Deck-Hawk Roy's Big Scoop

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly (April 17, 1894) contains "Deck-Hawk Ray's Big Scoop: The Sea-Rover's Protégé" by Col. Prentiss Ingraham. The narrative opens on the merchant vessel Gull, becalmed in tropical waters near the Antilles. Aboard are a refined woman, her intelligent six-year-old son, and Captain Leroy commanding the ship. A suspicious schooner appears and pursues them. After a violent tropical hurricane, the Gull escapes only to be chased again by the mysterious vessel, which proves to be the pirate ship Sea Scourge under the command of a Spanish-looking buccaneer named Rudolph. When Rudolph boards the Gull, he recognizes the woman passenger as someone from his past, exclaiming her name—Alma—with evident emotional distress. Their reunion suggests a complicated prior relationship, with Alma expressing dismay at finding her acquaintance now a pirate.