CHAPTER VIII.
ONE KING SHY.
The genuine colonists of King Osmond stole on board the Tarlington, singly and by twos and threes, some before she pulled out of the docks, others by boat after she swung into the stream. At the same time the imitation voyagers from the employment agency were making as much noise and bustle as possible as they trooped on board the Tyneshire Glen.
Captain O'Shea intended to convoy the king from the hotel to the Tarlington, but at the last moment he was detained to quell a ruction among a group of drunken firemen in the forecastle. George Huntley had been unexpectedly summoned to the Hotel Cecil to see an American millionaire who was in a great hurry to charter a yacht. O'Shea therefore sent a message to his majesty, directing him to have his carriage driven to a certain landing on the river front of the East India Docks, where he would be met by the chief officer of the Tarlington and escorted aboard the ship.
Within the same hour the dignified elderly clerk by the name of Thompson could have been seen to enter a carriage close by the Hotel Carleton, and those standing near might have heard him tell the driver to go to the steamer Tyneshire Glen, in the East India Docks.
The chief officer of the Tarlington, waiting not far from an electric light at the landing pier abreast of which the steamer was anchored in the stream, felt a certain responsibility for the safe delivery of King Osmond, and was easier in mind when he saw a carriage halt within a few yards of him. The window framed the kindly features, the white mustache and imperial which the chief officer instantly identified. Hastening to assist his majesty from the carriage, he announced apologetically:
"Captain O'Shea sends his compliments, and regrets that he is detained on board. The ship is ready as soon as you are."
The king murmured a word or two of thanks. The chief officer carefully assisted him to board the tug, which immediately backed away from the pier and turned to run alongside the Tarlington. The important passenger mounted the ship's gangway, and stood upon the shadowy deck, whose row of lights had been purposely turned off no lest the figure of the king might be discernible from shore.
Captain O'Shea had delayed on the bridge to get the ship under way as soon as the skipper of the tug sang out to him that his majesty was safely aboard. It was no time for ceremony. The business of the moment was to head for the open sea and beyond the reach of the British law and its officers.
A few minutes later Captain O'Shea hastened aft to greet his majesty and explain his failure to welcome him on board. Meeting the chief officer, he halted to ask:
"Everything all right, Mr. Arbuthnot? Did he ask for me? Did he give you any orders?"
"All satisfactory, sir. The king said he was very tired and would go to his rooms at once."
"I wonder should I disturb him?" said O'Shea to himself, hesitating. "'Tis not etiquette to break into his rest. Well, I will go back to the bridge and wait a bit. Maybe he will be sending for me. My place is with the pilot till the ship has poked her way past Gravesend and is clear of this muck of upriver shipping."
The Tarlington found a less-crowded reach of the Thames as she passed below Greenwich, and her engines began to shove her along at a rapid gait. She had almost picked up full speed, and was fairly bound out for blue water when the noise of loud and grievous protests arose from the saloon deck. The commotion was so startling that O'Shea bounded down from the bridge, and was confronted by a smooth-shaven, slender, elderly man, who flourished a false mustache and imperial in his fist as he indignantly cried:
"I say, this is all wrong, as sure as my name is Thompson! I never bargained with Mr. George Huntley to be kidnaped and taken to sea. I don't want to go, I tell you! These people tell me that this steamer is bound to some island or other thousands of miles from here. I stand on my rights as an Englishman! I demand that I be taken back to London at once!"
O'Shea glared stupidly at the irate clerk so long in the employ of Tavistock & Huntley. For once the resourceful shipmaster was so taken aback that he could only blink and open and shut his mouth. At length he managed to say, in a sort of quavering stage whisper:
"For the love o' Heaven, what has become of the real king? Who mislaid him? Where is he now?"
"I don't know, and I'm sure I don't care!" bitterly returned the affrighted Thompson. "I was an ass to consent to this make-believe job."
"But how did you two kings get mixed?" groaned O'Shea. "You're in the wrong ship. Have ye not sense enough to fathom that much? You were supposed to go aboard the Tyneshire Glen, you old blunderer!"
