The Illustrious Prince

Name: The Illustrious Prince
Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Pages: about 316
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 5.8 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 3.2 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

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.
“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.

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The Illustrious Prince

From the opening

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