Beadle's Dime Library No. 228: The Maroon

The Maroon: A Tale of Voodoo and Obeah by Captain Mayne Reid, author of The Headless Horseman and The Scalp Hunters, appears in this 1795 installment. The narrative opens on a Jamaica sugar estate called Mount Welcome, describing the plantation house and surrounding landscape. It introduces Loftus Vaughan, the estate's proprietor and Justice of the Peace, his daughter Kate, and a slave girl named Vola. A backstory recounts the execution of Chakra, a slave condemned for practicing obeah (witchcraft), left chained to Jumbe Rock to starve. The plot develops around letters: one announces the arrival of wealthy English gentleman Montagu Smythje, another—devastating to Vaughan—announces his dead brother's son Herbert will arrive as an impoverished dependent. The fragment concludes with a ship section introducing a slaver entering Montego Bay under suspicious circumstances. The narrative blends gothic elements with colonial Jamaica settings.