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Title: The Lost Continent

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Release date: July 1, 1994 [eBook #149]
Most recently updated: November 29, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/149

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST
CONTINENT ***

The Lost Continent

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Lost Continent was originally published
under the title Beyond Thirty

Contents

CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER I.

Since earliest childhood I have been strangely fascinated by the mystery
surrounding the history of the last days of twentieth century Europe. My
interest is keenest, perhaps, not so much in relation to known facts as to
speculation upon the unknowable of the two centuries that have rolled by
since human intercourse between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres
ceased—the mystery of Europe’s state following the termination of the
Great War—provided, of course, that the war had been terminated.
From out of the meagerness of our censored histories we learned that for
fifteen years after the cessation of diplomatic relations between the United
States of North America and the belligerent nations of the Old World, news
of more or less doubtful authenticity filtered, from time to time, into the
Western Hemisphere from the Eastern.
Then came the fruition of that historic propaganda which is best
described by its own slogan: “The East for the East—the West for the
West,” and all further intercourse was stopped by statute.
Even prior to this, transoceanic commerce had practically ceased, owing
to the perils and hazards of the mine-strewn waters of both the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans. Just when submarine activities ended we do not know but
the last vessel of this type sighted by a Pan-American merchantman was the
huge Q 138, which discharged twenty-nine torpedoes at a Brazilian tank
steamer off the Bermudas in the fall of 1972. A heavy sea and the excellent
seamanship of the master of the Brazilian permitted the Pan-American to
escape and report this last of a long series of outrages upon our commerce.
God alone knows how many hundreds of our ancient ships fell prey to the
roving steel sharks of blood-frenzied Europe. Countless were the vessels
and men that passed over our eastern and western horizons never to return;
but whether they met their fates before the belching tubes of submarines or
among the aimlessly drifting mine fields, no man lived to tell.

And then came the great Pan-American Federation which linked the
Western Hemisphere from pole to pole under a single flag, which joined the
navies of the New World into the mightiest fighting force that ever sailed
the seven seas—the greatest argument for peace the world had ever known.
Since that day peace had reigned from the western shores of the Azores
to the western shores of the Hawaiian Islands, nor has any man of either
hemisphere dared cross 30°W. or 175°W. From 30° to 175° is ours—from
30° to 175° is peace, prosperity and happiness.
Beyond was the great unknown. Even the geographies of my boyhood
showed nothing beyond. We were taught of nothing beyond. Speculation
was discouraged. For two hundred years the Eastern Hemisphere had been
wiped from the maps and histories of Pan-America. Its mention in fiction,
even, was forbidden.
Our ships of peace patrol thirty and one hundred seventy-five. What ships
from beyond they have warned only the secret archives of government
show; but, a naval officer myself, I have gathered from the traditions of the
service that it has been fully two hundred years since smoke or sail has been
sighted east of 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.
It was the commander of a Chinese man-of-war who received a copy of
the edict of 1972 from the hand of my illustrious ancestor, Admiral Turck,
on one hundred seventy-five, two hundred and six years ago, and from the
yellowed pages of the admiral’s diary I learned that the fate of the
Philippines was even then presaged by these Chinese naval officers.
Yes, for over two hundred years no man crossed 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.
I am glad that it was given to me to be an instrument in the hands of
Providence for the uplifting of benighted Europe, and the amelioration of

the suffering, degradation, and abysmal ignorance in which I found her.
I shall not live to see the complete regeneration of the savage hordes of
the Eastern Hemisphere—that is a work which will require many
generations, perhaps ages, so complete has been their reversion to savagery;
but I know that the work has been started, and I am proud of the share in it
which my generous countrymen have placed in my hands.
The government already possesses a complete official report of my
adventures beyond thirty. In the narrative I purpose telling my story in a
less formal, and I hope, a more entertaining, style; though, being only a
naval officer and without claim to the slightest literary ability, I shall most
certainly fall far short of the possibilities which are inherent in my subject.
That I have passed through the most wondrous adventures that have
befallen a civilized man during the past two centuries encourages me in the
belief that, however ill the telling, the facts themselves will command your
interest to the final page.
Beyond thirty! Romance, adventure, strange peoples, fearsome beasts—
all the excitement and scurry of the lives of the twentieth century ancients
that have been denied us in these dull days of peace and prosaic prosperity
—all, all lay beyond thirty, the invisible barrier between the stupid,
commercial present and the carefree, barbarous past.
What boy has not sighed for the good old days of wars, revolutions, and
riots; how I used to pore over the chronicles of those old days, those dear
old days, when workmen went armed to their labors; when they fell upon
one another with gun and bomb and dagger, and the streets ran red with
blood! Ah, but those were the times when life was worth the living; when a
man who went out by night knew not at which dark corner a “footpad”
might leap upon and slay him; when wild beasts roamed the forest and the
jungles, and there were savage men, and countries yet unexplored.
Now, in all the Western Hemisphere dwells no man who may not find a
school house within walking distance of his home, or at least within flying
distance.
The wildest beast that roams our waste places lairs in the frozen north or
the frozen south within a government reserve, where the curious may view
him and feed him bread crusts from the hand with perfect impunity.
But beyond thirty! And I have gone there, and come back; and now you
may go there, for no longer is it high treason, punishable by disgrace or

