody days when +thousands of men perished in the trenches between the rising and the setting of +a sun, when they laid them lengthwise in these same trenches and sprinkled dirt +over them, when the Germans corded their corpses like wood and set fire to +them, when women and children and old men were butchered, and great passenger +ships were torpedoed without warning. +</p> + +<p> +Thirty-six, finally assured that we did not intend slaying him, was as keen to +accompany us as was Victory. +</p> + +<p> +The crossing to the continent was uneventful, its monotony being relieved, +however, by the childish delight of Victory and Thirty-six in the novel +experience of riding safely upon the bosom of the water, and of being so far +from land. +</p> + +<p> +With the possible exception of Snider, the little party appeared in the best of +spirits, laughing and joking, or interestedly discussing the possibilities +which the future held for us: what we should find upon the continent, and +whether the inhabitants would be civilized or barbarian peoples. +</p> + +<p> +Victory asked me to explain the difference between the two, and when I had +tried to do so as clearly as possible, she broke into a gay little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she cried, “then I am a barbarian!” +</p> + +<p> +I could not but laugh, too, as I admitted that she was, indeed, a barbarian. +She was not offended, taking the matter as a huge joke. But some time +thereafter she sat in silence, apparently deep in thought. Finally she looked +up at me, her strong white teeth gleaming behind her smiling lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Should you take that thing you call ‘razor,’” she +said, “and cut the hair from the face of Thirty-six, and exchange +garments with him, you would be the barbarian and Thirty-six the civilized man. +There is no other difference between you, except your weapons. Clothe you in a +wolfskin, give you a knife and a spear, and set you down in the woods of +Grabritin—of what service would your civilization be to you?” +</p> + +<p> +Delcarte and Taylor smiled at her reply, but Thirty-six and Snider laughed +uproariously. I was not surprised at Thirty-six, but I thought that Snider +laughed louder than the occasion warranted. As a matter of fact, Snider, it +seemed to me, was taking advantage of every opportunity, however slight, to +show insubordination, and I determined then that at the first real breach of +discipline I should take action that would remind Snider, ever after, that I +was still his commanding officer. +</p> + +<p> +I could not help but notice that his eyes were much upon Victory, and I did not +like it, for I knew the type of man he was. But as it would not be necessary +ever to leave the girl alone with him I felt no apprehension for her safety. +</p> + +<p> +After the incident of the discussion of barbarians I thought that +Victoryl’s manner toward me changed perceptibly. She held aloof from me, +and when Snider took his turn at the wheel, sat beside him, upon the pretext +that she wished to learn how to steer the launch. I wondered if she had guessed +the manl’s antipathy for me, and was seeking his company solely for the +purpose of piquing me. +</p> + +<p> +Snider was, too, taking full advantage of his opportunity. Often he leaned +toward the girl to whisper in her ear, and he laughed much, which was unusual +with Snider. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, it was nothing at all to me; yet, for some unaccountable reason, the +sight of the two of them sitting there so close to one another and seeming to +be enjoying each otherl’s society to such a degree irritated me +tremendously, and put me in such a bad humor that I took no pleasure whatsoever +in the last few hours of the crossing. +</p> + +<p> +We aimed to land near the site of ancient Ostend. But when we neared the coast +we discovered no indication of any human habitations whatever, let alone a +city. After we had landed, we found the same howling wilderness about us that +we had discovered on the British Isle. There was no slightest indication that +civilized man had ever set a foot upon that portion of the continent of Europe. +</p> + +<p> +Although I had feared as much, since our experience in England, I could not but +own to a feeling of marked disappointment, and to the gravest fears of the +future, which induced a mental depression that was in no way dissipated by the +continued familiarity between Victory and Snider. +</p> + +<p> +I was angry with myself that I permitted that matter to affect me as it had. I +did not wish to admit to myself that I was angry with this uncultured little +savage, that it made the slightest difference to me what she did or what she +did not do, or that I could so lower myself as to feel personal enmity towards +a common sailor. And yet, to be honest, I was doing both. +</p> + +<p> +Finding nothing to detain us about the spot where Ostend once had stood, we set +out up the coast in search of the mouth of the River Rhine, which I purposed +ascending in search of civilized man. It was my intention to explore the Rhine +as far up as the launch would take us. If we found no civilization there we +would return to the North Sea, continue up the coast to the Elbe, and follow +that river and the canals of Berlin. Here, at least, I was sure that we should +find what we sought—and, if not, then all Europe had reverted to +barbarism. +</p> + +<p> +The weather remained fine, and we made excellent progress, but everywhere along +the Rhine we met with the same disappointment—no sign of civilized man, +in fact, no sign of man at all. +</p> + +<p> +I was not enjoying the exploration of modern Europe as I had +anticipated—I was unhappy. Victory seemed changed, too. I had enjoyed her +company at first, but since the trip across the Channel I had held aloof from +her. +</p> + +<p> +Her chin was in the air most of the time, and yet I rather think that she +regretted her friendliness with Snider, for I noticed that she avoided him +entirely. He, on the contrary, emboldened by her former friendliness, sought +every opportunity to be near her. I should have liked nothing better than a +reasonably good excuse to punch his head; yet, paradoxically, I was ashamed of +myself for harboring him any ill will. I realized that there was something the +matter with me, but I did not know what it was. +</p> + +<p> +Matters remained thus for several days, and we continued our journey up the +Rhine. At Cologne, I had hoped to find some reassuring indications, but there +was no Cologne. And as there had been no other cities along the river up to +that point, the devastation was infinitely greater than time alone could have +wrought. Great guns, bombs, and mines must have leveled every building that man +had raised, and then nature, unhindered, had covered the ghastly evidence of +human depravity with her beauteous mantle of verdure. Splendid trees reared +their stately tops where splendid cathedrals once had reared their domes, and +sweet wild flowers blossomed in simple serenity in soil that once was drenched +with human blood. +</p> + +<p> +Nature had reclaimed what man had once stolen from her and defiled. A herd of +zebras grazed where once the German kaiser may have reviewed his troops. An +antelope rested peacefully in a bed of daisies where, perhaps, two hundred +years ago a big gun belched its terror-laden messages of death, of hate, of +destruction against the works of man and God alike. +</p> + +<p> +We were in need of fresh meat, yet I hesitated to shatter the quiet and +peaceful serenity of the view with the crack of a rifle and the death of one of +those beautiful creatures before us. But it had to be done—we must eat. I +left the work to Delcarte, however, and in a moment we had two antelope and the +landscape to ourselves. +</p> + +<p> +After eating, we boarded the launch and continued up the river. For two days we +passed through a primeval wilderness. In the afternoon of the second day we +landed upon the west bank of the river, and, leaving Snider and Thirty-six to +guard Victory and the launch, Delcarte, Taylor, and I set out after game. +</p> + +<p> +We tramped away from the river for upwards of an hour before discovering +anything, and then only a small red deer, which Taylor brought down with a neat +shot of two hundred yards. It was getting too late to proceed farther, so we +rigged a sling, and the two men carried the deer back toward the launch while I +walked a hundred yards ahead, in the hope of bagging something further for our +larder. +</p> + +<p> +We had covered about half the distance to the river, when I suddenly came face +to face with a man. He was as primitive and uncouth in appearance as the +Grabritins—a shaggy, unkempt savage, clothed