with her precious freight had almost passed into history. For history in the year 1903 was anything that had happened farther than a week back—a day, if it was not of overwhelming importance.
If the big ship's arrival had been cabled on the eighth day, or even early on the ninth, it would still have found the public in a comparatively calm state of mind, for the mid -Atlantic storm would naturally account for a multitude of lost hows; but when the ninth lapped over onto the tenth and the tenth onto the eleventh and twelfth, with no tidings of the tardy steamer, surprise grew into anxiety and anxiety into an international sensation.
Of course all sorts of plausible theories were advanced by the steamship agents, the newspapers, and other oracles, including that of the inevitable broken shaft; and these might have sufficed for a day or two longer had it not been for another and much more startling theory that suddenly came to the surface and threw two continents into a fever of trepidation and suspense.
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 under taking, 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."
