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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Captain Sparkle, Pirate; Or, A Hard Man to Catch," Nicholas Carter crafts a vivid narrative set against the thrilling backdrop of the high seas. With a literary style that blends elements of adventure, humor, and moral complexity, Carter portrays the escapades of Captain Sparkle, a charismatic yet elusive pirate who navigates the treacherous waters of both fortune and folly. The novel captures the zeitgeist of late 19th-century America, reflecting a burgeoning fascination with piracy that both titillated and troubled the national imagination, mirroring contemporary concerns over justice, lawlessness, and the allure of rebellion. Nicholas Carter, an influential figure in American popular literature, was known for his prolific output during a time when dime novels flourished. Drawing upon his own experiences and observations of society, Carter's work often infused adventure with a moral compass, allowing readers to explore the tension between societal norms and individual desires. His love for storytelling was evident in his myriad contributions to the genre, which sought not only to entertain but also to provoke thought regarding human nature and ethical dilemmas. "Captain Sparkle, Pirate" is highly recommended for readers who revel in adventure tales rich with character and wit. This captivating novel offers a unique perspective on the pirate mythos while raising questions about identity and integrity, making it an essential addition to the canon of American literary adventure.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Captain Sparkle, Pirate; Or, A Hard Man to Catch
Table of Contents
Introduction
Across treacherous waters and through shadowed ports, a charismatic outlaw collides with the grinding machinery of justice in a breathless, escalating contest of wit, disguise, and endurance, as rumor outruns sail, reputations harden into myth, and every chase threatens to turn hunter into hunted while pressing the question of whether the law can ever truly seize a legend who refuses to be caught.
Captain Sparkle, Pirate; Or, A Hard Man to Catch, credited to Nicholas Carter, belongs to the robust tradition of American popular adventure fiction associated with dime novels and early pulp storytelling, a milieu flourishing from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century. Set largely on and around the high seas, it channels the period’s appetite for swift action, cunning rogues, and relentless pursuit. The Nicholas Carter byline, widely used in its era, signals a promise of tightly plotted thrills and recognizable narrative craft, placing this tale within a commercial culture that prized pace, sensation, and serial momentum over literary ornament.
The premise is as clean as a taut line: a notorious pirate, known as Captain Sparkle, eludes capture as determined forces close in, with the subtitle announcing the central game of cat and mouse. Readers encounter bold stratagems, narrow escapes, and audacious reversals that keep the chase in constant motion without revealing where it ultimately leads. The story offers an experience shaped by crisp incident, nautical hazards, and the shifting fortunes of a public figure whose legend spreads as quickly as his wake. It is built for momentum, inviting readers to read “just one more chapter” again and again.
Stylistically, the book favors brisk scenes, quick transitions, and cliffhanger chapter endings—hallmarks of its marketplace—while conjuring the atmosphere of sail, fog, and coastal intrigue. The action pivots between open-water daring and shore-bound scheming, giving equal weight to cannon smoke and whispered plans. Rather than dwell on technical minutiae, it prioritizes momentum and spectacle, using the sea as both stage and metaphor for unstable loyalties and shifting identities. The result is a taut, entertainment-forward narrative that balances spectacle with suggestion, inviting readers to feel the spray, sense the trap, and anticipate the next feint or escape.
Beneath its propulsive surface, the novel engages enduring themes: the glamour and peril of outlaw charisma, the tensile boundary between notoriety and heroism, and the ethics of pursuit when ends and means tangle. It meditates on reputation as a kind of armor—how a name can shield or doom a person—and on the resilience of authority confronting spectacle-savvy defiance. Questions of identity and disguise, so central to popular fiction of the era, animate each maneuver, raising issues about what counts as justice in a world where appearances deceive and the crowd’s appetite for sensation can blur moral sightlines.
Context matters: works bearing the Nicholas Carter name helped codify patterns that later defined thrillers and pulps—compressed chapters, recurring peril, and a hero-villain dynamic driven by ingenuity rather than brute force alone. A seafaring arena extends these conventions, casting the ocean as a mutable frontier where law, commerce, and piracy meet. The book thus belongs to a lineage that shaped modern chase narratives, influencing how subsequent fiction stages pursuit, escape, and reveal. Its commercial DNA is visible in today’s high-velocity storytelling, where stakes rise by the page and identity games fuel suspense as powerfully as any cannon or cutlass.
