It must have been a little after three o'clock in the afternoonthat it happened--the afternoon of June 3rd, 1916. It seemsincredible that all that I have passed through--all those weirdand terrifying experiences--should have been encompassed withinso short a span as three brief months. Rather might I haveexperienced a cosmic cycle, with all its changes and evolutionsfor that which I have seen with my own eyes in this briefinterval of time--things that no other mortal eye had seenbefore, glimpses of a world past, a world dead, a world solong dead that even in the lowest Cambrian stratum no trace ofit remains. Fused with the melting inner crust, it has passedforever beyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket ofthe earth whither fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed.I am here and here must remain.

After reading this far, my interest, which already had beenstimulated by the finding of the manuscript, was approachingthe boiling-point. I had come to Greenland for the summer, on theadvice of my physician, and was slowly being bored to extinction,as I had thoughtlessly neglected to bring sufficient reading-matter.Being an indifferent fisherman, my enthusiasm for this form ofsport soon waned; yet in the absence of other forms of recreationI was now risking my life in an entirely inadequate boat off CapeFarewell at the southernmost extremity of Greenland.

Greenland! As a descriptive appellation, it is a sorry joke--but mystory has nothing to do with Greenland, nothing to do with me; so Ishall get through with the one and the other as rapidly as possible.

The inadequate boat finally arrived at a precarious landing, thenatives, waist-deep in the surf, assisting. I was carried ashore,and while the evening meal was being prepared, I wandered to andfro along the rocky, shattered shore. Bits of surf-harriedbeach clove the worn granite, or whatever the rocks of CapeFarewell may be composed of, and as I followed the ebbing tidedown one of these soft stretches, I saw the thing. Were oneto bump into a Bengal tiger in the ravine behind the BiminiBaths, one could be no more surprised than was I to see aperfectly good quart thermos bottle turning and twisting in thesurf of Cape Farewell at the southern extremity of Greenland.I rescued it, but I was soaked above the knees doing it; and thenI sat down in the sand and opened it, and in the long twilightread the manuscript, neatly written and tightly folded, which wasits contents.

You have read the opening paragraph, and if you are an imaginativeidiot like myself, you will want to read the rest of it; so I shallgive it to you here, omitting quotation marks--which are difficultof remembrance. In two minutes you will forget me.

My home is in Santa Monica. I am, or was, junior member of myfather's firm. We are ship-builders. Of recent years we havespecialized on submarines, which we have built for Germany,England, France and the United States. I know a sub as a motherknows her baby's face, and have commanded a score of them ontheir trial runs. Yet my inclinations were all toward aviation.I graduated under Curtiss, and after a long siege with my fatherobtained his permission to try for the Lafayette Escadrille. As astepping-stone I obtained an appointment in the American ambulanceservice and was on my way to France when three shrill whistlesaltered, in as many seconds, my entire scheme of life.

I was sitting on deck with some of the fellows who were goinginto the American ambulance service with me, my Airedale, CrownPrince Nobbler, asleep at my feet, when the first blast of thewhistle shattered the peace and security of the ship. Ever sinceentering the U-boat zone we had been on the lookout for periscopes,and children that we were, bemoaning the unkind fate that was tosee us safely into France on the morrow without a glimpse of thedread marauders. We were young; we craved thrills, and God knowswe got them that day; yet by comparison with that through which Ihave since passed they were as tame as a Punch-and-Judy show.

I shall never forget the ashy faces of the passengers as theystampeded for their life-belts, though there was no panic.Nobs rose with a low growl. I rose, also, and over the ship'sside, I saw not two hundred yards distant the periscope of asubmarine, while racing toward the liner the wake of a torpedowas distinctly visible. We were aboard an American ship--which,of course, was not armed. We were entirely defenseless; yetwithout warning, we were being torpedoed.

I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo.It struck us on the starboard side almost amidships. The vesselrocked as though the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano.We were thrown to the decks, bruised and stunned, and then abovethe ship, carrying with it fragments of steel and wood anddismembered human bodies, rose a column of water hundreds of feetinto the air.

The silence which followed the detonation of the exploding torpedowas almost equally horrifying. It lasted for perhaps two seconds,to be followed by the screams and moans of the wounded, the cursingof the men and the hoarse commands of the ship's officers. They weresplendid--they and their crew. Never before had I been so proud ofmy nationality as I was that moment. In all the chaos which followedthe torpedoing of the liner no officer or member of the crew lost hishead or showed in the slightest any degree of panic or fear.

While we were attempting to lower boats, the submarine emergedand trained guns on us. The officer in command ordered us tolower our flag, but this the captain of the liner refused to do.The ship was listing frightfully to starboard, rendering the portboats useless, while half the starboard boats had been demolishedby the explosion. Even while the passengers were crowding thestarboard rail and scrambling into the few boats left to us, thesubmarine commenced shelling the ship. I saw one shell burst ina group of women and children, and then I turned my head andcovered my eyes.