in a shirt of skin cured +with the head on, the latter surmounting his own head to form a bonnet, and +giving to him a most fearful and ferocious aspect. +</p> + +<p> +The fellow was armed with a long spear and a club, the latter dangling down his +back from a leathern thong about his neck. His feet were incased in hide +sandals. +</p> + +<p> +At sight of me, he halted for an instant, then turned and dove into the forest, +and, though I called reassuringly to him in English he did not return nor did I +again see him. +</p> + +<p> +The sight of the wild man raised my hopes once more that elsewhere we might +find men in a higher state of civilization—it was the society of +civilized man that I craved—and so, with a lighter heart, I continued on +toward the river and the launch. +</p> + +<p> +I was still some distance ahead of Delcarte and Taylor, when I came in sight of +the Rhine again. But I came to the waterl’s edge before I noticed that +anything was amiss with the party we had left there a few hours before. +</p> + +<p> +My first intimation of disaster was the absence of the launch from its former +moorings. And then, a moment later—I discovered the body of a man lying +upon the bank. Running toward it, I saw that it was Thirty-six, and as I +stopped and raised the Grabritinl’s head in my arms, I heard a faint moan +break from his lips. He was not dead, but that he was badly injured was all too +evident. +</p> + +<p> +Delcarte and Taylor came up a moment later, and the three of us worked over the +fellow, hoping to revive him that he might tell us what had happened, and what +had become of the others. My first thought was prompted by the sight I had +recently had of the savage native. The little party had evidently been +surprised, and in the attack Thirty-six had been wounded and the others taken +prisoners. The thought was almost like a physical blow in the face—it +stunned me. Victory in the hands of these abysmal brutes! It was frightful. I +almost shook poor Thirty-six in my efforts to revive him. +</p> + +<p> +I explained my theory to the others, and then Delcarte shattered it by a single +movement of the hand. He drew aside the lionl’s skin that covered half of +the Grabritinl’s breast, revealing a neat, round hole in +Thirty-sixl’s chest—a hole that could have been made by no other +weapon than a rifle. +</p> + +<p> +“Snider!” I exclaimed. Delcarte nodded. At about the same time the +eyelids of the wounded man fluttered, and raised. He looked up at us, and very +slowly the light of consciousness returned to his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“What happened, Thirty-six?” I asked him. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to reply, but the effort caused him to cough, bringing about a +hemorrhage of the lungs and again he fell back exhausted. For several long +minutes he lay as one dead, then in an almost inaudible whisper he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Snider—” He paused, tried to speak again, raised a hand, and +pointed down-river. “They—went—back,” and then he +shuddered convulsively and died. +</p> + +<p> +None of us voiced his belief. But I think they were all alike: Victory and +Snider had stolen the launch, and deserted us. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p> +We stood there, grouped about the body of the dead Grabritin, looking futilely +down the river to where it made an abrupt curve to the west, a quarter of a +mile below us, and was lost to sight, as though we expected to see the truant +returning to us with our precious launch—the thing that meant life or +death to us in this unfriendly, savage world. +</p> + +<p> +I felt, rather than saw, Taylor turn his eyes slowly toward my profile, and, as +mine swung to meet them, the expression upon his face recalled me to my duty +and responsibility as an officer. +</p> + +<p> +The utter hopelessness that was reflected in his face must have been the +counterpart of what I myself felt, but in that brief instant I determined to +hide my own misgivings that I might bolster up the courage of the others. +</p> + +<p> +“We are lost!” was written as plainly upon Taylorl’s face as +though his features were the printed words upon an open book. He was thinking +of the launch, and of the launch alone. Was I? I tried to think that I was. But +a greater grief than the loss of the launch could have engendered in me, filled +my heart—a sullen, gnawing misery which I tried to deny—which I +refused to admit—but which persisted in obsessing me until my heart rose +and filled my throat, and I could not speak when I would have uttered words of +reassurance to my companions. +</p> + +<p> +And then rage came to my relief—rage against the vile traitor who had +deserted three of his fellow countrymen in so frightful a position. I tried to +feel an equal rage against the woman, but somehow I could not, and kept +searching for excuses for her—her youth, her inexperience, her savagery. +</p> + +<p> +My rising anger swept away my temporary helplessness. I smiled, and told Taylor +not to look so glum. +</p> + +<p> +“We will follow them,” I said, “and the chances are that we +shall overtake them. They will not travel as rapidly as Snider probably hopes. +He will be forced to halt for fuel and for food, and the launch must follow the +windings of the river; we can take short cuts while they are traversing the +detour. I have my map—thank God! I always carry it upon my +person—and with that and the compass we will have an advantage over +them.” +</p> + +<p> +My words seemed to cheer them both, and they were for starting off at once in +pursuit. There was no reason why we should delay, and we set forth down the +river. As we tramped along, we discussed a question that was uppermost in the +mind of each—what we should do with Snider when we had captured him, for +with the action of pursuit had come the optimistic conviction that we should +succeed. As a matter of fact, we had to succeed. The very thought of remaining +in this utter wilderness for the rest of our lives was impossible. +</p> + +<p> +We arrived at nothing very definite in the matter of Sniderl’s +punishment, since Taylor was for shooting him, Delcarte insisting that he +should be hanged, while I, although fully conscious of the gravity of his +offense, could not bring myself to give the death penalty. +</p> + +<p> +I fell to wondering what charm Victory had found in such a man as Snider, and +why I insisted upon finding excuses for her and trying to defend her +indefensible act. She was nothing to me. Aside from the natural gratitude I +felt for her since she had saved my life, I owed her nothing. She was a +half-naked little savage—I, a gentleman, and an officer in the +worldl’s greatest navy. There could be no close bonds of interest between +us. +</p> + +<p> +This line of reflection I discovered to be as distressing as the former, but, +though I tried to turn my mind to other things, it persisted in returning to +the vision of an oval face, sun-tanned; of smiling lips, revealing white and +even teeth; of brave eyes that harbored no shadow of guile; and of a tumbling +mass of wavy hair that crowned the loveliest picture on which my eyes had ever +rested. +</p> + +<p> +Every time this vision presented itself I felt myself turn cold with rage and +hate against Snider. I could forgive the launch, but if he had wronged her he +should die—he should die at my own hands; in this I was determined. +</p> + +<p> +For two days we followed the river northward, cutting off where we could, but +confined for the most part to the game trails that paralleled the stream. One +afternoon, we cut across a narrow neck of land that saved us many miles, where +the river wound to the west and back again. +</p> + +<p> +Here we decided to halt, for we had had a hard day of it, and, if the truth +were known, I think that we had all given up hope of overtaking the launch +other than by the merest accident. +</p> + +<p> +We had shot a deer just before our halt, and, as Taylor and Delcarte were +preparing it, I walked down to the water to fill our canteens. I had just +finished, and was straightening up, when something floating around a bend above +me caught my eye. For a moment I could not believe the testimony of my own +senses. It was a boat. +</p> + +<p> +I shouted to Delcarte and Taylor, who came running to my side. +</p> + +<p> +“The launch!” cried Delcarte; and, indeed, it was the launch, +floating down-river from above us. Where had it been? How had we passed it? And +how were we to reach it now, should Snider and the girl discover us? +</p> + +<p> +“Itl’s drifting,” said Taylor. “I see no one in +it.” +</p> + +<p> +I was stripping off my clothes, and Delcarte soon followed my example. I told +Taylor to remain on shore with the