Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 441

About this issue

This serialized adventure story from Beadle and Adams' weekly (1886) concerns a naval officer's quest for revenge involving a young midshipman. The narrative opens with a secret midnight wedding at the Maryland plantation Castle Kenyon, where Kate Kenyon marries a naval officer in haste. The officer then departs by schooner, flying a black flag, revealed as a buccaneer. The story shifts to Brooklyn, where Captain Firefly (a smuggler whose operation was broken up by Midshipman Dare) plots to capture the young navy officer traveling home to Long Island in a fast catboat. Firefly dispatches Roving Dick and five men in pursuit aboard the sloop Silent Slipper. What follows is a moonlit naval chase through Hell Gate and into Long Island Sound, with the outnumbered midshipman refusing to be overtaken, carrying full sail in heavy weather while his pursuers gain steadily. The narrative emphasizes Dare's reputation as a formidable adversary and skilled sailor, though details of the confrontation remain incomplete in this excerpt.