For contemporary readers, Captain Sparkle, Pirate; Or, A Hard Man to Catch offers both pleasure and perspective: a swift, accessible adventure and a window onto the narrative engines of popular fiction. It prompts reflection on how spectacle, media buzz, and the mystique of the elusive adversary continue to frame public debates about crime, charisma, and control. As entertainment, it delivers velocity and craft; as artifact, it reveals the mechanics of an era that taught wide audiences how to crave the next twist. Approached on either level, it remains a lively study in the art of pursuit and the allure of being uncatchable.
Synopsis
Captain Sparkle, Pirate; Or, A Hard Man to Catch introduces Nick Carter as he confronts a baffling series of jewel thefts and waterfront depredations executed by a criminal calling himself Captain Sparkle. Styled a pirate for the audacity and mobility of his raids, the outlaw strikes with precision, then vanishes into the city’s rivers and shadows. Newspapers amplify the mystery, police resources are stretched, and society families and shipping firms demand protection. Carter surveys the pattern with professional detachment, noting the careful planning behind each blow. The opening chapters establish the antagonist’s reputation for daring, his mocking bravado, and the pressure mounting on the detective.
As reports accumulate, a consistent method emerges. Robberies occur at well-advertised receptions, aboard pleasure craft, and at riverfront depots on nights when tides and traffic favor quick exits. The gang avoids violence, relies on speed and confusion, and leaves scant physical evidence. Witnesses mention a command delivered quietly and a glinting emblem, though details vary. Carter maps locations and timings, comparing them to shipping schedules and society calendars. His review suggests that foreknowledge guides the strikes. The authorities’ visible patrols produce no arrests, deepening public frustration. At this stage, Carter accepts independent responsibility for the investigation and begins assembling discreet resources.
Carter’s first moves focus on intelligence rather than pursuit. He places trusted assistants in positions to observe without attracting attention: among dockworkers, river pilots, and household staff in homes hosting forthcoming events. He adopts low-profile disguises to test the waterfront’s rumor channels, visiting pawnbrokers and chandlers who might encounter stolen gems or specialized equipment. An early lead points to a small launch used repeatedly as a shuttle between raids and a larger vessel anchored beyond casual scrutiny. Another suggests a fence who buys unset stones exclusively. Neither clue is conclusive, but together they indicate structure behind the pirate’s spectacle.
False trails complicate the inquiry. A stash of marked bills turns up in a laborer’s locker, seemingly implicating an innocent man. A night ambush in an empty warehouse nearly traps Carter, convincing him the gang anticipates official moves. He observes that messages are sent by lantern code from shore to ship, and that the leader practices strict compartmentalization. In a fleeting encounter during a raid cut short by weather, Carter hears the captain’s measured voice and notes a preference for elaborate misdirection over force. The episode yields little evidence yet clarifies the opponent’s habits, theatrical flourishes masking a disciplined, layered plan.
Midway through the case, Carter recognizes two converging patterns. The pirate’s targets coincide with shipments insured by the same broker and with events managed by a handful of caterers and stewards. That overlap implies information leaking from respectable circles and being relayed to the waterfront. Carter arranges a controlled test, a decoy consignment of stones and a social gathering whose details are discreetly, and traceably, circulated. Harbor patrols are repositioned quietly, while exit routes are narrowed without public notice. The staged scenario is designed to compress response time and to determine where, along the chain of foreknowledge, the gang first commits.
The bait draws attention. Under cover of a drifting fog, small craft approach at the predicted hour, and confusion spreads as lookouts exchange signals. Carter allows the attempt to proceed far enough to confirm identities of intermediaries, then moves to sever lines of retreat. The pursuit that follows, over pilings and through slips, is complicated by decoys and a prearranged smokescreen. Carter escapes a net intended for him and recovers a notebook fragment listing code names and rendezvous marks. While not revealing the captain, it points toward a secluded cove used as a floating workshop, suggesting a mobile base rather than a fixed den.
