01 - Lost Continent (Beyond Thirty) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Originally published as Beyond Thirty, this gripping novel transports readers to the year 2137, where the haunting shadows of World War I have reshaped the world. In this dystopian future, Europe has spiraled into chaos and barbarism, while the Western Hemisphere remains an isolated sanctuary untouched by devastation. The title, Beyond Thirty, alludes to the mysterious line of longitude that the inhabitants of this sheltered region are strictly forbidden to cross. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter one of the Lost Continent. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
by Lucy Lefaro. The Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs,

(00:22):
Chapter one. 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 keenness, perhaps not
so much in relation to known facts as to speculation
upon the unknowable of the two centuries that have rolled

(00:44):
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 meganess of our censored histories, we
learned that, for fifteen years, after the cessation of diplomatic

(01:06):
relations between the United States of North America and the
beligerent 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,

(01:30):
the East for the East, the West for the West,
and or further intercourse was stopped by statute. Even prior
to this Transaceanic commerce had practically ceased, owing to the
perils and hazards of the mind strewn waters of both

(01:50):
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Just when submarine activities ended
we do not know. But the last vessel of this
type cited by the Pan American merchantmen was the huge
Q one thirty eight, which discharged twenty nine torpedoes at

(02:11):
a Brazilian tank steamer off the Bermudas in the fall
of nineteen seventy two. 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

(02:33):
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

(02:56):
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

(03:20):
for peace the world had ever known. Since that day,
peace had rained from the western shores of the Azores
to the western shores of the Hawaiian Islands. Nor has
any man of either hemisphere dared cross thirty d W

(03:40):
or a hundred seventy five d w from thirty d
to one hundred seventy five d is ours from thirty
d to one hundred seventy five d is Peace, prosperity,
and happiness. Beyond was the great unknown. Even the geographies

(04:01):
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.

(04:25):
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

(04:48):
sail has been sighted east of thirty D or west
of a hundred and seventy five D. The fate of
the relinquished provinces which lay beyond the deadlines, we could
only speculate upon that they were taken by the military
power which arose so suddenly in China after the fall

(05:09):
of the Republic, and which arrested 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 nineteen seventy two from the hand of

(05:29):
my illustrious ancestor, Admiral turk And one hundred seventy five,
two hundred and six years ago, and from the yellow
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

(05:54):
crossed thirty D two one hundred and seventy five D,
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 forebears,
demanded that my story be given to the world, and

(06:16):
that the narrow interdict which commanded peace, prosperity and happiness
to halt at thirty d and one hundred and seventy
five D 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

(06:40):
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,

(07:02):
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

(07:24):
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

(07:46):
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 themself will
command your interests to the final page. Beyond thirty, Romance, adventure,

(08:08):
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

(08:29):
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

(08:50):
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

(09:12):
corner a footpad might leap upon and slay him. When
wild beasts roamed the forests 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

(09:33):
a schoolhouse 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.

(09:54):
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
thirty D or one hundred and seventy five D. My
name is Jefferson Turk. I am a lieutenant in the Navy,

(10:16):
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 twenty one sixteen. Therefore I am
twenty one years old. In early boyhood, I tired of

(10:41):
the teeming cities and overcrowded rural districts of Arizona. Every
generation of Turks 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 Ocean, and

(11:01):
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 law. We are born officers, and I reserve to
myself no special credit for an early advancement in the service.

(11:26):
At twenty I found myself a lieutenant in command of
the aero submarine cold Water of the s S ninety
six class. The cold Water 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

(11:49):
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

(12:11):
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 other utility
naval vessels that have transformed the navies of old, which
burdened the peoples with taxes for their support, into the

(12:34):
present day fleets of self supporting ships that find ample
time for target practice and gundril 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

(12:56):
responsibilities of soule command, and I was prone to overlook
the deficiencies of the cold Water in the natural pride
I felt in my first ship. The cold Water was
fully equipped for two months patrolling, the ordinary length of
assignment to this service, and a month had already passed

(13:18):
its monotony entirely unrelieved by sight of another craft. When
the first of our misfortunes befell, we had been riding
out a storm in 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

(13:39):
glare of lightning through an occasional rift in the vaporous
war 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

(14:03):
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

(14:26):
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.

