"The spell was broken. The big liner with her six hundred human souls and thirty millions in gold was freed from the power that had for so long held her captive. But crippled as she was by the accident to her machinery she was unable to proceed unaided, and was taken in tow by the British steamer, the Midlothian, and a day later was brought safely into port at Fayal.
"The Union Press steamer is the first to bring the thrilling news. The first officer of the Oklahoma and the saloon passengers, including Sir Gambrel Roufe, the British ambassador, accompanied your correspondent to Lisbon. A relief steamer is urgently needed, as the Oklahoma's engines are both disabled, and she will not be able to proceed for several weeks.
"The passenger thought to be ' Gentleman Jim' Langwood, proves to be the Duke of Medfordshire, now on his wedding trip with his young millionaire American bride."
Hardly had the excitement caused by this startling intelligence subsided, when it was once more aroused by a despatch from Providence, R. I., announcing the capture in the act of robbing a jewelry store of "Gentleman Jim" Langwood, and a gang of four other oldtimers, and by the following even more important cablegram from the Russian representative of the Union Press:—
"St. Petersburh, April 2.—The identity of the mysterious craft by which the Oklahoma was drawn from her course has been established beyond a doubt. The vessel is a Hypnotic Cruiser, recently completed by a Russian inventor, named Slobodenski, and possessed of an electric apparatus by which any vessel can be brought completely under its control.
"Whether the Hypnotic Cruiser's bedevilment of the Oklahoma was merely a trial of power, or whether plunder was intended, can only be surmised. But naval lawyers say that this marvelous new invention will revolutionize naval warfare and necessitate the passage of stringent laws to cover a crime for which at present no penalty exists."