death, to cross 30° or 175°.
My name is Jefferson Turck. I am a lieutenant in the navy—in the great
Pan-American navy, the only navy which now exists in all the world.
I was born in Arizona, in the United States of North America, in the year
of our Lord 2116. Therefore, I am twenty-one years old.
In early boyhood I tired of the teeming cities and overcrowded rural
districts of Arizona. Every generation of Turcks for over two centuries has
been represented in the navy. The navy called to me, as did the free, wide,
unpeopled spaces of the mighty oceans. And so I joined the navy, coming
up from the ranks, as we all must, learning our craft as we advance. My
promotion was rapid, for my family seems to inherit naval lore. We are born
officers, and I reserve to myself no special credit for an early advancement
in the service.
At twenty I found myself a lieutenant in command of the aero-submarine
Coldwater, of the SS-96 class. The Coldwater was one of the first of the air
and underwater craft which have been so greatly improved since its
launching, and was possessed of innumerable weaknesses which,
fortunately, have been eliminated in more recent vessels of similar type.
Even when I took command, she was fit only for the junk pile; but the
world-old parsimony of government retained her in active service, and sent
two hundred men to sea in her, with myself, a mere boy, in command of her,
to patrol thirty from Iceland to the Azores.
Much of my service had been spent aboard the great merchantmen-of-
war. These are the utility naval vessels that have transformed the navies of
old, which burdened the peoples with taxes for their support, into the
present day fleets of self-supporting ships that find ample time for target
practice and gun drill while they bear freight and the mails from the
continents to the far-scattered island of Pan-America.
This change in service was most welcome to me, especially as it brought
with it coveted responsibilities of sole command, and I was prone to
overlook the deficiencies of the Coldwater in the natural pride I felt in my
first ship.
The Coldwater was fully equipped for two months’ patrolling—the
ordinary length of assignment to this service—and a month had already

passed, its monotony entirely unrelieved by sight of another craft, when the
first of our misfortunes befell.
We had been riding out a storm at an altitude of about three thousand
feet. All night we had hovered above the tossing billows of the moonlight
clouds. The detonation of the thunder and the glare of lightning through an
occasional rift in the vaporous wall proclaimed the continued fury of the
tempest upon the surface of the sea; but we, far above it all, rode in
comparative ease upon the upper gale. With the coming of dawn the clouds
beneath us became a glorious sea of gold and silver, soft and beautiful; but
they could not deceive us as to the blackness and the terrors of the storm-
lashed ocean which they hid.
I was at breakfast when my chief engineer entered and saluted. His face
was grave, and I thought he was even a trifle paler than usual.
“Well?” I asked.
He drew the back of his forefinger nervously across his brow in a gesture
that was habitual with him in moments of mental stress.
“The gravitation-screen generators, sir,” he said. “Number one went to
the bad about an hour and a half ago. We have been working upon it
steadily since; but I have to report, sir, that it is beyond repair.”
“Number two will keep us supplied,” I answered. “In the meantime we
will send a wireless for relief.”
“But that is the trouble, sir,” he went on. “Number two has stopped. I
knew it would come, sir. I made a report on these generators three years
ago. I advised then that they both be scrapped. Their principle is entirely
wrong. They’re done for.” And, with a grim smile, “I shall at least have the
satisfaction of knowing my report was accurate.”
“Have we sufficient reserve screen to permit us to make land, or, at least,
meet our relief halfway?” I asked.
“No, sir,” he replied gravely; “we are sinking now.”
“Have you anything further to report?” I asked.
“No, sir,” he said.
“Very good,” I replied; and, as I dismissed him, I rang for my wireless
operator. When he appeared, I gave him a message to the secretary of the
navy, to whom all vessels in service on thirty and one hundred seventy-five

report direct. I explained our predicament, and stated that with what
screening force remained I should continue in the air, making as rapid
headway toward St. Johns as possible, and that when we were forced to take
to the water I should continue in the same direction.
The accident occurred directly over 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.
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.
To cross thirty or one hundred seventy-five has been, as you know, the
direst calamity that could befall a naval commander. Court-martial and
degradation follow swiftly, unless as is often the case, the unfortunate man
takes his own life before this unjust and heartless regulation can hold him
up to public scorn.
There has been in the past no excuse, no circumstance, that could palliate
the offense.
“He was in command, and he took his ship across thirty!” That was
sufficient. It might not have been in any way his fault, as, in the case of the
Coldwater, it could not possibly have been justly charged to my account
that the gravitation-screen generators were worthless; but well I knew that
should chance have it that we were blown across thirty today—as we might
easily be before the terrific west wind that we could hear howling below us,
the responsibility would fall upon my shoulders.
In a way, the regulation was a good one, for it certainly accomplished
that for which it was intended. We all fought shy of 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.

