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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 launch'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.

The Lost Continent