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.
As to the British foreign office, this cumulative evidence threw it into a perfect frenzy, and it was only by a miracle that a declaration of war against the United States was averted.
Three days passed by after the departure of the big searching fleets, during which time all incoming steamers reported that they had not found a single trace of the Oklahoma either in the northern or southern route. Vessels from the Mediterranean, the West Indies, South America, all made the same ominous report.
The tension was terrible. Thousands could not even sleep on account of the mental strain, and the minds of some of the weaker actually gave way beneath it. The public by this time was convinced beyond a reasonable shadow of doubt that the robbers had successfully carried out their fiendish plan; but how? and when? and where?
When they opened their newspapers on the morning of the eighteenth day of suspense, they found the answer to the question, and the greatest marine mystery of centuries was solved.
In the small hours of the night there had flashed across the European continent, and under the dark waters of the Atlantic, this startling message from the representative of the Union Press Association:—