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.
Well, to get back to my narrative; we kept on dropping slowly toward the
surface the while we bucked the west wind, clawing away from thirty as
fast as we could. I was on the bridge, and as we dropped from the brilliant
sunlight into the dense vapor of clouds and on down through them to the
wild, dark storm strata beneath, it seemed that my spirits dropped with the
falling ship, and the buoyancy of hope ran low in sympathy.
The waves were running to tremendous heights, and the Coldwater was
not designed to meet such waves head on. Her elements were the blue ether,
far above the raging storm, or the greater depths of ocean, which no storm
could ruffle.
As I stood speculating upon our chances once we settled into the frightful
Maelstrom beneath us and at the same time mentally computing the hours
which must elapse before aid could reach us, the wireless operator
clambered up the ladder to the bridge, and, disheveled and breathless, stood
before me at salute. It needed but a glance at him to assure me that
something was amiss.
“What now?” I asked.
“The wireless, sir!” he cried. “My God, sir, I cannot send.”
“But the emergency outfit?” I asked.
“I have tried everything, sir. I have exhausted every resource. We cannot
send,” and he drew himself up and saluted again.
I dismissed him with a few kind words, for I knew that it was through no
fault of his that the mechanism was antiquated and worthless, in common
with the balance of the Coldwaterl’s equipment. There was no finer operator
in Pan-America than he.
The failure of the wireless did not appear as momentous to me as to him,
which is not unnatural, since it is but human to feel that when our own little
cog slips, the entire universe must necessarily be put out of gear. I knew
that if this storm were destined to blow us across thirty, or send us to the
bottom of the ocean, no help could reach us in time to prevent it. I had

ordered the message sent solely because regulations required it, and not
with any particular hope that we could benefit by it in our present extremity.
I had little time to dwell upon the coincidence of the simultaneous failure
of the wireless and the buoyancy generators, since very shortly after the
Coldwater had dropped so low over the waters that all my attention was
necessarily centered upon the delicate business of settling upon the waves
without breaking my 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.
Most of my officers were older men than I. John Alvarez, my first officer,
is twenty years my senior. He stood at my side on the bridge as the ship
glided closer and closer to those stupendous waves. He watched my every
move, but he was by far too fine an officer and gentleman to embarrass me
by either comment or suggestion.
When I saw that we soon would touch, I ordered the ship brought around
broadside to the wind, and there we hovered a moment until a huge wave
reached up and seized us upon its crest, and then I gave the order that
suddenly reversed the screening force, and let us into the ocean. Down into
the trough we went, wallowing like the carcass of a dead whale, and then
began the fight, with rudder and propellers, to force the Coldwater back into
the teeth of the gale and drive her on and on, farther and farther from
relentless thirty.
I think that we should have succeeded, even though the ship was wracked
from stem to stern by the terrific buffetings she received, and though she
were half submerged the greater part of the time, had no further accident
befallen us.
We were making headway, though slowly, and it began to look as though
we were going to pull through. Alvarez never left my side, though I all but
ordered him below for much-needed rest. My second officer, Porfirio
Johnson, was also often on the bridge. He was a good officer, but a man for
whom I had conceived a rather unreasoning aversion almost at the first

moment of meeting him, an aversion which was not lessened by the
knowledge which I subsequently gained that he looked upon my rapid
promotion with jealousy. He was ten years my senior both in years and
service, and I rather think he could never forget the fact that he had been an
officer when I was a green apprentice.
As it became more and more apparent that the Coldwater, under my
seamanship, was weathering the tempest and giving promise of pulling
through safely, I could have sworn that I perceived a shade of annoyance
and disappointment growing upon his dark countenance. He left the bridge
finally and went below. I do not know that he is directly responsible for
what followed so shortly after; but I have always had my suspicions, and
Alvarez is even more prone to place the blame upon him than I.
It was about six bells of the forenoon watch that Johnson returned to the
bridge after an absence of some thirty minutes. He seemed nervous and ill
at ease—a fact which made little impression on me at the time, but which
both Alvarez and I recalled subsequently.
Not three minutes after his reappearance at my side the Coldwater
suddenly commenced to lose headway. I seized the telephone at my elbow,
pressing upon the button which would call the chief engineer to the
instrument in the bowels of the ship, only to find him already at the receiver
attempting to reach me.
“Numbers one, two, and five engines have broken down, sir,” he called.
“Shall we force the remaining three?”
“We can do nothing else,” I bellowed into the transmitter.
“They won’t stand the gaff, sir,” he returned.
“Can you suggest a better plan?” I asked.
“No, sir,” he replied.
“Then give them the gaff, lieutenant,” I shouted back, and hung up the
receiver.
For twenty minutes the Coldwater bucked the great seas with her three
engines. I doubt if she advanced a foot; but it was enough to keep her nose
in the wind, and, at least, we were not drifting toward thirty.
Johnson and Alvarez were at my side when, without warning, the bow
swung swiftly around and the ship fell into the trough of the sea.

