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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."

The Lost Continent