With timing critical, Carter infiltrates the cove under a fresh disguise, presenting himself as a supplier with access to specialized ropes and lamps. He observes the crew’s discipline, inventory practices, and a rule against unnecessary harm, policies that maintain public fascination while protecting the organization. He also notes signs of coercion among minor members, a detail that shapes his approach. Carter plants signals to summon officers but is forced to improvise when tides and wind shift unexpectedly. He manages to secure crucial correspondence linking social informants to dockside coordinators, preserving the chain of proof needed to dismantle the network systematically.
The narrative accelerates toward a coordinated strike, divided between the water and an urban warehouse where transferred goods are temporarily sorted. Weather, darkness, and the captain’s precise timing complicate the operation. Carter prioritizes evidence and containment over dramatic capture, aiming to recover property and establish accountability from financiers to lookouts. Without disclosing decisive twists, the resolution breaks the gang’s logistics, exposes channels of privileged information, and narrows the field around the elusive leader. The epithet a hard man to catch is addressed through a sequence of near-clasps, tactical withdrawals, and careful documentation that ensures the case outlasts any single confrontation.
By its close, the book underscores a consistent message: spectacular crime depends on planning and collaboration, and effective detection answers with patience, structure, and verified facts. Carter’s method, using disguise sparingly, cultivating sources, and setting controlled tests, contrasts with the captain’s flair. The city’s rivers and social stages serve as complementary theaters where reputation can be crafted or punctured. Public confidence is restored by the recovery of valuables and the exposure of complicity in respectable quarters, while the figure of Captain Sparkle remains a study in audacity constrained by method. The story affirms disciplined investigation over myth, leaving order visibly reasserted.
Historical Context
Set against the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Atlantic world, the story operates along the busy sea lanes linking New York, Key West, Nassau, and Havana. This was a transitional maritime era when iron and steel steamships shared waters with swift auxiliary-sail craft, and when customs cutters, harbor police, and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service patrolled coasts thick with keys and shoals. Urban ports thrummed with immigrants, dock labor, and international cargoes, making concealment and flight plausible for sea-borne criminals. The book’s pursuit drama thus unfolds in a milieu shaped by modern navigation, lighthouse systems, and telegraphy, yet haunted by older privateering legends lingering in Caribbean memory.
The Spanish–American War (1898) redrew power in the Caribbean. After the explosion of the USS Maine on 15 February 1898 in Havana Harbor, the United States declared war in April; decisive actions at Manila Bay (1 May) and Santiago de Cuba (3 July) led to the Treaty of Paris (10 December 1898). Spain ceded Puerto Rico and Guam and relinquished Cuba, which came under U.S. occupation until 1902, with Guantánamo Bay leased in 1903. The novel’s pirate-chase atmosphere reflects a sea recently militarized, where naval patrols, new bases, and intensified surveillance complicate clandestine routes, recasting the pirate as an outlaw navigating an imperialized maritime order.
The Cuban War of Independence (1895–1898), led by José Martí, Máximo Gómez, and Antonio Maceo, relied on diaspora fundraising and clandestine shipments from Florida. Filibustering expeditions sailed from Key West and Tampa’s Ybor City despite U.S. Neutrality Acts, smuggling rifles and munitions to insurgents while evading customs and Spanish patrols. Federal prosecutions, seizures at sea, and diplomatic friction marked these years. The book’s cat-and-mouse dynamics with coastal law enforcement echo these operations: the blurred line between political filibuster and criminal smuggler, the use of shallow-draft vessels among reefs and cays, and the role of sympathetic port communities in sheltering fugitive captains.
American naval modernization reshaped maritime policing. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890), the U.S. built protected cruisers and battleships, culminating in the Great White Fleet’s 1907–1909 world cruise. Alongshore, the Revenue Cutter Service (est. 1790) fielded faster steam cutters, employing searchlights, signal lamps, and, by the early 1900s, wireless telegraphy. International prize law and anti-piracy doctrines were refined at the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conferences. In this environment, a fugitive “hard to catch” would exploit speed, fog, and jurisdictional seams, while the story mirrors the era’s escalating technological duel between smugglers and state patrol craft.