“The other three have gone,” I said, and I happened to be looking at
Johnson as I spoke. Was it the shadow of a satisfied smile that crossed his
thin lips? I do not know; but at least he did not weep.
“You always have been curious, sir, about the great unknown beyond
thirty,” he said. “You are in a good way to have your curiosity satisfied.”
And then I could not mistake the slight sneer that curved his upper lip.
There must have been a trace of disrespect in his tone or manner which
escaped me, for Alvarez turned upon him like a flash.
“When Lieutenant Turck crosses thirty,” he said, “we shall all cross with
him, and God help the officer or the man who reproaches him!”
“I shall not be a party to high treason,” snapped Johnson. “The
regulations are explicit, and if the Coldwater crosses thirty it devolves upon
you to place Lieutenant Turck under arrest and immediately exert every
endeavor to bring the ship back into Pan-American waters.”
“I shall not know,” replied Alvarez, “that the Coldwater passes thirty; nor
shall any other man aboard know it,” and, with his words, he drew a
revolver from his pocket, and before either I or Johnson could prevent it
had put a bullet into every instrument upon the bridge, ruining them beyond
repair.
And then he saluted me, and strode from the bridge, a martyr to loyalty
and friendship, for, though no man might know that Lieutenant Jefferson
Turck had taken his ship across thirty, every man aboard would know that
the first officer had committed a crime that was punishable by both
degradation and death. Johnson turned and eyed me narrowly.
“Shall I place him under arrest?” he asked.
“You shall not,” I replied. “Nor shall anyone else.”
“You become a party to his crime!” he cried angrily.
“You may go below, Mr. Johnson,” I said, “and attend to the work of
unpacking the extra instruments and having them properly set upon the
bridge.”
He saluted, and left me, and for some time I stood, gazing out upon the
angry waters, my mind filled with unhappy reflections upon the unjust fate
that had overtaken me, and the sorrow and disgrace that I had unwittingly
brought down upon my house.

I rejoiced that I should leave neither wife nor child to bear the burden of
my shame throughout their lives.
As I thought upon my misfortune, I considered more clearly than ever
before the unrighteousness of the regulation which was to prove my doom,
and in the natural revolt against its injustice my anger rose, and there
mounted within me a feeling which I imagine must have paralleled that
spirit that once was prevalent among the ancients called anarchy.
For the first time in my life I found my sentiments arraying themselves
against custom, tradition, and even government. The wave of rebellion
swept over me in an instant, beginning with an heretical doubt as to the
sanctity of the established order of things—that fetish which has ruled Pan-
Americans for two centuries, and which is based upon a blind faith in the
infallibility of the prescience of the long-dead framers of the articles of Pan-
American federation—and ending in an adamantine determination to
defend my honor and my life to the last ditch against the blind and senseless
regulation which assumed the synonymity of misfortune and treason.
I would replace the destroyed instruments upon the bridge; every officer
and man should know when we crossed thirty. But then I should assert the
spirit which dominated me, I should resist arrest, and insist upon bringing
my ship back across the dead line, remaining at my post until we had
reached New York. Then I should make a full report, and with it a demand
upon public opinion that the dead lines be wiped forever from the seas.
I knew that I was right. I knew that no more loyal officer wore the
uniform of the navy. I knew that I was a good officer and sailor, and I didn’t
propose submitting to degradation and discharge because a lot of old,
preglacial fossils had declared over two hundred years before that no man
should cross thirty.
Even while these thoughts were passing through my mind I was busy
with the details of my duties. I had seen to it that a sea anchor was rigged,
and even now the men had completed their task, and the Coldwater was
swinging around rapidly, her nose pointing once more into the wind, and
the frightful rolling consequent upon her wallowing in the trough was
happily diminishing.
It was then that Johnson came hurrying to the bridge. One of his eyes was
swollen and already darkening, and his lip was cut and bleeding. Without
even the formality of a salute, he burst upon me, white with fury.