clothing and rifles. He might also serve us +better there, since it would give him an opportunity to take a shot at Snider +should the man discover us and show himself. +</p> + +<p> +With powerful strokes we swam out in the path of the oncoming launch. Being a +stronger swimmer than Delcarte, I soon was far in the lead, reaching the center +of the channel just as the launch bore down upon me. It was drifting broadside +on. I seized the gunwale and raised myself quickly, so that my chin topped the +side. I expected a blow the moment that I came within the view of the +occupants, but no blow fell. +</p> + +<p> +Snider lay upon his back in the bottom of the boat alone. Even before I had +clambered in and stooped above him I knew that he was dead. Without examining +him further, I ran forward to the control board and pressed the starting +button. To my relief, the mechanism responded—the launch was uninjured. +Coming about, I picked up Delcarte. He was astounded at the sight that met his +eyes, and immediately fell to examining Sniderl’s body for signs of life +or an explanation of the manner in which he met his death. +</p> + +<p> +The fellow had been dead for hours—he was cold and still. But +Delcarte’s search was not without results, for above Sniderl’s +heart was a wound, a slit about an inch in length—such a slit as a sharp +knife would make, and in the dead fingers of one hand was clutched a strand of +long brown hair—Victoryl’s hair was brown. +</p> + +<p> +They say that dead men tell no tales, but Snider told the story of his end as +clearly as though the dead lips had parted and poured forth the truth. The +beast had attacked the girl, and she had defended her honor. +</p> + +<p> +We buried Snider beside the Rhine, and no stone marks his last resting place. +Beasts do not require headstones. +</p> + +<p> +Then we set out in the launch, turning her nose upstream. When I had told +Delcarte and Taylor that I intended searching for the girl, neither had +demurred. +</p> + +<p> +“We had her wrong in our thoughts,” said Delcarte, “and the +least that we can do in expiation is to find and rescue her.” +</p> + +<p> +We called her name aloud every few minutes as we motored up the river, but, +though we returned all the way to our former camping place, we did not find +her. I then decided to retrace our journey, letting Taylor handle the launch, +while Delcarte and I, upon opposite sides of the river, searched for some sign +of the spot where Victory had landed. +</p> + +<p> +We found nothing until we had reached a point a few miles above the spot where +I had first seen the launch drifting down toward us, and there I discovered the +remnants of a recent camp fire. +</p> + +<p> +That Victory carried flint and steel I was aware, and that it was she who built +the fire I was positive. But which way had she gone since she stopped here? +</p> + +<p> +Would she go on down the river, that she might thus bring herself nearer her +own Grabritin, or would she have sought to search for us upstream, where she +had seen us last? +</p> + +<p> +I had hailed Taylor, and sent him across the river to take in Delcarte, that +the two might join me and discuss my discovery and our future plans. +</p> + +<p> +While waiting for them, I stood looking out over the river, my back toward the +woods that stretched away to the east behind me. Delcarte was just stepping +into the launch upon the opposite side of the stream, when, without the least +warning, I was violently seized by both arms and about the waist—three or +four men were upon me at once; my rifle was snatched from my hands and my +revolver from my belt. +</p> + +<p> +I struggled for an instant, but finding my efforts of no avail, I ceased them, +and turned my head to have a look at my assailants. At the same time several +others of them walked around in front of me, and, to my astonishment, I found +myself looking upon uniformed soldiery, armed with rifles, revolvers, and +sabers, but with faces as black as coal. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p> +Delcarte and Taylor were now in mid-stream, coming toward us, and I called to +them to keep aloof until I knew whether the intentions of my captors were +friendly or otherwise. My good men wanted to come on and annihilate the blacks. +But there were upward of a hundred of the latter, all well armed, and so I +commanded Delcarte to keep out of harml’s way, and stay where he was till +I needed him. +</p> + +<p> +A young officer called and beckoned to them. But they refused to come, and so +he gave orders that resulted in my hands being secured at my back, after which +the company marched away, straight toward the east. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed that the men wore spurs, which seemed strange to me. But when, late +in the afternoon, we arrived at their encampment, I discovered that my captors +were cavalrymen. +</p> + +<p> +In the center of a plain stood a log fort, with a blockhouse at each of its +four corners. As we approached, I saw a herd of cavalry horses grazing under +guard outside the walls of the post. They were small, stocky horses, but the +telltale saddle galls proclaimed their calling. The flag flying from a tall +staff inside the palisade was one which I had never before seen nor heard of. +</p> + +<p> +We marched directly into the compound, where the company was dismissed, with +the exception of a guard of four privates, who escorted me in the wake of the +young officer. The latter led us across a small parade ground, where a battery +of light field guns was parked, and toward a log building, in front of which +rose the flagstaff. +</p> + +<p> +I was escorted within the building into the presence of an old negro, a fine +looking man, with a dignified and military bearing. He was a colonel, I was to +learn later, and to him I owe the very humane treatment that was accorded me +while I remained his prisoner. +</p> + +<p> +He listened to the report of his junior, and then turned to question me, but +with no better results than the former had accomplished. Then he summoned an +orderly, and gave some instructions. The soldier saluted, and left the room, +returning in about five minutes with a hairy old white man—just such a +savage, primeval-looking fellow as I had discovered in the woods the day that +Snider had disappeared with the launch. +</p> + +<p> +The colonel evidently expected to use the fellow as interpreter, but when the +savage addressed me it was in a language as foreign to me as was that of the +blacks. At last the old officer gave it up, and, shaking his head, gave +instructions for my removal. +</p> + +<p> +From his office I was led to a guardhouse, in which I found about fifty +half-naked whites, clad in the skins of wild beasts. I tried to converse with +them, but not one of them could understand Pan-American, nor could I make head +or tail of their jargon. +</p> + +<p> +For over a month I remained a prisoner there, working from morning until night +at odd jobs about the headquarters building of the commanding officer. The +other prisoners worked harder than I did, and I owe my better treatment solely +to the kindliness and discrimination of the old colonel. +</p> + +<p> +What had become of Victory, of Delcarte, of Taylor I could not know; nor did it +seem likely that I should ever learn. I was most depressed. But I whiled away +my time in performing the duties given me to the best of my ability and +attempting to learn the language of my captors. +</p> + +<p> +Who they were or where they came from was a mystery to me. That they were the +outpost of some powerful black nation seemed likely, yet where the seat of that +nation lay I could not guess. +</p> + +<p> +They looked upon the whites as their inferiors, and treated us accordingly. +They had a literature of their own, and many of the men, even the common +soldiers, were omnivorous readers. Every two weeks a dust-covered trooper would +trot his jaded mount into the post and deliver a bulging sack of mail at +headquarters. The next day he would be away again upon a fresh horse toward the +south, carrying the soldiers’ letters to friends in the far off land of +mystery from whence they all had come. +</p> + +<p> +Troops, sometimes mounted and sometimes afoot, left the post daily for what I +assumed to be patrol duty. I judged the little force of a thousand men were +detailed here to maintain the authority of a distant government in a conquered +country. Later, I learned that my surmise was correct, and this was but one of +a great chain of similar posts that dotted the new frontier of the black nation +into whose hands I had fallen. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly I learned their tongue, so that I could understand what was said before +me, and make myself understood. I had seen from the first that I was being +treated as a slave—that all whites that fell into the hands of the blacks +were thus treated. +</p> + +<p> +Almost daily new prisoners were brought in, and about three weeks after I was +brought in to the post a troop of cavalry came from the south to relieve one of +the troops stationed there. There was great jubilation in the encampment after +the arrival of the newcomers, old friendships were renewed and new ones made. +But the happiest men were those of the troop that was to be relieved. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning they started away, and as they were forced upon the parade +ground we prisoners were marched from our quarters and lined up before them. A +couple of long chains were brought, with rings in the links every few feet. At +first I could not guess the purpose of these chains. But I was soon to learn. +</p> + +<p> +A couple of soldiers snapped the first ring around the neck of a powerful white +slave, and one by one the rest of us were herded to our places, and the work of +shackling us neck to neck commenced. +</p> + +<p> +The colonel stood watching the procedure. Presently his eyes fell upon me, and +he spoke to a young officer at his side. The latter stepped toward me and +motioned me to follow him. I did so, and was led back to the colonel. +</p> + +<p> +By this time I could understand a few words of their strange language, and when +the colonel asked me if I would prefer to remain at the post as his body +servant, I signified my willingness as emphatically as possible, for I had seen +enough of the brutality of the common soldiers toward their white slaves to +have no desire to start out upon a march of unknown length, chained by the +neck, and driven on by the great whips that a score of the soldiers carried to +accelerate the speed of their charges. +</p> + +<p> +About three hundred prisoners who had been housed in six prisons at the post +marched out of the gates that morning, toward what fate and what future I could +not guess. Neither had the poor devils themselves more than the most vague +conception of what lay in store for them, except that they were going elsewhere +to continue in the slavery that they had known since their capture by their +black conquerors—a slavery that was to continue until death released +them. +</p> + +<p> +My position was altered at the post. From working about the headquarters +office, I was transferred to the colonel’s living quarters. I had greater +freedom, and no longer slept in one of the prisons, but had a little room to +myself off the kitchen of the colonel’s log house. +</p> + +<p> +My master was always kind to me, and under him I rapidly learned the language +of my captors, and much concerning them that had been a mystery to me before. +His name was Abu Belik. He was a colonel in the cavalry of Abyssinia, a country +of which I do not remember ever hearing, but which Colonel Belik assured me is +the oldest civilized country in the world. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel Belik was born in Adis Abeba, the capital of the empire, and until +recently had been in command of the emperorl’s palace guard. Jealousy and +the ambition and intrigue of another officer had lost him the favor of his +emperor, and he had been detailed to this frontier post as a mark of his +sovereignl’s displeasure. +</p> + +<p> +Some fifty years before, the young emperor, Menelek XIV, was ambitious. He knew +that a great world lay across the waters far to the north of his capital. Once +he had crossed the desert and looked out upon the blue sea that was the +northern boundary of his dominions. +</p> + +<p> +There lay another world to conquer. Menelek busied himself with the building of +a great fleet, though his people were not a maritime race. His army crossed +into Europe. It met with little resistance, and for fifty years his soldiers +had been pushing his boundaries farther and farther toward the north. +</p> + +<p> +“The yellow men from the east and north are contesting our rights here +now,” said the colonel, “but we shall win—we shall conquer +the world, carrying Christianity to all the benighted heathen of Europe, and +Asia as well.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a Christian people?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at me in surprise, nodding his head affirmatively. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a Christian,” I said. “My people are the most powerful +on earth.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled, and shook his head indulgently, as a father to a child who sets up +his childish judgment against that of his elders. +</p> + +<p> +Then I set out to prove my point. I told him of our cities, of our army, of our +great navy. He came right back at me asking for figures, and when he was done I +had to admit that only in our navy were we numerically superior. +</p> + +<p> +Menelek XIV is the undisputed ruler of all the continent of Africa, of all of +ancient Europe except the British Isles, Scandinavia, and eastern Russia, and +has large possessions and prosperous colonies in what once were Arabia and +Turkey in Asia. +</p> + +<p> +He has a standing army of ten million men, and his people possess +slaves—white slaves—to the number of ten or fifteen million. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel Belik was much surprised, however, upon his part, to learn of the great +nation which lay across the ocean, and when he found that I was a naval +officer, he was inclined to accord me even greater consideration than formerly. +It was difficult for him to believe my assertion that there were but few blacks +in my country, and that these occupied a lower social plane than the whites. +</p> + +<p> +Just the reverse is true in Colonel Belikl’s land. He considered whites +inferior beings, creatures of a lower order, and assured me that even the few +white freemen of Abyssinia were never accorded anything approximating a +position of social equality with the blacks. They live in the poorer districts +of the cities, in little white colonies, and a black who marries a white is +socially ostracized. +</p> + +<p> +The arms and ammunition of the Abyssinians are greatly inferior to ours, yet +they are tremendously effective against the ill-armed barbarians of Europe. +Their rifles are of a type similar to the magazine rifles of twentieth century +Pan-America, but carrying only five cartridges in the magazine, in addition to +the one in the chamber. They are of extraordinary length, even those of the +cavalry, and are of extreme accuracy. +</p> + +<p> +The Abyssinians themselves are a fine looking race of black men—tall, +muscular, with fine teeth, and regular features, which incline distinctly +toward Semitic mold—I refer to the full-blooded natives of Abyssinia. +They are the patricians—the aristocracy. The army is officered almost +exclusively by them. Among the soldiery a lower type of negro predominates, +with thicker lips and broader, flatter noses. These men are recruited, so the +colonel told me, from among the conquered tribes of Africa. They are good +soldiers—brave and loyal. They can read and write, and they are endowed +with a self-confidence and pride which, from my readings of the words of +ancient African explorers, must have been wanting in their earliest +progenitors. On the whole, it is apparent that the black race has thrived far +better in the past two centuries under men of its own color than it had under +the domination of whites during all previous history. +</p> + +<p> +I had been a prisoner at the little frontier post for over a month, when orders +came to Colonel Belik to hasten to the eastern frontier with the major portion +of his command, leaving only one troop to garrison the fort. As his body +servant, I accompanied him mounted upon a fiery little Abyssinian pony. +</p> + +<p> +We marched rapidly for ten days through the heart of the ancient German empire, +halting when night found us in proximity to water. Often we passed small posts +similar to that at which the colonel’s regiment had been quartered, +finding in each instance that only a single company or troop remained for +defence, the balance having been withdrawn toward the northeast, in the same +direction in which we were moving. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, the colonel had not confided to me the nature of his orders. But the +rapidity of our march and the fact that all available troops were being +hastened toward the northeast assured me that a matter of vital importance to +the dominion of Menelek XIV in that part of Europe was threatening or had +already broken. +</p> + +<p> +I could not believe that a simple rising of the savage tribes of whites would +necessitate the mobilizing of such a force as we presently met with converging +from the south into our trail. There were large bodies of cavalry and infantry, +endless streams of artillery wagons and guns, and countless horse-drawn covered +vehicles laden with camp equipage, munitions, and provisions. +</p> + +<p> +Here, for the first time, I saw camels, great caravans of them, bearing all +sorts of heavy burdens, and miles upon miles of elephants doing similar +service. It was a scene of wondrous and barbaric splendor, for the men and +beasts from the south were gaily caparisoned in rich colors, in marked contrast +to the gray uniformed forces of the frontier, with which I had been familiar. +</p> + +<p> +The rumor reached us that Menelek himself was coming, and the pitch of +excitement to which this announcement raised the troops was little short of +miraculous—at least, to one of my race and nationality whose rulers for +centuries had been but ordinary men, holding office at the will of the people +for a few brief years. +</p> + +<p> +As I witnessed it, I could not but speculate upon the moral effect upon his +troops of a sovereignl’s presence in the midst of battle. All else being +equal in war between the troops of a republic and an empire, could not this +exhilarated mental state, amounting almost to hysteria on the part of the +imperial troops, weigh heavily against the soldiers of a president? I wonder. +</p> + +<p> +But if the emperor chanced to be absent? What then? Again I wonder. +</p> + +<p> +On the eleventh day we reached our destination—a walled frontier city of +about twenty thousand. We passed some lakes, and crossed some old canals before +entering the gates. Within, beside the frame buildings, were many built of +ancient brick and well-cut stone. These, I was told, were of material taken +from the ruins of the ancient city which, once, had stood upon the site of the +present town. +</p> + +<p> +The name of the town, translated from the Abyssinian, is New Gondar. It stands, +I am convinced, upon the ruins of ancient Berlin, the one time capital of the +old German empire, but except for the old building material used in the new +town there is no sign of the former city. +</p> + +<p> +The day after we arrived, the town was gaily decorated with flags, streamers, +gorgeous rugs, and banners, for the rumor had proved true—the emperor was +coming. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel Belik had accorded me the greatest liberty, permitting me to go where I +pleased, after my few duties had been performed. As a result of his kindness, I +spent much time wandering about New Gondar, talking with the inhabitants, and +exploring the city of black men. +</p> + +<p> +As I had been given a semi-military uniform which bore insignia indicating that +I was an officerl’s body servant, even the blacks treated me with a +species of respect, though I could see by their manner that I was really as the +dirt beneath their feet. They answered my questions civilly enough, but they +would not enter into conversation with me. It was from other slaves that I +learned the gossip of the city. +</p> + +<p> +Troops were pouring in from the west and south, and pouring out toward the +east. I asked an old slave who was sweeping the dirt into little piles in the +gutters of the street where the soldiers were going. He looked at me in +surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, to fight the yellow men, of course,” he said. “They +have crossed the border, and are marching toward New Gondar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who will win?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?” he said. “I hope it +will be the yellow men, but Menelek is powerful—it will take many yellow +men to defeat him.” +</p> + +<p> +Crowds were gathering along the sidewalks to view the emperorl’s entry +into the city. I took my place among them, although I hate crowds, and I am +glad that I did, for I witnessed such a spectacle of barbaric splendor as no +other Pan-American has ever looked upon. +</p> + +<p> +Down the broad main thoroughfare, which may once have been the historic Unter +den Linden, came a brilliant cortege. At the head rode a regiment of red-coated +hussars—enormous men, black as night. There were troops of riflemen +mounted on camels. The emperor rode in a golden howdah upon the back of a huge +elephant so covered with rich hangings and embellished with scintillating gems +that scarce more than the beastl’s eyes and feet were visible. +</p> + +<p> +Menelek was a rather gross-looking man, well past middle age, but he carried +himself with an air of dignity befitting one descended in unbroken line from +the Prophet—as was his claim. +</p> + +<p> +His eyes were bright but crafty, and his features denoted both sensuality and +cruelness. In his youth he may have been a rather fine looking black, but when +I saw him his appearance was revolting—to me, at least. +</p> + +<p> +Following the emperor came regiment after regiment from the various branches of +the service, among them batteries of field guns mounted on elephants. +</p> + +<p> +In the center of the troops following the imperial elephant marched a great +caravan of slaves. The old street sweeper at my elbow told me that these were +the gifts brought in from the far outlying districts by the commanding officers +of the frontier posts. The majority of them were women, destined, I was told, +for the harems of the emperor and his favorites. It made my old companion +clench his fists to see those poor white women marching past to their horrid +fates, and, though I shared his sentiments, I was as powerless to alter their +destinies as he. +</p> + +<p> +For a week the troops kept pouring in and out of New Gondar—in, always, +from the south and west, but always toward the east. Each new contingent +brought its gifts to the emperor. From the south they brought rugs and +ornaments and jewels; from the west, slaves; for the commanding officers of the +western frontier posts had naught else to bring. +</p> + +<p> +From the number of women they brought, I judged that they knew the weakness of +their imperial master. +</p> + +<p> +And then soldiers commenced coming in from the east, but not with the gay +assurance of those who came from the south and west—no, these others came +in covered wagons, blood-soaked and suffering. They came at first in little +parties of eight or ten, and then they came in fifties, in hundreds, and one +day a thousand maimed and dying men were carted into New Gondar. +</p> + +<p> +It was then that Menelek XIV became uneasy. For fifty years his armies had +conquered wherever they had marched. At first he had led them in person, lately +his presence within a hundred miles of the battle line had been sufficient for +large engagements—for minor ones only the knowledge that they were +fighting for the glory of their sovereign was necessary to win victories. +</p> + +<p> +One morning, New Gondar was awakened by the booming of cannon. It was the first +intimation that the townspeople had received that the enemy was forcing the +imperial troops back upon the city. Dust covered couriers galloped in from the +front. Fresh troops hastened from the city, and about noon Menelek rode out +surrounded by his staff. +</p> + +<p> +For three days thereafter we could hear the cannonading and the spitting of the +small arms, for the battle line was scarce two leagues from New Gondar. The +city was filled with wounded. Just outside, soldiers were engaged in throwing +up earthworks. It was evident to the least enlightened that Menelek expected +further reverses. +</p> + +<p> +And then the imperial troops fell back upon these new defenses, or, rather, +they were forced back by the enemy. Shells commenced to fall within the city. +Menelek returned and took up his headquarters in the stone building that was +called the palace. That night came a lull in the hostilities—a truce had +been arranged. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel Belik summoned me about seven o’clock to dress him for a function +at the palace. In the midst of death and defeat the emperor was about to give a +great banquet to his officers. I was to accompany my master and wait upon +him—I, Jefferson Turck, lieutenant in the Pan-American navy! +</p> + +<p> +In the privacy of the colonel’s quarters I had become accustomed to my +menial duties, lightened as they were by the natural kindliness of my master, +but the thought of appearing in public as a common slave revolted every fine +instinct within me. Yet there was nothing for it but to obey. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot, even now, bring myself to a narration of the humiliation which I +experienced that night as I stood behind my black master in silent servility, +now pouring his wine, now cutting up his meats for him, now fanning him with a +large, plumed fan of feathers. +</p> + +<p> +As fond as I had grown of him, I could have thrust a knife into him, so keenly +did I feel the affront that had been put upon me. But at last the long banquet +was concluded. The tables were removed. The emperor ascended a dais at one end +of the room and seated himself upon a throne, and the entertainment commenced. +It was only what ancient history might have led me to expect—musicians, +dancing girls, jugglers, and the like. +</p> + +<p> +Near midnight, the master of ceremonies announced that the slave women who had +been presented to the emperor since his arrival in New Gondar would be +exhibited, that the royal host would select such as he wished, after which he +would present the balance of them to his guests. Ah, what royal generosity! +</p> + +<p> +A small door at one side of the room opened, and the poor creatures filed in +and were ranged in a long line before the throne. Their backs were toward me. I +saw only an occasional profile as now and then a bolder spirit among them +turned to survey the apartment and the gorgeous assemblage of officers in their +brilliant dress uniforms. They were profiles of young girls, and pretty, but +horror was indelibly stamped upon them all. I shuddered as I contemplated their +sad fate, and turned my eyes away. +</p> + +<p> +I heard the master of ceremonies command them to prostrate themselves before +the emperor, and the sounds as they went upon their knees before him, touching +their foreheads to the floor. Then came the official’s voice again, in +sharp and peremptory command. +</p> + +<p> +“Down, slave!” he cried. “Make obeisance to your +sovereign!” +</p> + +<p> +I looked up, attracted by the tone of the manl’s voice, to see a single, +straight, slim figure standing erect in the center of the line of prostrate +girls, her arms folded across her breast and little chin in the air. Her back +was toward me—I could not see her face, though I should like to see the +countenance of this savage young lioness, standing there defiant among that +herd of terrified sheep. +</p> + +<p> +“Down! Down!” shouted the master of ceremonies, taking a step +toward her and half drawing his sword. +</p> + +<p> +My blood boiled. To stand there, inactive, while a negro struck down that brave +girl of my own race! Instinctively I took a forward step to place myself in the +manl’s path. But at the same instant Menelek raised his hand in a gesture +that halted the officer. The emperor seemed interested, but in no way angered +at the girl’s attitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us inquire,” he said in a smooth, pleasant voice, “why +this young woman refuses to do homage to her sovereign,” and he put the +question himself directly to her. +</p> + +<p> +She answered him in Abyssinian, but brokenly and with an accent that betrayed +how recently she had acquired her slight knowledge of the tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“I go on my knees to no one,” she said. “I have no sovereign. +I myself am sovereign in my own country.” +</p> + +<p> +Menelek, at her words, leaned back in his throne and laughed uproariously. +Following his example, which seemed always the correct procedure, the assembled +guests vied with one another in an effort to laugh more noisily than the +emperor. +</p> + +<p> +The girl but tilted her chin a bit higher in the air—even her back +proclaimed her utter contempt for her captors. Finally Menelek restored quiet +by the simple expedient of a frown, whereupon each loyal guest exchanged his +mirthful mien for an emulative scowl. +</p> + +<p> +“And who,” asked Menelek, “are you, and by what name is your +country called?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am Victory, Queen of Grabritin,” replied the girl so quickly and +so unexpectedly that I gasped in astonishment. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p> +Victory! She was here, a slave to these black conquerors. Once more I started +toward her, but better judgment held me back—I could do nothing to help +her other than by stealth. Could I even accomplish aught by this means? I did +not know. It seemed beyond the pale of possibility, and yet I should try. +</p> + +<p> +“And you will not bend the knee to me?” continued Menelek, after +she had spoken. Victory shook her head in a most decided negation. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall be my first choice, then,” said the emperor. “I +like your spirit, for the breaking of it will add to my pleasure in you, and +never fear but that it shall be broken—this very night. Take her to my +apartments,” and he motioned to an officer at his side. +</p> + +<p> +I was surprised to see Victory follow the man off in apparent quiet submission. +I tried to follow, that I might be near her against some opportunity to speak +with her or assist in her escape. But, after I had followed them from the +throne room, through several other apartments, and down a long corridor, I +found my further progress barred by a soldier who stood guard before a doorway +through which the officer conducted Victory. +</p> + +<p> +Almost immediately the officer reappeared and started back in the direction of +the throne room. I had been hiding in a doorway after the guard had turned me +back, having taken refuge there while his back was turned, and, as the officer +approached me, I withdrew into the room beyond, which was in darkness. There I +remained for a long time, watching the sentry before the door of the room in +which Victory was a prisoner, and awaiting some favorable circumstance which +would give me entry to her. +</p> + +<p> +I have not attempted to fully describe my sensations at the moment I recognized +Victory, because, I can assure you, they were entirely indescribable. I should +never have imagined that the sight of any human being could affect me as had +this unexpected discovery of Victory in the same room in which I was, while I +had thought of her for weeks either as dead, or at best hundreds of miles to +the west, and as irretrievably lost to me as though she were, in truth, dead. +</p> + +<p> +I was filled with a strange, mad impulse to be near her. It was not enough +merely to assist her, or protect her—I desired to touch her—to take +her in my arms. I was astounded at myself. Another thing puzzled me—it +was my incomprehensible feeling of elation since I had again seen her. With a +fate worse than death staring her in the face, and with the knowledge that I +should probably die defending her within the hour, I was still happier than I +had been for weeks—and all because I had seen again for a few brief +minutes the figure of a little heathen maiden. I couldn’t account for it, +and it angered me; I had never before felt any such sensations in the presence +of a woman, and I had made love to some very beautiful ones in my time. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed ages that I stood in the shadow of that doorway, in the ill-lit +corridor of the palace of Menelek XIV. A sickly gas jet cast a sad pallor upon +the black face of the sentry. The fellow seemed rooted to the spot. Evidently +he would never leave, or turn his back again. +</p> + +<p> +I had been in hiding but a short time when I heard the sound of distant cannon. +The truce had ended, and the battle had been resumed. Very shortly thereafter +the earth shook to the explosion of a shell within the city, and from time to +time thereafter other shells burst at no great distance from the palace. The +yellow men were bombarding New Gondar again. +</p> + +<p> +Presently officers and slaves commenced to traverse the corridor on matters +pertaining to their duties, and then came the emperor, scowling and wrathful. +He was followed by a few personal attendants, whom he dismissed at the doorway +to his apartments—the same doorway through which Victory had been taken. +I chafed to follow him, but the corridor was filled with people. At last they +betook themselves to their own apartments, which lay upon either side of the +corridor. +</p> + +<p> +An officer and a slave entered the very room in which I hid, forcing me to +flatten myself to one side in the darkness until they had passed. Then the +slave made a light, and I knew that I must find another hiding place. +</p> + +<p> +Stepping boldly into the corridor, I saw that it was now empty save for the +single sentry before the emperorl’s door. He glanced up as I emerged from +the room, the occupants of which had not seen me. I walked straight toward the +soldier, my mind made up in an instant. I tried to simulate an expression of +cringing servility, and I must have succeeded, for I entirely threw the man off +his guard, so that he permitted me