Urban policing and private detection underwent reform. The Lexow Committee (1894–1895) exposed corruption in the New York Police Department, prompting administrative changes under Police President Theodore Roosevelt (1895–1897). The U.S. Secret Service (founded 1865) targeted counterfeiters; the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (est. 1850) pioneered undercover work and multi-jurisdictional pursuit. Harbor police units coordinated with customs and immigration inspectors to monitor docks and warehouses. The book’s investigative framework reflects this professionalization: coordinated stakeouts at wharves, information networks spanning boardinghouses and shipping offices, and the rising expectation that science, records, and interstate cooperation could penetrate the mobility that once shielded maritime criminals.
Gilded Age and Progressive Era tensions provided a social backdrop. Industrial consolidation and volatile finance—challenged by the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) and dramatized during the Panic of 1907—intensified debates over law, wealth, and predation. Waterfront labor was organized through the International Longshoremen’s Association (founded 1892), amid struggles against graft, pilferage, and racketeering on the piers. Reformers pursued sanitary, immigration, and vice controls in port districts. By styling a flamboyant sea outlaw against officials and businessmen, the narrative echoes contemporary rhetoric about “pirates” of commerce, the glamor of ill-gotten riches, and the porous frontier between entrepreneurial daring and outright criminal depredation.
Transformations in trade and infrastructure reshaped the Caribbean basin. Submarine telegraph cables in the 1860s–1880s linked New York, Havana, and Nassau; the Ward Line and other carriers moved passengers, bullion, and mail on regular schedules; and the Panama Canal (construction 1904–1914) reoriented global routes, increasing strategic patrols through the Windward Passage and Bahamian channels. The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey improved charts; lighthouse services expanded beacons across the Florida Keys. These developments narrowed criminal margins yet multiplied choke points and hiding places. The book’s pursuit across reefs, islands, and cable-linked ports reflects a geography where speed, local knowledge, and communications savvy decide capture or escape.
As social and political critique, the book exposes the ambiguities of expansion, policing, and commerce. It dramatizes how imperial security and modern surveillance, justified by war and trade, also generate extralegal markets and corruption in ports. By opposing a showy pirate to reform-era detectives, it illuminates class anxieties: wealth without scruple versus duty-bound officials with limited means. The narrative highlights jurisdictional gaps between municipal police, federal services, and naval authority, questioning the efficacy and fairness of enforcement. In staging law’s chase through a profit-driven maritime world, it critiques both predatory individualism and the inequities embedded in the era’s expanding American power.
Captain Sparkle, Pirate; Or, A Hard Man to Catch
CAPTAIN SPARKLE, PIRATE.
CHAPTER I.CAPTAIN SPARKLE, THE PIRATE CHIEF.
“Mr. Maxwell Kane!”
The announcement was made by Nick Carter’s valet, Joseph, who threw open the door of his master’s study with a gesture as nearly approaching a flourish as any in which he ever permitted himself to indulge. Joseph had a wholesome respect for millionaires, and many a one of them came at one time and another to the detective for consultation; but it was rarely that Joseph admitted such a one as Maxwell Kane.
It was a name which was an open sesame at all doors, however exclusive; it was the name of a man who counted his millions by hundreds—of a man who, notwithstanding his great wealth, still found time to be a good fellow; of an athlete, a sportsman—in short, and in a word, a gentleman.
It was also the name of a man whom Nick Carter counted among his personal and intimate friends; but Joseph was not aware of that fact when he threw open the door and announced the caller. He had taken the card to his master a moment before, in his study, and had been directed to “show the gentleman here, Joseph”; and Joseph knew that only persons who were privileged, indeed, were ever permitted to penetrate to Nick Carter’s study.
Nick wore his house-coat, a short smoking-jacket, and had been engaged in consuming his after-breakfast cigar while he read the papers, when the caller was announced.
“Hello, Nick!” was the greeting he received from Kane. “I got up before breakfast this morning; as you will observe. What time is it, anyhow?” he added, as he dropped into a chair which the detective indicated to him, and pulled out his watch. “Not yet eight o’clock, eh? Have you had your breakfast?”
“An hour ago,” replied the detective.
“Have you got anything doing to-day?”
“No; I was just congratulating myself that I had not. All my assistants are out, however, so I can hardly call myself care free. I never am, you know[1q].”