“Lieutenant Alvarez attacked me!” he cried. “I demand that he be placed
under arrest. I found him in the act of destroying the reserve instruments,
and when I would have interfered to protect them he fell upon me and beat
me. I demand that you arrest him!”
“You forget yourself, Mr. Johnson,” I said. “You are not in command of
the ship. I deplore the action of Lieutenant Alvarez, but I cannot expunge
from my mind the loyalty and self-sacrificing friendship which has
prompted him to his acts. Were I you, sir, I should profit by the example he
has set. Further, Mr. Johnson, I intend retaining command of the ship, even
though she crosses thirty, and I shall demand implicit obedience from every
officer and man aboard until I am properly relieved from duty by a superior
officer in the port of New York.”
“You mean to say that you will cross thirty without submitting to arrest?”
he almost shouted.
“I do, sir,” I replied. “And now you may go below, and, when again you
find it necessary to address me, you will please be so good as to bear in
mind the fact that I am your commanding officer, and as such entitled to a
salute.”
He flushed, hesitated a moment, and then, saluting, turned upon his heel
and left the bridge. Shortly after, Alvarez appeared. He was pale, and
seemed to have aged ten years in the few brief minutes since I last had seen
him. Saluting, he told me very simply what he had done, and asked that I
place him under arrest.
I put my hand on his shoulder, and I guess that my voice trembled a trifle
as, while reproving him for his act, I made it plain to him that my gratitude
was no less potent a force than his loyalty to me. Then it was that I outlined
to him my purpose to defy the regulation that had raised the dead lines, and
to take my ship back to New York myself.
I did not ask him to share the responsibility with me. I merely stated that
I should refuse to submit to arrest, and that I should demand of him and
every other officer and man implicit obedience to my every command until
we docked at home.
His face brightened at my words, and he assured me that I would find
him as ready to acknowledge my command upon the wrong side of thirty as
upon the right, an assurance which I hastened to tell him I did not need.

The storm continued to rage for three days, and as far as the wind scarce
varied a point during all that time, I knew that we must be far beyond thirty,
drifting rapidly east by south. All this time it had been impossible to work
upon the damaged engines or the gravity-screen generators; but we had a
full set of instruments upon the bridge, for Alvarez, after discovering my
intentions, had fetched the reserve instruments from his own cabin, where
he had hidden them. Those which Johnson had seen him destroy had been a
third set which only Alvarez had known was aboard the Coldwater.
We waited impatiently for the sun, that we might determine our exact
location, and upon the fourth day our vigil was rewarded a few minutes
before noon.
Every officer and man aboard was tense with nervous excitement as we
awaited the result of the reading. The crew had known almost as soon as I
that we were doomed to cross thirty, and I am inclined to believe that every
man jack of them was tickled to death, for the spirits of adventure and
romance still live in the hearts of men of the twenty-second century, even
though there be little for them to feed upon between thirty and one hundred
seventy-five.
The men carried none of the burdens of responsibility. They might cross
thirty with impunity, and doubtless they would return to be heroes at home;
but how different the home-coming of their commanding officer!
The wind had dropped to a steady blow, still from west by north, and the
sea had gone down correspondingly. The crew, with the exception of those
whose duties kept them below, were ranged on deck below the bridge.
When our position was definitely fixed I personally announced it to the
eager, waiting men.
“Men,” I said, stepping forward to the handrail and looking down into
their upturned, bronzed faces, “you are anxiously awaiting information as to
the shipl’s position. It has been determined at latitude fifty degrees seven
minutes north, longitude twenty degrees sixteen minutes west.”
I paused and a buzz of animated comment ran through the massed men
beneath me. “Beyond thirty. But there will be no change in commanding
officers, in routine or in discipline, until after we have docked again in New
York.”
As I ceased speaking and stepped back from the rail there was a roar of
applause from the deck such as I never before had heard aboard a ship of

peace. It recalled to my mind tales that I had read of the good old days
when naval vessels were built to fight, when ships of peace had been men-
of-war, and guns had flashed in other than futile target practice, and decks
had run red with blood.
With the subsidence of the sea, we were able to go to work upon the
damaged engines to some effect, and I also set men to examining the
gravitation-screen generators with a view to putting them in working order
should it prove not beyond our resources.
For two weeks we labored at the engines, which indisputably showed
evidence of having been tampered with. I appointed a board to investigate
and report upon the disaster. But it accomplished nothing other than to
convince me that there were several officers upon it who were in full
sympathy with Johnson, for, though no charges had been preferred against
him, the board went out of its way specifically to exonerate him in its
findings.
All this time we were drifting almost due east. The work upon the
engines had progressed to such an extent that within a few hours we might
expect to be able to proceed under our own power westward in the direction
of Pan-American waters.
To relieve the monotony I had taken to fishing, and early that morning I
had departed from the Coldwater in one of the boats on such an excursion.
A gentle west wind was blowing. The sea shimmered in the sunlight. A
cloudless sky canopied the west for our sport, as I had made it a point never
voluntarily to make an inch toward the east that I could avoid. At least, they
should not be able to charge me with a willful violation of the dead lines
regulation.
I had with me only the boatl’s ordinary complement of men—three in all,
and more than enough to handle any small power boat. I had not asked any
of my officers to accompany me, as I wished to be alone, and very glad am
I now that I had not. My only regret is that, in view of what befell us, it had
been necessary to bring the three brave fellows who manned the boat.
Our fishing, which proved excellent, carried us so far to the west that we
no longer could see the Coldwater. The day wore on, until at last, about
mid-afternoon, I gave the order to return to the ship.
We had proceeded but a short distance toward the east when one of the
men gave an exclamation of excitement, at the same time pointing