When I looked again to horror was added chagrin, for with theemerging of the U-boat I had recognized her as a product ofour own shipyard. I knew her to a rivet. I had superintendedher construction. I had sat in that very conning-tower anddirected the efforts of the sweating crew below when first herprow clove the sunny summer waters of the Pacific; and now thiscreature of my brain and hand had turned Frankenstein, bent uponpursuing me to my death.

A second shell exploded upon the deck. One of the lifeboats,frightfully overcrowded, swung at a dangerous angle from its davits.A fragment of the shell shattered the bow tackle, and I saw thewomen and children and the men vomited into the sea beneath,while the boat dangled stern up for a moment from its singledavit, and at last with increasing momentum dived into the midstof the struggling victims screaming upon the face of the waters.

Now I saw men spring to the rail and leap into the ocean. The deckwas tilting to an impossible angle. Nobs braced himself with allfour feet to keep from slipping into the scuppers and looked upinto my face with a questioning whine. I stooped and strokedhis head.

"Come on, boy!" I cried, and running to the side of the ship,dived headforemost over the rail. When I came up, the firstthing I saw was Nobs swimming about in a bewildered sort of waya few yards from me. At sight of me his ears went flat, and hislips parted in a characteristic grin.

The submarine was withdrawing toward the north, but all the timeit was shelling the open boats, three of them, loaded to thegunwales with survivors. Fortunately the small boats presenteda rather poor target, which, combined with the bad marksmanshipof the Germans preserved their occupants from harm; and after afew minutes a blotch of smoke appeared upon the eastern horizonand the U-boat submerged and disappeared.

All the time the lifeboats has been pulling away from the dangerof the sinking liner, and now, though I yelled at the top of mylungs, they either did not hear my appeals for help or else didnot dare return to succor me. Nobs and I had gained some littledistance from the ship when it rolled completely over and sank.We were caught in the suction only enough to be drawn backwarda few yards, neither of us being carried beneath the surface.I glanced hurriedly about for something to which to cling.My eyes were directed toward the point at which the liner haddisappeared when there came from the depths of the ocean themuffled reverberation of an explosion, and almost simultaneouslya geyser of water in which were shattered lifeboats, human bodies,steam, coal, oil, and the flotsam of a liner's deck leaped highabove the surface of the sea--a watery column momentarily markingthe grave of another ship in this greatest cemetery of the seas.

When the turbulent waters had somewhat subsided and the sea hadceased to spew up wreckage, I ventured to swim back in search ofsomething substantial enough to support my weight and that ofNobs as well. I had gotten well over the area of the wreck whennot a half-dozen yards ahead of me a lifeboat shot bow foremostout of the ocean almost its entire length to flop down upon itskeel with a mighty splash. It must have been carried far below,held to its mother ship by a single rope which finally parted tothe enormous strain put upon it. In no other way can I accountfor its having leaped so far out of the water--a beneficentcircumstance to which I doubtless owe my life, and that ofanother far dearer to me than my own. I say beneficentcircumstance even in the face of the fact that a fate far morehideous confronts us than that which we escaped that day; forbecause of that circumstance I have met her whom otherwise Inever should have known; I have met and loved her. At least Ihave had that great happiness in life; nor can Caspak, with allher horrors, expunge that which has been.

So for the thousandth time I thank the strange fate which sentthat lifeboat hurtling upward from the green pit of destructionto which it had been dragged--sent it far up above the surface,emptying its water as it rose above the waves, and dropping itupon the surface of the sea, buoyant and safe.

It did not take me long to clamber over its side and drag Nobs into comparative safety, and then I glanced around upon the sceneof death and desolation which surrounded us. The sea waslittered with wreckage among which floated the pitiful formsof women and children, buoyed up by their useless lifebelts.Some were torn and mangled; others lay rolling quietly to themotion of the sea, their countenances composed and peaceful;others were set in hideous lines of agony or horror. Close tothe boat's side floated the figure of a girl. Her face wasturned upward, held above the surface by her life-belt, and wasframed in a floating mass of dark and waving hair. She wasvery beautiful. I had never looked upon such perfect features,such a divine molding which was at the same time human--intensely human. It was a face filled with character andstrength and femininity--the face of one who was created tolove and to be loved. The cheeks were flushed to the hue oflife and health and vitality, and yet she lay there upon thebosom of the sea, dead. I felt something rise in my throat asI looked down upon that radiant vision, and I swore that Ishould live to avenge her murder.

And then I let my eyes drop once more to the face upon the water,and what I saw nearly tumbled me backward into the sea, for theeyes in the dead face had opened; the lips had parted; and onehand was raised toward me in a mute appeal for succor. She lived!She was not dead! I leaned over the boat's side and drew her quicklyin to the comparative safety which God had given me. I removed herlife-belt and my soggy coat and made a pillow for her head. I chafedher hands and arms and feet. I worked over her for an hour, andat last I was rewarded by a deep sigh, and again those great eyesopened and looked into mine.

