I
PRINCE ROGOVICH! Prince Rogovich!”
Staring up at the clammy wall of the liner, blanched by searchlights,
against which the little tug bumped and jostled, Philip Hindwood could
hear the Prince's name being shouted in staterooms, along decks and
passageways.
It had been midnight when they had drifted like a gallivanting hotel,
all portholes ablaze, into the starlit vagueness of Plymouth Harbor. The
_Ryndam_ did not dock there; she only halted long enough to put off the
English passengers and to drop the English mail. There had been three
passengers to land, of whom Hindwood had been the first; the rest were
disembarking at Boulogne or Rotterdam. They had been met just outside
the harbor by the tug, and the transshipping of the mail had immediately
commenced. The last bag had been tossed over the side; the immigration
officials had completed their inspection. Santa Gorlof, the second
passenger for England, radiantly smiling above her sables, had come down
the gangplank. It was for the third passenger that the liner delayed and
the tug still waited.
“Prince Rogovich! Prince Rogovich!”
The cries were becoming more insistent and impatient. They broke on the
stillness with the monotony of despair. To judge by the sound, every
soul aboard the liner had taken up the search, from the firemen in the
stoke-hole to the Marconi men on the top deck. Even the thud of the
engines seemed ominous, like the pounding of a heart stifled with
foreboding. Across the velvety expanse of water, as though they had
a secret they were trying to communicate, shore lights winked and
twinkled. They seemed to be signaling the information that, no matter
how long the search was maintained, Prince Rogovich would not be found
that night.