“Yes, I know. Say, old chap, the Goalong”—he referred to his palatial steam-yacht—“is lying at the dock, over at the foot of West Twenty-third Street, waiting for us, and I want you to go aboard with me. Will you?”
“I’d like to do so, Kane,” replied the detective; “but there are several things here to which I ought to give my attention to-day, now that I have a few moments at my disposal in which to do so. You see——”
“Hold on, Nick. I haven’t finished yet.”
“Well, go ahead, then.”
“This is a business proposition I’m making. I was boarded by pirates last night, and I want you to see if you can’t catch them.”
“Boarded by—what?”
“Pirates—p-i-r-a-t-e-s—pirates. The real thing, too. Honest Injun, Nick! Did you ever read Cooper’s ‘Red Rover[2]’? Well, I could take my oath that he has risen from the bottom of the sea and resumed business at the old stand. I hope to goodness he won’t hear me; he might think I am joking, and I was never more in dead earnest in my life.”
“Do you mean that the Goalong was boarded by pirates—really?”
“Do I mean it! Huh! Can’t you see that I’ve lost flesh? It takes a pretty good-sized man, with a mighty big proposition on his side of the question, to scare me, Nick, as you are aware; but that pirate chap did the act, without a hitch. I haven’t got over it yet.”
“You aren’t trying one of your jokes on me, are you, Kane?”
“No—on my honor, no!”
“Tell me all about it.”
“Not here, old man. Come aboard the yacht. I’d rather tell you there. You see, that is what I have come here for. When this thing happened, I said to my wife and her sister—they are aboard the Goalong with me, you know—I told them that there was only one thing for us to do, and that was to hurry to the city and find you; and so, if you don’t mind—and you have just admitted that you can spare the time—I’ll take you aboard with me now, and you can hear the story there, all at once. I won’t affront you by offering you anything for your services; but, all the same, if it were a question of bidding against another client in order to secure you to-day, I’d outbid Standard Oil[1]. Can I put it any stronger than that, Nick?”
“Not very well.”
“And you’ll come, eh—for friendship’s sake?”
“Yes; I’ll be with you in a moment. Wait here.”
The detective left the room, but presently he returned, ready for the street, and, without more delay, the two friends left the house together.
“I came across in a car,” said Kane. “You don’t mind, do you?”
They boarded a west-bound Twenty-third Street car, and in a very short time were aboard the sumptuous yacht, which had been waiting to receive them.
As soon as their feet were pressed upon the deck, the plank was drawn in, and the lines cast off, and they had not advanced to the awning under which Kane’s wife and two guests were seated while awaiting them, before the yacht was backing out into the river.
“I found him, as you see,” said Kane, advancing rapidly. “Caught him alone, too, and with nothing to do. Think of that! Carter, have you ever met my wife’s sister? Here she is. Miss Bessie Harlan. If I hadn’t asked my wife to marry me before I met her sister, it would have been a toss-up between them. Now, I couldn’t pay Bessie a greater compliment than that could I? And this is Count Jean de Cadillac. I made the count’s acquaintance in Paris last winter. We were quite chummy there, and when he showed up over here, a couple of weeks ago——”
“We became even chummier,” interrupted the count, with a smile, speaking in perfect English, and smiling so that he showed his perfect, white teeth.
He was a handsome man, too, this Count Cadillac, with his shining, black eyes, blacker mustache and imperial, gleaming teeth, and clear, white skin. And his manners were faultless, his dress perfect without being foppish.
Nick greeted Mrs. Kane, and acknowledged the introductions while the yacht was backing into the river; and then, turning to Kane, while he accepted one of the deck-chairs, he remarked:
“Now, Max, give us the pirate story.”
“You will understand, before I finish,” said Kane, “why I insisted upon your coming here before I told it. I wanted witnesses to support my statements, for I have an idea that you wouldn’t believe my unsupported word about this affair.”
“Oh, yes——”
“Wait. You haven’t heard the story yet. It’s really the most incredible thing you ever heard of, from beginning to end. I’ll give you my word that I wouldn’t believe a word of it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“It begins promisingly,” said Nick.
“You wait. We left Newport yesterday, about noon, I think; between noon and one o’clock. We loafed along, for nobody was in a hurry, and last night, late in the evening, we ran in at the American Yacht Club anchorage—you know where that is, eh?”