At that I was all embarrassment. I have never been a ladies' man;at Leland-Stanford I was the butt of the class because of myhopeless imbecility in the presence of a pretty girl; but the menliked me, nevertheless. I was rubbing one of her hands when sheopened her eyes, and I dropped it as though it were a red-hot rivet.Those eyes took me in slowly from head to foot; then they wanderedslowly around the horizon marked by the rising and falling gunwalesof the lifeboat. They looked at Nobs and softened, and then cameback to me filled with questioning.

"I--I--" I stammered, moving away and stumbling over the next thwart.The vision smiled wanly.

"Aye-aye, sir!" she replied faintly, and again her lips drooped,and her long lashes swept the firm, fair texture of her skin.

"I hope that you are feeling better," I finally managed to say.

"Do you know," she said after a moment of silence, "I havebeen awake for a long time! But I did not dare open my eyes.I thought I must be dead, and I was afraid to look, for fearthat I should see nothing but blackness about me. I am afraidto die! Tell me what happened after the ship went down.I remember all that happened before--oh, but I wish that Imight forget it!" A sob broke her voice. "The beasts!" shewent on after a moment. "And to think that I was to havemarried one of them--a lieutenant in the Germany navy."

Presently she resumed as though she had not ceased speaking."I went down and down and down. I thought I should never ceaseto sink. I felt no particular distress until I suddenly startedupward at ever-increasing velocity; then my lungs seemed about toburst, and I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothingmore until I opened my eyes after listening to a torrent ofinvective against Germany and Germans. Tell me, please, all thathappened after the ship sank."

I told her, then, as well as I could, all that I had seen--thesubmarine shelling the open boats and all the rest of it.She thought it marvelous that we should have been spared in soprovidential a manner, and I had a pretty speech upon my tongue'send, but lacked the nerve to deliver it. Nobs had come over andnosed his muzzle into her lap, and she stroked his ugly face, andat last she leaned over and put her cheek against his forehead.I have always admired Nobs; but this was the first time that ithad ever occurred to me that I might wish to be Nobs. I wonderedhow he would take it, for he is as unused to women as I. But hetook to it as a duck takes to water. What I lack of being aladies' man, Nobs certainly makes up for as a ladies' dog.The old scalawag just closed his eyes and put on one of thesoftest "sugar-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth" expressions you eversaw and stood there taking it and asking for more. It mademe jealous.

"You seem fond of dogs," I said.

"I am fond of this dog," she replied.

Whether she meant anything personal in that reply I did not know;but I took it as personal and it made me feel mighty good.

As we drifted about upon that vast expanse of loneliness it isnot strange that we should quickly become well acquainted.Constantly we scanned the horizon for signs of smoke, venturingguesses as to our chances of rescue; but darkness settled, andthe black night enveloped us without ever the sight of a speckupon the waters.

We were thirsty, hungry, uncomfortable, and cold. Our wetgarments had dried but little and I knew that the girl must bein grave danger from the exposure to a night of cold and wetupon the water in an open boat, without sufficient clothing andno food. I had managed to bail all the water out of the boatwith cupped hands, ending by mopping the balance up with myhandkerchief--a slow and back-breaking procedure; thus I hadmade a comparatively dry place for the girl to lie down low inthe bottom of the boat, where the sides would protect her fromthe night wind, and when at last she did so, almost overcome asshe was by weakness and fatigue, I threw my wet coat over herfurther to thwart the chill. But it was of no avail; as I satwatching her, the moonlight marking out the graceful curves ofher slender young body, I saw her shiver.

"Isn't there something I can do?" I asked. "You can't lie therechilled through all night. Can't you suggest something?"

She shook her head. "We must grin and bear it," she repliedafter a moment.

Nobbler came and lay down on the thwart beside me, his backagainst my leg, and I sat staring in dumb misery at the girl,knowing in my heart of hearts that she might die before morningcame, for what with the shock and exposure, she had already gonethrough enough to kill almost any woman. And as I gazed down ather, so small and delicate and helpless, there was born slowlywithin my breast a new emotion. It had never been there before;now it will never cease to be there. It made me almost franticin my desire to find some way to keep warm and cooling lifebloodin her veins. I was cold myself, though I had almost forgottenit until Nobbler moved and I felt a new sensation of cold alongmy leg against which he had lain, and suddenly realized that inthat one spot I had been warm. Like a great light came theunderstanding of a means to warm the girl. Immediately I kneltbeside her to put my scheme into practice when suddenly I wasoverwhelmed with embarrassment. Would she permit it, even if Icould muster the courage to suggest it? Then I saw her frameconvulse, shudderingly, her muscles reacting to her rapidlylowering temperature, and casting prudery to the winds, Ithrew myself down beside her and took her in my arms, pressingher body close to mine.

She drew away suddenly, voicing a little cry of fright, and triedto push me from her.

"Forgive me," I managed to stammer. "It is the only way.You will die of exposure if you are not warmed, and Nobs andI are the only means we can command for furnishing warmth."And I held her tightly while I called Nobs and bade him liedown at her back. The girl didn't struggle any more when shelearned my purpose; but she gave two or three little gasps,and then began to cry softly, burying her face on my arm, andthus she fell asleep.