The Pirate of Panama (Musaicum Adventure Classics). William MacLeod Raine

      William MacLeod Raine

      The Pirate of Panama (Musaicum Adventure Classics)

      Treasure Hunt Adventure Novel

      Published by

      Books

      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2020 OK Publishing

      EAN 4064066385972

      Table of Contents

       Chapter I. A Scrap of Paper

       Chapter II. Captain Bothwell Interrupts

       Chapter III. Concerning Doubloon Spit

       Chapter IV. The Man with the Secret

       Chapter V. We Find a Ship

       Chapter VI. The Missing Corner

       Chapter VII. In the Fog

       Chapter VIII. Aboard the Argos

       Chapter IX. Bothwell Makes a Move

       Chapter X. Another Stowaway

       Chapter XI. Taking Stock

       Chapter XII. My Unexpected Guest

       Chapter XIII. Mutiny

       Chapter XIV. The Battle

       Chapter XV. The Morning After

       Chapter XVI. The Night Attack

       Chapter XVII. A Taste of the Inquisition

       Chapter XVIII. Anchored Hearts

       Chapter XIX. Sense and Nonsense

       Chapter XX. The Big Ditch

       Chapter XXI. A Message From Bucks

       Chapter XXII. Treasure-Trove

       Chapter XXIII. Aboard the Schooner

       Chapter XXIV. A Rat in a Trap

       Chapter XXV. A Rescue

       Chapter XXVI. The Last Brush

       Chapter XXVII. In Harbor

      TO

       CAPTAIN FORRESTER

       FIRST MATE ROBERT, QUARTERMASTER WILLIAM

       AND BO'SUN KENNETH

       THIS VOYAGE OF THE ARGOS IS DEDICATED

      Ho, gallant tars and true, fall to!

       Up anchor, lads, and sheets unfurl.

       Let engines throb a low tattoo;

       It's "All aboard for Panama."

      The snell wind whistles shrill o'erhead,

       The bullets spatter thick below,

       By candle light we count our dead,

       While we are bound for Panama.

      For all true men waits hidden gold,

       'Gainst all true hearts fight pirate foes,

       Who bears him with a courage bold

       Will land with us at Panama.

      Into the deep drive strong and sure,

       Straight as an arrow for the goal,

       From off the course let nothing lure,

       The breeze is fair for Panama.

      Chapter I

       A Scrap of Paper

       Table of Contents

      It was a dismal, sodden morning, with heavy clouds banked in the western sky. Rain had sloshed down since midnight so that the gutter in front of me was a turbid little river.

      A chill wind swept across the city and penetrated to the marrow. From the summit of the hill, three blocks above me, my car was sliding down, but I clung to the curb to postpone until the last moment a plunge into the flowing street.

      Since I was five-and-twenty, in tip-top health, and Irish by descent, I whistled while the windswept drops splashed the shine from my shoes. Rain or sun, 'twas a good little old world, though, faith! I could have wished it a less humdrum one.

      For every morning I waited at that same time and place for the same car to take me to my desk in the offices of Kester & Wilcox, and every day I did the same sort of routine grubbing in preparation of cases for more experienced lawyers to handle.

      Sometimes it flashed across me that I was a misfit. Nature had cast me for the part of a soldier of fortune, and instead I was giving my services to help a big corporation escape the payment of damages for accidents caused by its cars. I had turned my back on the romance of life. Well, it was the penalty one must pay to win success.

      And while I stood on the curb there fluttered down to me from the dun heavens an invitation to the great adventure my soul longed for. It came on a gust of wind and lay on the sidewalk at my feet, a torn sheet of paper yellowed with age.

      I had no premonition of what that faded bit of parchment meant, no picture of men in deadly battle, of the flash of knives or the gleam of revolvers, of lusty seamen lying curled on the deck where they had fallen at the call of sudden death. The only feeling that stirred in me was a faint curiosity at the odd markings on the sheet.

      My