The Lost Continent | Page 5

Azores.
Much of my service had been spent aboard the great
merchantmen-of-war. These are the utility naval vessels that have
transformed the navies of old, which burdened the peoples with taxes
for their support, into the present day fleets of self-supporting ships that
find ample time for target practice and gun drill while they bear freight
and the mails from the continents to the far-scattered island of
Pan-America.
This change in service was most welcome to me, especially as it

brought with it coveted responsibilities of sole command, and I was
prone to overlook the deficiencies of the Coldwater in the natural pride
I felt in my first ship.
The Coldwater was fully equipped for two months' patrolling-- the
ordinary length of assignment to this service--and a month had already
passed, its monotony entirely unrelieved by sight of another craft, when
the first of our misfortunes befell.
We had been riding out a storm at an altitude of about three thousand
feet. All night we had hovered above the tossing billows of the
moonlight clouds. The detonation of the thunder and the glare of
lightning through an occasional rift in the vaporous wall proclaimed the
continued fury of the tempest upon the surface of the sea; but we, far
above it all, rode in comparative ease upon the upper gale. With the
coming of dawn the clouds beneath us became a glorious sea of gold
and silver, soft and beautiful; but they could not deceive us as to the
blackness and the terrors of the storm-lashed ocean which they hid.
I was at breakfast when my chief engineer entered and saluted. His face
was grave, and I thought he was even a trifle paler than usual.
"Well?" I asked.
He drew the back of his forefinger nervously across his brow in a
gesture that was habitual with him in moments of mental stress.
"The gravitation-screen generators, sir," he said. "Number one went to
the bad about an hour and a half ago. We have been working upon it
steadily since; but I have to report, sir, that it is beyond repair."
"Number two will keep us supplied," I answered. "In the meantime we
will send a wireless for relief."
"But that is the trouble, sir," he went on. "Number two has stopped. I
knew it would come, sir. I made a report on these generators three years
ago. I advised then that they both be scrapped. Their principle is
entirely wrong. They're done for." And, with a grim smile, "I shall at

least have the satisfaction of knowing my report was accurate."
"Have we sufficient reserve screen to permit us to make land, or, at
least, meet our relief halfway?" I asked.
"No, sir," he replied gravely; "we are sinking now."
"Have you anything further to report?" I asked.
"No, sir," he said.
"Very good," I replied; and, as I dismissed him, I rang for my wireless
operator. When he appeared, I gave him a message to the secretary of
the navy, to whom all vessels in service on thirty and one hundred
seventy-five report direct. I explained our predicament, and stated that
with what screening force remained I should continue in the air,
making as rapid headway toward St. Johns as possible, and that when
we were forced to take to the water I should continue in the same
direction.
The accident occurred directly over 30d and about 52d N. The surface
wind was blowing a tempest from the west. To attempt to ride out such
a storm upon the surface seemed suicidal, for the Coldwater was not
designed for surface navigation except under fair weather conditions.
Submerged, or in the air, she was tractable enough in any sort of
weather when under control; but without her screen generators she was
almost helpless, since she could not fly, and, if submerged, could not
rise to the surface.
All these defects have been remedied in later models; but the
knowledge did not help us any that day aboard the slowly settling
Coldwater, with an angry sea roaring beneath, a tempest raging out of
the west, and 30d only a few knots astern.
To cross thirty or one hundred seventy-five has been, as you know, the
direst calamity that could befall a naval commander. Court-martial and
degradation follow swiftly, unless as is often the case, the unfortunate
man takes his own life before this unjust and heartless regulation can

hold him up to public scorn.
There has been in the past no excuse, no circumstance, that could
palliate the offense.
"He was in command, and he took his ship across thirty!" That was
sufficient. It might not have been in any way his fault, as, in the case of
the Coldwater, it could not possibly have been justly charged to my
account that the