(14:51):
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, Number two has stopped. I
knew it would come, Sir. I made a report on
these generators three years ago. I advise then that they

(15:11):
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 screened to permit us to make land or

(15:31):
at least meet our relief half way? I asked, no, sir,
he replied gravely, we are thinking 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

(15:54):
message to the Secretary of the Navy, to whom all
vessels in service on the 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 towards Saint John's as possible, and

(16:16):
that when we were forced to take to the water,
I should continue in the same direction. The accident occurred
directly over thirty D and about fifty two d 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 cold water was not designed

(16:39):
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

(17:02):
defects have been remedied in later models, but the knowledge
did not help us any that day, aboard the slowly
settling cold water, with an angry sea roaring beneath a
tempest raging out of the west, and thirty D only
a few knots astern to cross thirty or one hundred
seventy five has been, as you know, the direst calamity

(17:26):
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

(17:50):
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 cold water it could not possibly have
been justly charged to my account that the gravitation screen

(18:10):
generators were worthless. But well I knew that should chance
have it that we were blown across thirty to day,
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

(18:34):
a good one, for it certainly accomplished that for which
it was intended. We all fought shy of thirty D
on the east and one hundred seventy five D 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

(18:58):
that a good officer who sense proximity to either line,
and for my part, I am firmly convinced of the
truth of this, as I am that the compass finds
the north. With that recourse to tedious processes of reasoning,
Old Admiral Sanchez was wont to maintain that he could

(19:19):
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 sixty d N
to sixty d S. However, I'd hate to vouch for this. Well.
To get back to my narrative, we kept on dropping

(19:42):
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,

(20:03):
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 cold water
was not designed to meet such waves head on. Her
elements were the blue ether far above the raging storm

(20:23):
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

(20:47):
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
but the emergency outfit, I asked. I have tried everything, Sir,
I have exhausted every resource we cannot send. And he

(21:11):
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 Cold
Water's equipment. There was no finer operator in Pan America
than he. The failure of the wireless did not appear

(21:35):
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

(21:56):
to the bottom of the ocean, no help could reach
us in time 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 this simultaneous failure of the wireless

(22:20):
and the buoyancy generators, since very shortly after the cold
water had dropped so low over the waters that all
my attention was necessarily centered upon the delicate business of
settling upon the waves without breaking my ship's back. With
our buoyancy generators in commission, it would have been a

(22:41):
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 Ajar,
I have done it a thousand times, but I did

(23:03):
not dare submerge the cold water 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

(23:25):
closer and closer to those stupendous waves. He watched my
every move, but he was by far too fine an
officer and gentlemen 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

(23:47):
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 led
us into the ocean. Down into the trough, we went,
wallowing like the carcass of a dead whale, and then

(24:08):
began the fight with rudder and propellers to force the
cold water 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 wrecked from stem to stern by the

(24:29):
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, Porphyrio Johnson,

(24:55):
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

(25:19):
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 cold water under my seamanship was
weathering the tempest and giving promise of pulling through safely,

(25:39):
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

(26:00):
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

(26:23):
minutes after his reappearance at my side, the cold water
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 bows 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,

(26:47):
he called, Shall we force the remaining three? We can
do nothing else, I bellowed into the transmitter. They won't
stand the gas, 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

(27:07):
the receiver. For twenty minutes, the cold water 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,

(27:28):
without warning, the bough 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 smither crossed his thin lips? I do not know,

(27:49):
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

(28:11):
of disrespect in his tone or manner, which escaped me,
for Alvarez turned upon him like a flash. When Lieutenant
Turk 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.

