This was so self-evident that Captain O’Shea answered never a word, but gave orders to let go an anchor and hold the ship in the river until further notice. Then he turned to glower at an excited group of passengers who had mustered at the foot of the bridge ladder and were loudly demanding that he come down and talk to them. They were loyal subjects of the vanished monarch, his secretaries, artisans, foremen, laborers, who ardently desired an explanation. They became more and more insistent and threatened to resort to violence unless the steamer instantly returned to London to find King Osmond.
O’Shea gave them his word that he would not proceed to sea without the missing sovereign, and during a brief lull in the excitement he thrust the bewildered Thompson, the masquerader, into the chart-room and pelted him with questions. The latter was positive that he had directed the cabman to drive to the Tyneshire Glen. And the fellow was particular to stop and ask his way when just inside the entrance to the docks. At least, he had halted his cab to talk to some one who was apparently giving him information. Thompson was unable to overhear the conversation.
“And did ye get a look at this second party?” sharply queried O’Shea.
“The carriage lamp showed me his face for a moment, and I saw him less distinctly as he moved away. He was a young man, well dressed, rather a smart-looking chap, I should say. I think he had on a fancy red waistcoat.”
“Sandy complected? A brisk walker?” roared O’Shea in tremendous tones.
“I am inclined to say the description fits the young man,” said Thompson.
“’Twas the crooked minister of finance, Baron Frederick Martin Strothers, bad luck to him!” and O’Shea looked blood-thirsty. “I will bet the ship against a cigar that he sold out to the enemy. He stands in with the king’s wicked relatives and schemin’ lawyers. And we never fooled him for a minute. ’Tis likely he switched the real king to the Tyneshire Glen, where the poor monarch would have no friends to help him out of a scrape. Strothers bribed the cabmen—that’s how the trick was turned. Just how they got next to our plans I can’t fathom at all.”
“Then it is hopeless to try to secure the king and transfer him to this steamer?” asked Thompson, easier in mind now that he comprehended that he had not been purposely kidnapped.
“Hopeless? By me sainted grandmother, it is not hopeless at all,” cried Captain O’Shea as he fled from the chart-room. Johnny Kent had made another journey from the lower regions to seek enlightenment. O’Shea thumped him between the shoulders and confidently declaimed:
“We’re done with all this childish play-acting and stratagems. ’Tis not our kind of game. ’Twas devised to spare the sensitive feeling of King Osmond, and this wide-awake Strothers has made monkeys of us. Now we’re going to turn around and steam back to London and grab this genuine king of ours and take him to sea without any more delay at all.”