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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 Coldwater'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 ship'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.

The Lost Continent