(28:34):
The regulations are explicit, and if the cold water crosses thirty,
it devolves upon you to place Lieutenant Turk under arrest
and immediately exert every endeavor to bring the ship back
into Pan American waters. I shall not know, replied Alvarez,
that the cold water passes thirty, nor shall any other

(28:59):
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

(29:23):
to loyalty and friendship. For the no man might know
that Lieutenant Jefferson Turk 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

(29:45):
under arrest? He asked. You shall not, I replied, nor
shall any one else. You become a party to his crime,
he cried angrily. You may go below, mister Johnson, I said,
and attend to the work of unpacking the extra instruments
and having them properly set upon the bridge. He saluted

(30:09):
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

(30:29):
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

(30:50):
mounted within me a feeling which I imagined 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.

(31:11):
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 precience of

(31:33):
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 stitch against the blind
and senseless regulation which assumed the synonymity of misfortune and treason.

(31:55):
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

(32:16):
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

(32:37):
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

(33:00):
a sea anchor was rigged, And even now the men
had completed their task, and the cold water was swinging
round 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

(33:21):
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 Avarez attacked me. He cried, I
demand that he be placed under arrest. I found him

(33:44):
in the act of destroying the reserved 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, mister Johnson, I said, you are not
in command of mine. I deplore the action of Lieutenant Alvarez,

(34:04):
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, Mister Johnson, I intend retaining command
of the ship even though she crosses thirty, and I

(34:28):
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

(34:50):
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
York commanding officer and as such entitled to our salute.
He flushed, hesitated a moment, and then, saluting, turned upon

(35:11):
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

(35:33):
hand on his shoulder, and I guessed 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,

(35:54):
and to take my ship back to New York myself.
I did not ask him to show 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

(36:15):
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.

(36:38):
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 all the

(37:00):
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

(37:22):
known was aboard the cold water. 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.

(37:46):
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.

(38:07):
Between thirty and one hundred seventy five, their 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 homecoming of their commanding officer.
The wind had dropped to a steady blow still from

(38:30):
west by north, and the sea had gone down. Correspondingly,
The crew, with the exception of those whose duty 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

(38:52):
the handrail and looking down into their upturned, bronzed faces.
You are anxiously awaiting information as to the ship's position.
It has been determined at latitude fifty degrees seven minutes
north longitude twenty degrees sixteen minutes west. I paused, and

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a buzz of animated comment ran through the massed men
beneath me. Beyond thirty. But there will be no change
in commanding offices, in routine or in discipline until after
we have docked again in New York. As I ceased

(39:34):
speaking and stepped back from the rail, there was a
roar of applause from the deck such as I never
before had heard aboard a ship of peace. It recalled
to my mind tales that I had read of the
good old days, when naval vessels were built to fight,
when ships of peace had been man of war, and

(39:56):
guns had flashed in other than futile target practice, and
decks had run red with blood. With the subsistence of
the sea, we were able to go to work upon
the damaged engines to some effect, and I also set
men to examine the gravitation screen generators, with a view

(40:17):
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

(40:40):
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

(41:02):
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 cold water
in one of the boats. On such an excursion, A

(41:26):
gentle west wind was blowing, the sea shimmered in the sunlight.
A cloudless sky can appeared 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

(41:46):
with a wilful violation of the dead line's regulation. I
had with me only the boat's ordinary complement of men
three and 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 I am now that I had not.

(42:09):
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 cold water. The day wore on until

(42:30):
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,

(42:51):
and there, a short distance above the horizon, we saw
the outlines of the cold water silhouetted against the sky.
They 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

(43:13):
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

(43:35):
he knows more concerning both the theory and the practice
of screening gravitation than any living pan American. At the
sight of the cold water, 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

(43:57):
overcome by a premonition of personal misas fortune. 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

(44:21):
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 Arrow Submarine and to the hundreds of

(44:44):
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 have observed us. But the ship moved steadily away,

(45:11):
growing smaller and smaller to our view, until at last
she passed completely out of sight. End of Chapter one