eastward. We all looked on in the direction he had indicated, and there, a
short distance above the horizon, we saw the outlines of the Coldwater
silhouetted against the sky.
“They’ve repaired the engines and the generators both,” exclaimed one of
the men.
It seemed impossible, but yet it had evidently been done. Only that
morning, Lieutenant Johnson had told me that he feared that it would be
impossible to repair the generators. I had put him in charge of this work,
since he always had been accounted one of the best gravitation-screen men
in the navy. He had invented several of the improvements that are
incorporated in the later models of these generators, and I am convinced
that he knows more concerning both the theory and the practice of
screening gravitation than any living Pan-American.
At the sight of the Coldwater once more under control, the three men
burst into a glad cheer. But, for some reason which I could not then account,
I was strangely overcome by a premonition of personal misfortune. It was
not that I now anticipated an early return to Pan-America and a board of
inquiry, for I had rather looked forward to the fight that must follow my
return. No, there was something else, something indefinable and vague that
cast a strange gloom upon me as I saw my ship rising farther above the
water and making straight in our direction.
I was not long in ascertaining a possible explanation of my depression,
for, though we were plainly visible from the bridge of the aero-submarine
and to the hundreds of men who swarmed her deck, the ship passed directly
above us, not five hundred feet from the water, and sped directly westward.
We all shouted, and I fired my pistol to attract their attention, though I
knew full well that all who cared to had observed us, but the ship moved
steadily away, growing smaller and smaller to our view until at last she
passed completely out of sight.

CHAPTER II.

What could it mean? I had left Alvarez in command. He was my most
loyal subordinate. It was absolutely beyond the pale of possibility that
Alvarez should desert me. No, there was some other explanation.
Something occurred to place my second officer, Porfirio Johnson, in
command. I was sure of it but why speculate? The futility of conjecture was
only too palpable. The Coldwater had abandoned us in midocean. Doubtless
none of us would survive to know why.
The young man at the wheel of the power boat had turned her nose about
as it became evident that the ship intended passing over us, and now he still
held her in futile pursuit of the Coldwater.
“Bring her about, Snider,” I directed, “and hold her due east. We can’t
catch the Coldwater, and we can’t cross the Atlantic in this. Our only hope
lies in making the nearest land, which, unless I am mistaken, is the Scilly
Islands, off the southwest coast of England. Ever heard of England,
Snider?”
“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?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
“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.”
“You are going to try to make Europe, sir?” asked Taylor, the young man
who had last spoken.
“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.”
Taylor and Delcarte seized the spirit of my mood but Snider, I think, was
a trifle sceptical.
“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.
“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?”
Even Snider had to admit that it was.
“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.”
I could see that Snider was still fearful, but Taylor and Delcarte
responded with a hearty, “Aye, aye, sir!”
They were of different mold. Both were sons of naval officers. They
represented the aristocracy of birth, and they dared to think for themselves.

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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was nonplused, and then, for the first time, there crept over me an
intuition of the truth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
With the point of his cutlass Snider scraped the dirt and verdigris from
the face of the larger ornament.
“An inscription,” he said, and handed the thing to me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I turned back toward the boat.
“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.”

CHAPTER III.

The report of a gun blasted the silence of a dead Devonport with startling
abruptness.
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.
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.
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.
Both Taylor and Snider gave little gasps of astonishment and dismay.
“What is it, sir?” asked the latter.
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.
It was pacing, or rather, slinking, straight for Delcarte, who had now
leveled his rifle upon it.

“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Another Felis tigris,” said Taylor.
“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.

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.
Sure enough, they all halted at the beach, pacing back and forth, uttering
fiendish cries, and glaring at us in the most malevolent manner.
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.
“They have eaten up the inhabitants,” murmured Snider, shuddering.
“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.”
“But where did they come from?” asked Delcarte. “Could they have
traveled here from Asia?”
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That he would be fool enough to venture it, I did not doubt.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

“Who are you,” he asked, “and from what country?”
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.
“It has been two hundred years,” I told him, “since a Pan-American
visited England.”
“England?” he asked. “What is England?”
“Why this is a part of England!” I exclaimed.
“This is Grubitten,” he assured me. “I know nothing about England, and I
have lived here all my life.”
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.
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.
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.
“Oh,” he exclaimed, “you mean a camp! Yes, there are two great camps
here, East Camp and West Camp. We are from East Camp.”
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.
“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.”
“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?”
He shook his head impatiently.
“I never heard,” he said, “of any of these strange countries of which you
speak.”