"The man who drove the carriage told me this was the Tyneshire Glen, I had to take his word for it. How was I to know one ship from another in the dark? I was told to pretend I was the genuine king, wasn't I? So I played the part as well as I could."
"Ye played it right up to the hilt. My chief officer will vouch for that." And O'Shea held his head between his hands. He sent for Johnny Kent, whose chin dropped when he beheld the miserable, crushed demeanor of the master of the Tarlington, who announced briefly:
"We're shy one king, Johnny. The deal was switched on us somehow. Our boss was left behind."
"Great sufferin' Caesar's ghost, Cap'n Mike!" gasped the other. "Say it slow. Spell it out. Make signs if you're so choked up that you can't talk plain."
"The real king went in the discard, Johnny. We've fetched the dummy to sea. The one that came aboard was the other one."
"Then what in blazes became of our beloved King Osmond I.?" cried Johnny.
"You can search me. Maybe his affectionate relatives have their hooks in him by now and have started him on the road to the dotty house."
"It ain't reasonable for us to keep on our course for Trinadaro without the boss of the whole works," suggested the chief engineer. "This is his ship and cargo."
This was so self-evident that Captain O'Shea answered never a word, but gave orders to let go an anchor and hold the ship in the river until further notice. Then he turned to glower at an excited group of passengers, who had mustered at the foot of the bridge ladder and were loudly demanding that he come down and talk to them. They were loyal subjects of the vanished monarch—his secretaries, artisans, foremen, laborers—who ardently desired an explanation. They become more and more insistent, and threatened to resort to violence unless the steamer instantly returned to London to find King Osmond.
O'Shea gave them his word that he would not proceed to sea without the missing sovereign, and during a brief lull in the excitement he thrust the bewildered Thompson, the masquerader, into the chart room, and pelted him with questions. The latter was positive that he had directed the cabman to drive to the Tyneshire Glen. Could the cabman have purposely sought the wrong ship? No, for he was particular to stop and ask his way when just inside the entrance to the docks. And while he was talking to the informant, who looked like a watchman, another person had stepped up to volunteer the desired information.
The watchman had moved on, and the cabman and the second stranger held a conversation which Thompson was unable to overhear.
"And did ye get a look at this second party?" sharply queried O'Shea.
"The carriage lamp showed me his face for a moment, and I saw him less distinctly as he moved away. He was a young man, well dressed, rather a smart-looking chap, I should say. I think he had on a fancy red waist-coat."
"Sandy-complected? A brisk walker?" roared O'Shea, in tremendous tones.
"I am inclined to say the description fits the young man," said Thompson.
"'Twas the crooked minister of finance, Baron Frederick Martin Strothers, bad luck to him!" And O'Shea looked bloodthirsty. "I'll bet the ship against a cigar that he sold out to the enemy. He stands in with the king's blackguardly relatives and the lawyers. And we never fooled him for a minute. 'Tis likely he switched the real king to the Tyneshire Glen, where the poor monarch would have no friends to help him out of a scrape. Strothers and a pal bribed the two cabmen—that's how the trick was turned. Just how they got next to our plans I can't fathom, but we will not discuss it now."
"Then it is hopeless to try to secure the king and transfer him to this steamer?" asked Thompson, easier in mind now that he understood that he had not been kidnaped.
"Hopeless? By me sainted grandmother, it is not hopeless at all!" cried Captain O'Shea, as he fled from the chart room to confer with his chief officer. Johnny Kent, restless and unhappy, had made another journey from the lower regions to seek enlightenment. O'Shea thumped him between the shoulders, and confidently declaimed:
"We've finished with all the foolish play acting and stratagems. 'Twas done to spare the sensitive feeling of King Osmond, and this wide-awake Strothers has made monkeys of us. He stacked the cards, and dealt us the wrong king. Now we're going to turn around and steam back to London and grab this king of ours, and take him to sea without any more delay at all."
"I like your language," beamingly quoth Johnny Kent. "We're due to have a little violence, Cap'n Mike."