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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.

The Lost Continent