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.
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.
“What people live upon the mainland?” I asked, and pointed in the
direction of the Hants coast.
“No one lives there,” he replied.
“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.”
“Do no other peoples ever come to your country in ships?” I asked.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

CHAPTER IV.

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!
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?
Gone! All gone! Only silence and desolation reigned where once the
commerce of the world had centered.
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?
Militarist that I am, I could find but a single word of explanation—war!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But presently I guessed the identity of the mighty creature as Elephas
africanus, or, as the ancients commonly described it, African elephant.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It was appalling; but my reflections upon this depressing subject were
doomed to sudden extinction. The lion had discovered me.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
“What language do you speak?” I asked. “Do you understand mine?”
“Yes,” she replied. “It is similar to my own. I am Grabritin. What are
you?”
“I am a Pan-American,” I answered. She shook her head. “What is that?”
I pointed toward the west. “Far away, across the ocean.”
Her expression altered a trifle. A slight frown contracted her brow. The
expression of apprehension deepened.
“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.
“You are not from there?” and she pointed toward the east. It was a half
question. “You are not from across the water there?”
“No,” I assured her. “I am from Pan-America, far away to the west. Have
you ever heard of Pan-America?”
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.”
It was with difficulty that I restrained a smile.
“Who are the men from there?” I asked.
“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.”
“By what name were these men called?” I asked.
“We call them only the ‘men from there,’” she replied, pointing toward
the east. “I have never heard that they had another name.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

She thanked me, and with such a sweet smile that I should have been
amply repaid by it for a much more arduous service.
“And now,” I said, “let me accompany you to your home and see you
safely again under the protection of your friends.”
“No,” she said, with a hint of alarm in her voice; “you must not come
with me—Buckingham will kill you.”
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.
“And who is Buckingham,” I asked, “and why should he wish to kill
me?”
“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.”
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.
“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.
“The Camp of the Lions,” I repeated. “And where is that, and what?”
“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.
“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.”
“Where did these savage beasts come from?” I asked.
“Oh,” she replied, “they have been here always. It is their country.”
“Do they not kill and eat your people?” I asked.
“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.”
“I should like to visit this Camp of the Lions,” I said.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Didn’t you say that Buckingham is already the king?” I asked.
“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.”
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.
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.
“Why not come with me,” I suggested, “if you do not wish to become
Buckinghaml’s?”
“Where would you take me?” she asked.
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.”
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.
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.
When they had overpowered me, and I stood, my hands bound behind
me, at the girl’s side, she gazed commiseratingly at me.
“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.”
“Which is Buckingham?” I asked.

“I am Buckingham,” growled a burly, unwashed brute, swaggering
truculently before me. “And who are you who would have stolen my
woman?”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
The fact that Buckingham stood within a pace of us and was an interested
listener appeared not to temper her expressions in the slightest.
“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.”
The people began to titter and clap their hands. Buckingham became red
in the face. It was evident that he was far from popular.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Instantly the expression of fear faded from her eyes to be replaced with
an answering smile.
“Who are you, little girl?” I asked.
“My name is Mary,” she replied. “I am Victoryl’s sister.”
“And who is Victory?”
“You do not know who Victory is?” she asked, in astonishment.
I shook my head in negation.
“You saved her from the elephant country people, and yet you say you do
not know her!” she exclaimed.
“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.
“Will you do something for me, Mary?” I asked.
“If I can.”
“Go to your mother, the queen, and ask her to come to me,” I said. “I
have a favor to ask.”
She said that she would, and with a parting smile she left me.
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.
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.
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.
“Are you here?” whispered a childlike voice.
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.
“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?”
The childl’s sobs increased, and she flung herself upon the dirt floor of
the hut, apparently overcome by grief.
“What is it?” I asked. “Why do you cry?”
“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.”
“I am bound and helpless, Mary,” I replied. “Otherwise I would do what I
could to save you and your sister.”
“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.”
“Gladly!” I assented.
“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!”
“And I am to be the offering?” I asked.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
“The entrance to the Camp of the Lions!” murmured one of the party in a
voice husky with awe.
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:
Lord of Grabritin, we
Fall on our knees to thee,
This gift to bring.
Greatest of kings are thou!
To thee we humbly bow!
Peace to our camp allow.
God save thee, king!

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
“You have strange customs in your country,” she said.
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.
“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.”
“I will not return to the camp,” she replied.
“But what shall you do?” I asked.
“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.”
“And leave you here?” I exclaimed.

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.
It was evident that she felt entirely competent to protect herself.
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.
“They are searching for me,” said the girl. “Where shall we hide?”
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.
“Would they follow us there?” I asked, pointing through the archway into
the Camp of the Lions.
“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.”
“Then we shall take refuge in the Camp of the Lions,” I said.
She shuddered and drew closer to me.
“You dare?” she asked.
“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?”
“I dare follow wherever you lead,” she answered simply.
And so I turned and passed beneath the great arch into the city of
London.

