The newspapers announced in large type that the Kronprinzessin Emilie, the crack flyer of the Bremen-American line, was to carry from the United States to Germany the vast sum of $6,000,000 in bullion. On her sailing day the dock, from which she was to start on what destined to prove the most eventful voyage ever made since men first went down to the sea in ships, was jammed with gaping crowds. They interfered with the passengers, and employees of the company had to jostle their way among them as best they could. 6 The thought of the vast fortune stowed within the tall, steel sides of the liner had attracted them, although what they expected to see of it was difficult to imagine. But just as a crowd will gather outside a prison where some notorious malefactor is confined, feasting their eyes on its gray walls without hope of seeing the lawbreaker himself, so the throngs on the Kronprinzessin Emilie's pier indulged their curiosity by staring at the colossal casket that held such an enormous fortune.