“Yes.”
“We ran in there, and anchored for the night.”
“We were intending to go ashore to call upon some friends who live near there,” said Mrs. Kane; “but we found that it was too late when we arrived, so we gave it up.”
“It was a beautiful night,” continued Kane, “warm, and as nearly perfect as it could be made; and we sat out here on the deck until almost one o’clock before anybody thought of turning in. You see, Carter, it happened that we were alone at the anchorage. I don’t suppose that thing would happen once again in a dozen summers, but it happened last night, all right.”
“I liked it,” said Bessie Harlan. “It was a change.”
“Well,” continued Kane, “the Sound was as smooth as glass. There wasn’t a ripple anywhere, and——”
“And the moon was just heavenly!” interrupted Bessie, again; but Kane did not even turn his eyes in her direction.
“I came back on deck after the others turned in,” he continued. “I wasn’t sleepy, the night was beautiful, and I wanted to smoke another cigar, all by my little lonesome. So I sat here—right where I am seated now—lighted my cigar, and smoked.
“I am going to take you right back to that anchorage, Carter, so that you can see things just as they are, so far as the surroundings are concerned. We are headed for there now.”
“That is a good idea,” said Nick.
“Well, my cigar was something more than half-smoked, and, as I am a slow smoker, it must have been something like half an hour after I was alone before anything happened; and then it all happened so suddenly that it was on me before I knew it.”
“What was?” asked the detective.
“The pirate. Wait.”
“I’m waiting.”
“The fellow made his approach from behind, which would account for my not seeing him or his craft until he was right there, on the deck, so to speak, but I don’t think that would account for my not hearing him, do you?”
“You might have been dozing in your chair,” suggested Nick.
“Bosh! I was never wider awake in my life!”
“You were, doubtless, so absorbed in what you were thinking about that you paid no attention to your surroundings.”
“That’s all bosh, too. I was just as alert as I ever am. As I always am; and I’m not generally known as a sleeper, or a dreamer, either.”
“That’s quite true, Kane.”
“I was just as wide-awake as I am now. I was just as much on the alert as I am now. The night was so still, and the yacht and everything aboard of her was so silent, that I could have heard a tack drop, the whole length of the Goalong. But the fact remains, all the same, that I did not hear a sound.
“I was seated right here, in this position and in this same chair, looking off, as you observe, almost astern. The bow of the yacht was pointed toward the open Sound, for the tide was coming in.
“My cigar was on the last quarter—I told you that once already; but never mind—and I had about made up my mind to light a fresh one, when I discovered that I hadn’t another one in my pocket, and would have to go below to get it. That settled it. If I had felt any doubt about smoking another cigar, the discovery of the fact that I had not another one in my possession made me want nothing on earth so much as that cigar. So I rose to go below.
“You will observe, from my present position, that I was obliged to turn in order to do so.
“The companionway is behind me.”
“I got up, stretched myself, chucked my two-thirds-smoked cigar into the water, and turned——”
He paused, as if to give emphasis to the concluding statement; and, after a moment of silence, the detective said:
“Well, what then?”
“The pirate stood directly in front of me.”
“On the deck of your own yacht—of this yacht?”
“Exactly. Right there—on that spot,” and Kane pointed with his finger toward a point on the deck directly in front of him, for he had risen while he was speaking, in order to act out this dramatic incident of his story.
“Was he alone?” asked Nick.
“No; there were six others directly behind him.”
“Six others!” exclaimed the detective. “Do you mean to tell me that seven men had succeeded in coming aboard your yacht, in the bright moonlight, when the Sound was as smooth as glass and the night was as still as a church, without rousing you, although you sat there on the deck smoking?”
“That is exactly what they did do.”
“How did they get aboard?”
“To answer that question now is to get ahead of my story,” said Kane. “I would rather tell you about it just as it happened, incident for incident.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
“You could have knocked me out with a crow’s feather when I discovered them,” continued Kane. “I hadn’t a leg left to stand on, Carter. I opened my mouth to speak—I haven’t the least idea what I intended to say, though—when the chief pirate raised one hand and touched his fingers to his lips.”
“Which you construed as a command for you to remain silent?”
