Beadle's Dime Library No. 16

This issue of Beadle & Adams' dime novel features the opening of a serialized adventure by Ned Buntline. Chapter I is set in 1830s Florida, where Spanish fishermen witness a heavily armed black schooner pursuing a small, lightly-crewed vessel carrying a man, woman, and child. Despite the fishermen's attempts to help, cannon fire from the pirate ship kills the woman. The man escapes into the bay with the child. The pirate captain, the Anglo-Saxon Febiger, lands and questions the fishermen, particularly the defiant old Spaniard Pablo Canovas, about the fugitives' whereabouts. Febiger dispatches armed boats in pursuit. Chapter II shifts to Manhattan, where an elderly, nervous man in a fine mansion receives a visit from the portly, ostentatious Mr. Amasa Queer. The narrative interweaves maritime pursuit with mysterious intrigue in New York, suggesting themes of revenge, hidden identity, and criminal pursuit.