It was the following announcement in a leading New York morning paper that roused excitement to fever heat: "A new and most astounding phase has come over the case of the mysteriously missing Oklahoma. It has just been given out from police headquarters that 'Gentleman Jim' Langwood, the noted cracksman and forger, whose ten years' sentence at Sing Sing expired only a few weeks ago, was in the city several days previous to the sailing of the Oklahoma and went with her as a passenger, under an assumed name. Even at that very time the central office detectives were looking for him, as a tip had been sent around that he was up to some new deviltry. One of those clever people whom nothing ever escapes had seen him go aboard almost at the last minute, and gave an accurate description of his personal appearance, which was evidently but slightly disguised.
"Langwood is probably the only criminal in the country who would ever conceive and try to execute such a stupendous undertaking, and it is something more than a suspicion on the part of the New York police that he has smuggled on board a couple of dozen well-armed desperadoes, who could easily hold the entire crew and passengers in check and make them do their bidding, for a time, at least. The idea is so replete with thrilling possibilities that the entire community stands aghast at it."
It is to be noted that the public always "stands aghast" in such a case as this; but it is more to the point just now to say that the article went on, through a column or more, to describe in minute detail the circumstances attendant upon the departure of "Gentleman Jim" even to the number and shape of the bundles he had in his arms. The famous robber was very boyish in appearance, and one of the last persons in the world whom a chance acquaintance would think of looking up in the rogues' gallery. Evidently he was "out for the stuff," in most approved stage villain style, with more millions in the stake than even Colonel Sellers, of nineteenth century fame, had ever dreamed of. Of course this theory, which was already accepted as a fact, especially in police and newspaper circles, was quickly cabled across, and created such a profound sensation on the other side that even the London papers had to give it that prominent position which is usually reserved for American cyclones, crop failures, and labor outbreaks.
Upon the phlegmatic British government it acted much like an electric shock and nearly threw the foreign office into a panic; for was not the British minister plenipotentiary himself a passenger on the ill-fated Oklahoma, and possibly at that very hour being butchered in cold blood by a lot of Yankee cut-throats?
The thought was too horrible for a moment's endurance, and forthwith the cablegrams began to flash thick and fast between the foreign office and the British legation at Washington.
The result was that, within a few hours after the appearance of the paragraph, one of the fastest and most powerful of her majesty's cruisers, quickly followed by a second and a third, hastily steamed from Portsmouth Roads, the three spreading out north, west, and south, like a great marine fan, as they hurried to the rescue of the Oklahoma and the British ambassador.
Meanwhile, at the Boston, Brooklyn, and League Island navy yards three or four of Uncle Sam's white war dogs were getting up steam for a similar errand, and a small fleet of ocean-going steamers, specially chartered by New York, Boston, and Chicago newspapers to go in search of the absent leviathan, were already threading their way through the Narrows.
Not for years had there been such world-wide interest in an ocean expedition. The newspapers commanded an unheard of sale, for everybody was on the tiptoe of expectation concerning the fate of the missing steamer, her six hundred passengers and her thirty millions of gold.
While the public was thus feverishly awaiting the news, certain discoveries were being made by the New York police, which only went to confirm their previous suspicions. Four or five other hardened graduates from state prison were found to be absent from their accustomed haunts in the East Side slums, although known to have been in the city just before the Oklahoma sailed, as was "Gentleman Jim," himself.
These discoveries had their natural effect upon the public mind, and the friends of those on board the steamer began to despair of hearing that even human life had been respected by the piratical band.