“I think that gesture is so construed all over the world, isn’t it?”
“Quite so. Well, what next?”
“You see, Carter, I knew by their appearance that they were robbers. It did strike me for an instant that the whole thing was some huge joke which somebody had put up on me, but I was quickly undeceived on that point.”
“What was their appearance?”
“Here is where I am going to test your credulity, old man. But my wife and my friends can testify that I tell you the truth.”
“So they saw the pirates, also?”
“Yes, as you shall hear.”
“Well, about their appearance, or how they appeared, eh? That part of the comedy seemed to impress you.”
“It did. And it was no comedy, either, I’ll beg you to understand! Carter, the pirate chief was dressed in red, from head to feet, and he looked as if he might have stepped down out of a Shakespeare tragedy, as far as the cut of his costume was concerned. I think if you were to dress Romeo in red, you would about get the proper idea. Eh, count? What do you say?”
“I think you have given a very good description,” replied the count.
“And the other six?” asked Nick. “Were they dressed the same?”
“No, indeed! They were only common truck alongside of their master, I suppose. At all events, they appeared in ordinary black. Every man jack of them wore a half-mask over his features. The chief’s mask was red, like his costume; those of the men were black, the same as their costumes. They also wore rather tight-fitting caps on their heads, but the chief wore a regular Romeo hat, with an eagle’s feather stuck in it.”
“H’m!” said Nick. “It makes quite a picture.”
“You’d have thought so if you had been in my place, Carter! I didn’t know whether I was scared, amused, angry, or bored; and I didn’t have time to analyze my sentiments, either, for when the chief touched his lips with his fingers, to signal me that he preferred that I should keep quiet, he remarked, quite calmly and in a perfectly natural tone:
“‘I don’t suppose you wish needlessly to frighten the ladies, do you?’
“‘Well, no,’ I replied, ‘I can’t say that I do. They have retired, however, and we need not disturb them.’
“‘On the contrary, my friend,’ he said, ‘it will be necessary that they are disturbed. But I am fond of the ladies. I do not like to frighten them—needlessly. Then, again, sometimes they faint away, or scream, and that offends me.’
“‘Indeed?’ I said. ‘Have I by mistake been smoking on the deck of your yacht, instead of my own?’ I intended that for sarcasm, Nick, but it fell flat. He didn’t see the point at all, for he replied, calmly, that I would find things much more to my taste for a few moments if I would take that view of it. ‘You may consider the Goalong as my property for the next half-hour,’ he said.”
“Were they armed?” asked Nick.
“The pirate said they were, and I have no doubt that they were, although I saw no sign of weapons of any kind, save that the chief wore a short, straight sword at his side, and while he talked to me he let his hand rest upon it, as if to call my attention to the fact.”
“What happened next?”
“Well, when he said that I could look upon my yacht as his property for the next half-hour or so, I didn’t seem to have any fitting argument with which to reply to him, so I remained silent. His next question was rather more to the point.”
“What was it?”
“He asked me, plainly, how much money I happened to have aboard the yacht; and he added: ‘If you tell the truth about it, it will save both of us considerable trouble.’
“‘Oh, I suppose there are a couple of thousand dollars here, all told,’ I answered him.
“‘Very good,’ he said. ‘There is also some thousands of dollars’ worth of silverware, and goldware, isn’t there?’
“‘Yes,’ I admitted.
“‘And some very valuable cups, which you have won as trophies, from time to time, eh?’
“‘Why, yes, of course. But you wouldn’t be so low down as to take them, would you?’ I demanded.
“He laughed at that, as if he considered it a good joke; and he replied that he thought that part of the matter might be arranged satisfactorily. I didn’t see it, but I supposed he did, and the sequel proved that he did, too.”
“I am waiting for the sequel. What happened next?”
“He said to me: ‘Mr. Kane, you will oblige me by considering that, for the moment, I am master of this yacht, and you will, therefore, obey such orders as I give you. You need not look forward in the hope that any of your crew is astir, for they are all asleep below, save one, who was on watch, and he is now lying, bound and gagged, in the bow.’
“‘All right,’ I said. ‘What are your orders, Mr. Rover? You seem to have the drop on me, and I’ll take my medicine with a smile. Speak up. Don’t be bashful.’