to approach within reach of his rifle before +stopping me. Then it was too late—for him. +</p> + +<p> +Without a word or a warning, I snatched the piece from his grasp, and, at the +same time struck him a terrific blow between the eyes with my clenched fist. He +staggered back in surprise, too dumbfounded even to cry out, and then I clubbed +his rifle and felled him with a single mighty blow. +</p> + +<p> +A moment later, I had burst into the room beyond. It was empty! +</p> + +<p> +I gazed about, mad with disappointment. Two doors opened from this to other +rooms. I ran to the nearer and listened. Yes, voices were coming from beyond +and one was a womanl’s, level and cold and filled with scorn. There was +no terror in it. It was Victoryl’s. +</p> + +<p> +I turned the knob and pushed the door inward just in time to see Menelek seize +the girl and drag her toward the far end of the apartment. At the same instant +there was a deafening roar just outside the palace—a shell had struck +much nearer than any of its predecessors. The noise of it drowned my rapid rush +across the room. +</p> + +<p> +But in her struggles, Victory turned Menelek about so that he saw me. She was +striking him in the face with her clenched fist, and now he was choking her. +</p> + +<p> +At sight of me, he gave voice to a roar of anger. +</p> + +<p> +“What means this, slave?” he cried. “Out of here! Out of +here! Quick, before I kill you!” +</p> + +<p> +But for answer I rushed upon him, striking him with the butt of the rifle. He +staggered back, dropping Victory to the floor, and then he cried aloud for the +guard, and came at me. Again and again I struck him; but his thick skull might +have been armor plate, for all the damage I did it. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to close with me, seizing the rifle, but I was stronger than he, and, +wrenching the weapon from his grasp, tossed it aside and made for his throat +with my bare hands. I had not dared fire the weapon for fear that its report +would bring the larger guard stationed at the farther end of the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +We struggled about the room, striking one another, knocking over furniture, and +rolling upon the floor. Menelek was a powerful man, and he was fighting for his +life. Continually he kept calling for the guard, until I succeeded in getting a +grip upon his throat; but it was too late. His cries had been heard, and +suddenly the door burst open, and a score of armed guardsmen rushed into the +apartment. +</p> + +<p> +Victory seized the rifle from the floor and leaped between me and them. I had +the black emperor upon his back, and both my hands were at his throat, choking +the life from him. +</p> + +<p> +The rest happened in the fraction of a second. There was a rending crash above +us, then a deafening explosion within the chamber. Smoke and powder fumes +filled the room. Half stunned, I rose from the lifeless body of my antagonist +just in time to see Victory stagger to her feet and turn toward me. Slowly the +smoke cleared to reveal the shattered remnants of the guard. A shell had fallen +through the palace roof and exploded just in the rear of the detachment of +guardsmen who were coming to the rescue of their emperor. Why neither Victory +nor I were struck is a miracle. The room was a wreck. A great, jagged hole was +torn in the ceiling, and the wall toward the corridor had been blown entirely +out. +</p> + +<p> +As I rose, Victory had risen, too, and started toward me. But when she saw that +I was uninjured she stopped, and stood there in the center of the demolished +apartment looking at me. Her expression was inscrutable—I could not guess +whether she was glad to see me, or not. +</p> + +<p> +“Victory!” I cried. “Thank God that you are safe!” And +I approached her, a greater gladness in my heart than I had felt since the +moment that I knew the Coldwater must be swept beyond thirty. +</p> + +<p> +There was no answering gladness in her eyes. Instead, she stamped her little +foot in anger. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did it have to be you who saved me!” she exclaimed. “I +hate you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hate me?” I asked. “Why should you hate me, Victory? I do +not hate you. I—I—” What was I about to say? I was very close +to her as a great light broke over me. Why had I never realized it before? The +truth accounted for a great many hitherto inexplicable moods that had claimed +me from time to time since first I had seen Victory. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I hate you?” she repeated. “Because Snider told +me—he told me that you had promised me to him, but he did not get me. I +killed him, as I should like to kill you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Snider lied!” I cried. And then I seized her and held her in my +arms, and made her listen to me, though she struggled and fought like a young +lioness. “I love you, Victory. You must know that I love you—that I +have always loved you, and that I never could have made so base a +promise.” +</p> + +<p> +She ceased her struggles, just a trifle, but still tried to push me from her. +“You called me a barbarian!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, so that was it! That still rankled. I crushed her to me. +</p> + +<p> +“You could not love a barbarian,” she went on, but she had ceased +to struggle. +</p> + +<p> +“But I do love a barbarian, Victory!” I cried, “the dearest +barbarian in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +She raised her eyes to mine, and then her smooth, brown arms encircled my neck +and drew my lips down to hers. +</p> + +<p> +“I love you—I have loved you always!” she said, and then she +buried her face upon my shoulder and sobbed. “I have been so +unhappy,” she said, “but I could not die while I thought that you +might live.” +</p> + +<p> +As we stood there, momentarily forgetful of all else than our new found +happiness, the ferocity of the bombardment increased until scarce thirty +seconds elapsed between the shells that rained about the palace. +</p> + +<p> +To remain long would be to invite certain death. We could not escape the way +that we had entered the apartment, for not only was the corridor now choked +with debris, but beyond the corridor there were doubtless many members of the +emperorl’s household who would stop us. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the opposite side of the room was another door, and toward this I led the +way. It opened into a third apartment with windows overlooking an inner court. +From one of these windows I surveyed the courtyard. Apparently it was empty, +and the rooms upon the opposite side were unlighted. +</p> + +<p> +Assisting Victory to the open, I followed, and together we crossed the court, +discovering upon the opposite side a number of wide, wooden doors set in the +wall of the palace, with small windows between. As we stood close behind one of +the doors, listening, a horse within neighed. +</p> + +<p> +“The stables!” I whispered, and, a moment later, had pushed back a +door and entered. From the city about us we could hear the din of great +commotion, and quite close the sounds of battle—the crack of thousands of +rifles, the yells of the soldiers, the hoarse commands of officers, and the +blare of bugles. +</p> + +<p> +The bombardment had ceased as suddenly as it had commenced. I judged that the +enemy was storming the city, for the sounds we heard were the sounds of +hand-to-hand combat. +</p> + +<p> +Within the stables I groped about until I had found saddles and bridles for two +horses. But afterward, in the darkness, I could find but a single mount. The +doors of the opposite side, leading to the street, were open, and we could see +great multitudes of men, women, and children fleeing toward the west. Soldiers, +afoot and mounted, were joining the mad exodus. Now and then a camel or an +elephant would pass bearing some officer or dignitary to safety. It was evident +that the city would fall at any moment—a fact which was amply proclaimed +by the terror-stricken haste of the fear-mad mob. +</p> + +<p> +Horse, camel, and elephant trod helpless women and children beneath their feet. +A common soldier dragged a general from his mount, and, leaping to the +animal’s back, fled down the packed street toward the west. A woman +seized a gun and brained a court dignitary, whose horse had trampled her child +to death. Shrieks, curses, commands, supplications filled the air. It was a +frightful scene—one that will be burned upon my memory forever. +</p> + +<p> +I had saddled and bridled the single horse which had evidently been overlooked +by the royal household in its flight, and, standing a little back in the shadow +of the stable’s