Captain Sparkle, Pirate; Or, A Hard Man to Catch

The detective stood closely against the door when he rapped upon it, and the moment it started to swing open in response to the summons he applied his strength against it so tha...

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 p...

“All right. I’ve no objections. I feel like seven different kinds of a jay, anyhow, when I tell this story; and, by the great boot in Chatham Street, Nick, I’d willingly give up...

And now we must return for a space to the pirate cruiser, the _Shadow_. Although Bessie Harlan did not faint when the pirate chief seized her and bore her aboard of his own craf...

It is not necessary to give in detail here the record of Nick Carter’s trip, accompanied as he was by Maxwell Kane, to Washington; and of his interview with the President very l...

When the _Goalong_ passed the Narrows and was making her way rapidly through the upper harbor, it was approaching the evening of the second day after her encounter with the pira...

The interior of the turret was as dark as a pocket, but the detective quickly discovered the door which communicated with the interior of the vessel proper, and he opened it. Co...

It had not occurred to her thus far to feel personal fear. She remembered another occasion when she had met the pirate, and she recalled that she had been treated with the utmos...

There was something so weird and so unreal in the sound of his own name, coming to the detective as it did, seemingly from the infinity above him, that for a moment he quite ref...

“Max,” said Nick, after a pause, during which he had been watching the maneuvers of the _Harkaway_ as she came to her buoy on the anchorage, “I have not asked the question befor...

It was a month later. The _Goalong_ was six hours out of Hamilton, Bermuda, bound for Newport News. The time was something after six o’clock in the evening, and the sun had just...

The detective was not sorry when, a little later, he found that the ladies had prevailed upon the count to accompany them on their trip ashore; and that, therefore, he would be...

“Probably not. Now, I’ve got a theory about this matter, although it is built upon a very weak and tottering foundation. However, if my theory happens to be a good one—that is,...

“If I did not know positively that Count Cadillac is at this moment ashore at the club-house, I would be willing to swear that he stands before me yonder,” was the detective’s m...

The distance from where he turned again toward the front of the building, to that part of it which might properly be called the tower, was some hundreds of feet, and he had gone...

“If you scream or call the others to your assistance,” she heard the pirate say into her ear, as he leaped from one vessel to the other with her in his arms, “you will only succ...

“This is not precisely the costume in which I should have preferred to present myself to you, madame,” continued the detective, with a smile. “Bathing-suits were necessary, unde...

The pirate chieftain—or, as we will call him for the present, Count Cadillac—had not the slightest idea of Bessie’s intention until she had succeeded in turning the weapon upon...

The Frenchman meant what he said, too. There could be no doubt of that. Sincerity, as well as rapture and admiration, were depicted on his face as he knelt there before the dete...

Kane remained like a statue in his chair, staring at the detective. The suggestions thrown out by Nick Carter concerning Count Cadillac paralyzed him, so to speak. He was appall...

“It would seem, Miss Harlan,” he replied, “that at the present moment, in order to do that, I would be obliged to swim. Pirates do not leave clues behind them, like burglars, ou...

“What I want to know is, how are we going to carry any guns with us, with this rig?” asked Kane, as they seated themselves, and Nick asked Chick if he had supplied himself with...

“In the first place, Kane, he must have decided, in his own mind, that this trip of his across the ocean, with Bessie as a passenger on the _Shadow_, is his last and only chance.”

Although the words of warning uttered by the pirate were deliberate and emphatic, there was not a sound while he was speaking them to denote that they were true. Nevertheless, h...