Page:The Black Cat v01no07 (1896-04).pdf/3





T eight o'clock on the morning of March 14, 1903, the Anglo-American liner, the Oklahoma, left her dock in North River on her regular trip to Southampton.

The fact of her departure, ordinarily of merely local interest, was telegraphed all over the United States and Canada, and even to London itself; for there was a significance attached to this particular trip such as had never before marked the sailing of an ocean steamship from these shores.

It was not because the great vessel numbered among her crowd of passengers a well-known English duke and his young bride, the grand-niece of a world-famous New York railroad magnate, that her sailing was heralded by such a blowing of trumpets, nor be cause she also had upon her lists the names of the august British ambassador to the United States, returning home on a brief furlough, the noted French tragedian, fresh from his American triumphs, and a score of other illustrious personages whose names were household words in a dozen countries.

The presence of all these notables was merely incidental. What made this trip of the Oklahoma an event of international interest was the fact that at this, the apparent climax of the great gold Copyright, 1896, by the Shortstory Publishing Company. All rights reserved. 1