interior, Victory and I watched the surging throng +without. +</p> + +<p> +To have entered it would have been to have courted greater danger than we were +already in. We decided to wait until the stress of blacks thinned, and for more +than an hour we stood there while the sounds of battle raged upon the eastern +side of the city and the population flew toward the west. More and more +numerous became the uniformed soldiers among the fleeing throng, until, toward +the last, the street was packed with them. It was no orderly retreat, but a +rout, complete and terrible. +</p> + +<p> +The fighting was steadily approaching us now, until the crack of rifles sounded +in the very street upon which we were looking. And then came a handful of brave +men—a little rear guard backing slowly toward the west, working their +smoking rifles in feverish haste as they fired volley after volley at the foe +we could not see. +</p> + +<p> +But these were pressed back and back until the first line of the enemy came +opposite our shelter. They were men of medium height, with olive complexions +and almond eyes. In them I recognized the descendants of the ancient Chinese +race. +</p> + +<p> +They were well uniformed and superbly armed, and they fought bravely and under +perfect discipline. So rapt was I in the exciting events transpiring in the +street that I did not hear the approach of a body of men from behind. It was a +party of the conquerors who had entered the palace and were searching it. +</p> + +<p> +They came upon us so unexpectedly that we were prisoners before we realized +what had happened. That night we were held under a strong guard just outside +the eastern wall of the city, and the next morning were started upon a long +march toward the east. +</p> + +<p> +Our captors were not unkind to us, and treated the women prisoners with +respect. We marched for many days—so many that I lost count of +them—and at last we came to another city—a Chinese city this +time—which stands upon the site of ancient Moscow. +</p> + +<p> +It is only a small frontier city, but it is well built and well kept. Here a +large military force is maintained, and here also, is a terminus of the +railroad that crosses modern China to the Pacific. +</p> + +<p> +There was every evidence of a high civilization in all that we saw within the +city, which, in connection with the humane treatment that had been accorded all +prisoners upon the long and tiresome march, encouraged me to hope that I might +appeal to some high officer here for the treatment which my rank and birth +merited. +</p> + +<p> +We could converse with our captors only through the medium of interpreters who +spoke both Chinese and Abyssinian. But there were many of these, and shortly +after we reached the city I persuaded one of them to carry a verbal message to +the officer who had commanded the troops during the return from New Gondar, +asking that I might be given a hearing by some high official. +</p> + +<p> +The reply to my request was a summons to appear before the officer to whom I +had addressed my appeal. A sergeant came for me along with the interpreter, and +I managed to obtain his permission to let Victory accompany me—I had +never left her alone with the prisoners since we had been captured. +</p> + +<p> +To my delight I found that the officer into whose presence we were conducted +spoke Abyssinian fluently. He was astounded when I told him that I was a +Pan-American. Unlike all others whom I had spoken with since my arrival in +Europe, he was well acquainted with ancient history—was familiar with +twentieth century conditions in Pan-America, and after putting a half dozen +questions to me was satisfied that I spoke the truth. +</p> + +<p> +When I told him that Victory was Queen of England he showed little surprise, +telling me that in their recent explorations in ancient Russia they had found +many descendants of the old nobility and royalty. +</p> + +<p> +He immediately set aside a comfortable house for us, furnished us with servants +and with money, and in other ways showed us every attention and kindness. +</p> + +<p> +He told me that he would telegraph his emperor at once, and the result was that +we were presently commanded to repair to Peking and present ourselves before +the ruler. +</p> + +<p> +We made the journey in a comfortable railway carriage, through a country which, +as we traveled farther toward the east, showed increasing evidence of +prosperity and wealth. +</p> + +<p> +At the imperial court we were received with great kindness, the emperor being +most inquisitive about the state of modern Pan-America. He told me that while +he personally deplored the existence of the strict regulations which had raised +a barrier between the east and the west, he had felt, as had his predecessors, +that recognition of the wishes of the great Pan-American federation would be +most conducive to the continued peace of the world. +</p> + +<p> +His empire includes all of Asia, and the islands of the Pacific as far east as +175°W. The empire of Japan no longer exists, having been conquered and absorbed +by China over a hundred years ago. The Philippines are well administered, and +constitute one of the most progressive colonies of the Chinese empire. +</p> + +<p> +The emperor told me that the building of this great empire and the spreading of +enlightenment among its diversified and savage peoples had required all the +best efforts of nearly two hundred years. Upon his accession to the throne he +had found the labor well nigh perfected and had turned his attention to the +reclamation of Europe. +</p> + +<p> +His ambition is to wrest it from the hands of the blacks, and then to attempt +the work of elevating its fallen peoples to the high estate from which the +Great War precipitated them. +</p> + +<p> +I asked him who was victorious in that war, and he shook his head sadly as he +replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Pan-America, perhaps, and China, with the blacks of Abyssinia,” he +said. “Those who did not fight were the only ones to reap any of the +rewards that are supposed to belong to victory. The combatants reaped naught +but annihilation. You have seen—better than any man you must realize that +there was no victory for any nation embroiled in that frightful war.” +</p> + +<p> +“When did it end?” I asked him. +</p> + +<p> +Again he shook his head. “It has not ended yet. There has never been a +formal peace declared in Europe. After a while there were none left to make +peace, and the rude tribes which sprang from the survivors continued to fight +among themselves because they knew no better condition of society. War razed +the works of man—war and pestilence razed man. God give that there shall +never be such another war!” +</p> + +<p> +You all know how Porfirio Johnson returned to Pan-America with John Alvarez in +chains; how Alvarezl’s trial raised a popular demonstration that the +government could not ignore. His eloquent appeal—not for himself, but for +me—is historic, as are its results. You know how a fleet was sent across +the Atlantic to search for me, how the restrictions against crossing thirty to +one hundred seventy-five were removed forever, and how the officers were +brought to Peking, arriving upon the very day that Victory and I were married +at the imperial court. +</p> + +<p> +My return to Pan-America was very different from anything I could possibly have +imagined a year before. Instead of being received as a traitor to my country, I +was acclaimed a hero. It was good to get back again, good to witness the kindly +treatment that was accorded my dear Victory, and when I learned that Delcarte +and Taylor had been found at the mouth of the Rhine and were already back in +Pan-America my joy was unalloyed. +</p> + +<p> +And now we are going back, Victory and I, with the men and the munitions and +power to reclaim England for her queen. Again I shall cross thirty, but under +what altered conditions! +</p> + +<p> +A new epoch for Europe is inaugurated, with enlightened China on the east and +enlightened Pan-America on the west—the two great peace powers whom God +has preserved to regenerate chastened and forgiven Europe. I have been through +much—I have suffered much, but I have won two great laurel wreaths beyond +thirty. One is the opportunity to rescue Europe from barbarism, the other is a +little barbarian, and the greater of these is—Victory. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Continent, by Edgar Rice Burroughs + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST CONTINENT *** + +***** This file should be named 149-h.htm or 149-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/149/ + +Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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