The Illustrious Prince — Background and Themes

CHAPTER I. MR. HAMILTON FYNES, URGENT

There was a little murmur of regret amongst the five hundred and eighty-seven saloon passengers on board the steamship Lusitania, mingled, perhaps, with a few expressions of a more violent character. After several hours of doubt, the final verdict had at last been pronounced. They had missed the tide, and no attempt was to be made to land passengers that night. Already the engines had ceased to throb, the period of unnatural quietness had commenced. Slowly, and without noticeable motion, the great liner swung round a little in the river.

A small tug, which had been hovering about for some time, came screaming alongside. There was a hiss from its wave-splashed deck, and a rocket with a blue light flashed up into the sky. A man who had formed one of the long line of passengers, leaning over the rail, watching the tug since it had come into sight, now turned away and walked briskly to the steps leading to the bridge. As it happened, the captain himself was in the act of descending. The passenger accosted him, and held out what seemed to be a letter.

“Captain Goodfellow,” he said, “I should be glad if you would glance at the contents of that note.”

The captain, who had just finished a long discussion with the pilot and was not in the best of humor, looked a little surprised.

“What, now?” he asked.

“If you please,” was the quiet answer. “The matter is urgent.”

“Who are you?” the captain asked.

“My name is Hamilton Fynes,” the other answered. “I am a saloon passenger on board your ship, although my name does not appear in the list. That note has been in my pocket since we left New York, to deliver to you in the event of a certain contingency happening.”

“The contingency being?” the captain asked, tearing open the envelope and moving a little nearer the electric light which shone out from the smoking room.

“That the Lusitania did not land her passengers this evening.”

The captain read the note, examined the signature carefully, and whistled softly to himself.

“You know what is inside this?” he asked, looking into his companion’s face with some curiosity.

“Certainly,” was the brief reply.

“Your name is Mr. Hamilton Fynes, the Mr. Hamilton Fynes mentioned in this letter?”

“That is so,” the passenger admitted.

“Well,” he said, “you had better get down on the lower deck, port side. By the bye, have you any friends with you?”

“I am quite alone,” he answered.

“So much the better,” the captain declared. “Don’t tell any one that you are going ashore if you can help it.”

“I certainly will not, sir,” the other answered. “Thank you very much.”

“Of course, you know that you can’t take your luggage with you?” the captain remarked.

“That is of no consequence at all, sir,” Mr. Hamilton Fynes answered. “I will leave instructions for my trunk to be sent on after me. I have all that I require, for the moment, in this suitcase.”

The captain blew his whistle. Mr. Hamilton Fynes made his way quietly to the lower deck, which was almost deserted. In a very few minutes he was joined by half a dozen sailors, dragging a rope ladder. The little tug came screaming around, and before any of the passengers on the deck above had any idea of what was happening, Mr. Hamilton Fynes was on board the Anna Maria, and on his way down the river, seated in a small, uncomfortable cabin, lit by a single oil lamp.

No one spoke more than a casual word to him from the moment he stepped to the deck until the short journey was at an end. He was shown at once into the cabin, the door of which he closed without a moment’s delay. A very brief examination of the interior convinced him that he was indeed alone. Thereupon he seated himself with his back to the wall and his face to the door, and finding an English newspaper on the table, read it until they reached the docks. Arrived there, he exchanged a civil good-night with the captain, and handed a sovereign to the seaman who held his bag while he disembarked.