The boats' crews had been picked up, about thirty-six hours after the sinking of the Russian yacht, by a French liner, which took them to le Havre. The officers had taken the greatest precautions to prevent the men from speaking too freely, but it was no use. There were two journalists, one an Englishman and the other an American, on board the boat, and they agreed to divide the sensation between themselves and their two countries. Both were in the service of wealthy journals, and they bribed as freely as they did unscrupulously, with the result that, in addition to the general gossip of the ship, which was more or less accurate, they each possessed a fairly comprehensive narrative of what had happened on the high seas between the _Nadine_ and the _Vlodoya_, both of which were speeding over the wires to America and Canada within half-an-hour of the liner's arrival at le Havre. But the Englishman did even better than this, for he practically kidnapped the third engineer of the _Vlodoya_, who could speak very good French, chartered a special steamer to Southampton, pumped him absolutely dry on the passage, and turned up at midnight at the office of his paper with a column and a half of vividly-written description of the most sensational event that had taken place on the high seas since the affair of the _Trent_ during the American war. The presses were stopped, the matter was set up with lightning speed, and by the next morning that journalist had achieved the biggest scoop of the twentieth century. The news agencies immediately wired extracts all over the Continent, and meanwhile the news had been leaking out through other sources in France, for passengers will talk, and the captain was bound to make his formal report as to the picking up of the castaways; wherefore, within twenty-four hours the whole Continental press was teeming with interviews, more or less authentic, leading articles, and notes on the subject of this astounding occurrence. Two Russian newspapers published a few meagre details, and were promptly suppressed. The _Globe_, in a leader on what it termed the "astonishing intelligence published by a morning contemporary," put the matter very concisely, and with its usual clearness and insight into foreign affairs.