Beadle's Dime Library No. 316

# Lafitte's Lieutenant: Or, Theodore, the Child of the Sea

This serial installment, by Professor J. H. Ingraham (revised by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham), presents a pirate narrative set in Louisiana bayous before the Battle of New Orleans. Lafitte, the famous buccaneer, has just offered his pirate fleet's services to defend the city against British invasion. After receiving Governor Claiborne's lukewarm response, Lafitte withdraws inland with his lieutenant Theodore and enslaved Cudjoe. While resting on an ancient Indian mound, Lafitte contemplates his past—a tragic love affair with his cousin Gertrude, his subsequent flight to piracy, and his recent moral struggles with prisoners including the Spanish maiden Constanza. During this reverie, a skull colonized by a crab prompts existential meditation. Lightning strikes Lafitte senseless, forcing his men to carry him to a fisherman's shelter where he recovers over several days, delirious with fever.