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.”

“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’? 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. 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.