“Where is your stateroom?”
“On—on the opposite side of the steamer.”
“Then it seems rather strange that you should have mistaken ours for yours.”
“So it is, so it is! I can’t understand it at all, I give you my word. The sudden fright quite upset me. Didn’t it upset you?”
“No.”
“How I envy you! But it is no doubt the condition of my heart. Well, it is fortunate that the alarm was a false one.”
Meanwhile the officers had been instituting an investigation as to the person who had raised the cry.
A typical Yankee, who looked as if he had recently come from New England, pointed to Standish and said, “I am positive that man raised the alarm.”
There was an immediate commotion. Voices from the crowd of passengers called out: “Throw him into the river! Lynch him!”