CHAPTER V.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I took Victoryl’s hand in mine.
“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!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The throne of England! But what were those strange forms about it?
Victory gave my hand a quick, excited little squeeze.
“The lions!” she whispered.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The remaining lions were roaring horribly. I saw one sneaking very
slowly up the stairs toward us.
“Try that door,” I called to Victory. “See if it will open.”
She ran up to it and pushed.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It was a gruesome sight—a pitiful sight—this lone inhabitant of mighty
London.
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:
“His majesty left for Tunbridge Wells today, he ... jesty was stricken ...
terday. God give she does not die ... am military governor of Lon ...”
And farther on:
“It is awful ... hundred deaths today ... worse than the bombardm ...”
Nearer the end I picked out the following:
“I promised his maj ... e will find me here when he ret ... alone.”
The most legible passage was on the next page:
“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!”
And the last entry:
“... 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!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Victory was a length ahead of me.
“Swim for the other shore!” I called to her.
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.
“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!”
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.
“Do as I tell you!” I said to her sharply, but she shook her head.
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.
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.
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.
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.

CHAPTER VI.

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.
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.
“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.
“She has gone?” she asked.
“Dead,” I replied.
“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.”
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.
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.

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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Toward morning I dozed, and the sun was well up when Victory aroused
me by gently shaking my shoulder.
“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.

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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
Thirty-six, finally assured that we did not intend slaying him, was as
keen to accompany us as was Victory.
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.

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.
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.
“Oh,” she cried, “then I am a barbarian!”
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.
“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?”
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
“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.
“What happened, Thirty-six?” I asked him.
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.
“Snider—” He paused, tried to speak again, raised a hand, and pointed
down-river. “They—went—back,” and then he shuddered convulsively and
died.
None of us voiced his belief. But I think they were all alike: Victory and
Snider had stolen the launch, and deserted us.

CHAPTER VII.

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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
My rising anger swept away my temporary helplessness. I smiled, and
told Taylor not to look so glum.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
I shouted to Delcarte and Taylor, who came running to my side.
“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?
“Itl’s drifting,” said Taylor. “I see no one in it.”
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
We buried Snider beside the Rhine, and no stone marks his last resting
place. Beasts do not require headstones.
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.
“We had her wrong in our thoughts,” said Delcarte, “and the least that we
can do in expiation is to find and rescue her.”
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.

CHAPTER VIII.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
“You are a Christian people?” I asked.
He looked at me in surprise, nodding his head affirmatively.
“I am a Christian,” I said. “My people are the most powerful on earth.”
He smiled, and shook his head indulgently, as a father to a child who sets
up his childish judgment against that of his elders.

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.
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.
He has a standing army of ten million men, and his people possess slaves
—white slaves—to the number of ten or fifteen million.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But if the emperor chanced to be absent? What then? Again I wonder.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

“Why, to fight the yellow men, of course,” he said. “They have crossed
the border, and are marching toward New Gondar.”
“Who will win?” I asked.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Following the emperor came regiment after regiment from the various
branches of the service, among them batteries of field guns mounted on
elephants.
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.

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.
From the number of women they brought, I judged that they knew the
weakness of their imperial master.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
“Down, slave!” he cried. “Make obeisance to your sovereign!”
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.
“Down! Down!” shouted the master of ceremonies, taking a step toward
her and half drawing his sword.
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.
“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.
She answered him in Abyssinian, but brokenly and with an accent that
betrayed how recently she had acquired her slight knowledge of the tongue.
“I go on my knees to no one,” she said. “I have no sovereign. I myself am
sovereign in my own country.”
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.
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.
“And who,” asked Menelek, “are you, and by what name is your country
called?”
“I am Victory, Queen of Grabritin,” replied the girl so quickly and so
unexpectedly that I gasped in astonishment.

CHAPTER IX.

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.
“And you will not bend the knee to me?” continued Menelek, after she
had spoken. Victory shook her head in a most decided negation.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A moment later, I had burst into the room beyond. It was empty!
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.
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.
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.
At sight of me, he gave voice to a roar of anger.
“What means this, slave?” he cried. “Out of here! Out of here! Quick,
before I kill you!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
There was no answering gladness in her eyes. Instead, she stamped her
little foot in anger.
“Why did it have to be you who saved me!” she exclaimed. “I hate you!”
“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.
“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!”

“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.”
She ceased her struggles, just a trifle, but still tried to push me from her.
“You called me a barbarian!” she said.
Ah, so that was it! That still rankled. I crushed her to me.
“You could not love a barbarian,” she went on, but she had ceased to
struggle.
“But I do love a barbarian, Victory!” I cried, “the dearest barbarian in the
world.”
She raised her eyes to mine, and then her smooth, brown arms encircled
my neck and drew my lips down to hers.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
I asked him who was victorious in that war, and he shook his head sadly
as he replied:
“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.”
“When did it end?” I asked him.
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!”
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.
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.
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!

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.

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