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TITLE: THE MYSTERY
AUTHOR: STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
EBOOK: E00074 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

THE MYSTERY 
 
BY 
 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
AND 
 
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS 
 
_Illustrations by Will Crawford_ 
 
1907 
 
CONTENTS 
 
PART ONE 
 
THE SEA RIDDLE 
 
I.      DESERT SEAS 
 
II.     THE "LAUGHING LASS" 
 
III.    THE DEATH SHIP 
 
IV.     THE SECOND PRIZE CREW 
 
V.      THE DISAPPEARANCE 
 
VI.     THE CASTAWAYS 
 
VII.    THE FREE LANCE 
 
PART TWO 
 
THE BRASS BOUND CHEST 
 
_Being the story told by Ralph Slade, Free Lance, to the officers of 
the United States Cruiser "Wolverine"_ 
 
I.      THE BARBARY COAST 
 
II.     THE GRAVEN IMAGE 
 
III.    THE TWELVE REPEATING RIFLES 
 
IV.     THE STEEL CLAW 
 
V.      THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 
 
VI.     THE ISLAND 
 
VII.    CAPTAIN SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE 
 
VIII.   WRECKING OF THE "GOLDEN HORN" 
 
IX.     THE EMPTY BRANDY BOTTLE 
 
X.      CHANGE OF MASTERS 
 
XI.     THE CORROSIVE 
 
XII.    "OLD SCRUBS" COMES ASHORE 
 
XIII.   I MAKE MY ESCAPE 
 
XIV.    AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 
 
XV.     FIVE HUNDRED YARDS' RANGE 
 
XVI.    THE MURDER 
 
XVII.   THE OPEN SEA 
 
XVIII.  THE CATASTROPHE 
 
PART THREE 
 
THE MAROON 
 
I.      IN THE WARDROOM 
 
II.     THE JOLLY ROGER 
 
III.    THE CACHE 
 
IV.     THE TWIN SLABS 
 
V.      THE PINWHEEL VOLCANO 
 
VI.     MR. DARROW RECEIVES 
 
VII.    THE SURVIVORS 
 
VIII.   THE MAKER OF MARVELS 
 
IX.     THE ACHIEVEMENT 
 
X.      THE DOOM 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
"And you know a heap too much" 
 
A schooner comporting herself in a manner uncommon on the Pacific 
 
A man who was a bit of a mechanic was set to work to open the chest 
 
Slowly the man defined himself as a shape takes form in a fog 
 
"These sheep had become as wild as deer" 
 
The firing now became miscellaneous. No one paid any attention to any one 
else 
 
With a strangled cry the sailor cast the shirt from him 
 
"Sorry not to have met you at the door," he said courteously 
 
PART ONE 
 
THE SEA RIDDLE 
 
I 
 
DESERT SEAS 
 
The late afternoon sky flaunted its splendour of blue and gold like a 
banner over the Pacific, across whose depths the trade wind droned in 
measured cadence. On the ocean's wide expanse a hulk wallowed sluggishly, 
the forgotten relict of a once brave and sightly ship, possibly the 
Sphinx of some untold ocean tragedy, she lay black and forbidding in the 
ordered procession of waves. Half a mile to the east of the derelict 
hovered a ship's cutter, the turn of her crew's heads speaking 
expectancy. As far again beyond, the United States cruiser 
_Wolverine_ outlined her severe and trim silhouette against the 
horizon. In all the spread of wave and sky no other thing was visible. 
For this was one of the desert parts of the Pacific, three hundred miles 
north of the steamship route from Yokohama to Honolulu, five hundred 
miles from the nearest land, Gardner Island, and more than seven hundred 
northwest of the Hawaiian group. 
 
On the cruiser's quarter-deck the officers lined the starboard rail. 
Their interest was focussed on the derelict. 
 
"Looks like a heavy job," said Ives, one of the junior lieutenants. 
"These floaters that lie with deck almost awash will stand more hammering 
than a mud fort." 
 
"Wish they'd let us put some six-inch shells into her," said Billy 
Edwards, the ensign, a wistful expression on his big round cheerful face. 
"I'd like to see what they would do." 
 
"Nothing but waste a few hundred dollars of your Uncle Sam's money," 
observed Carter, the officer of the deck. "It takes placed charges inside 
and out for that kind of work." 
 
"Barnett's the man for her then," said Ives. "He's no economist when it 
comes to getting results. There she goes!" 
 
Without any particular haste, as it seemed to the watchers, the hulk was 
shouldered out of the water, as by some hidden leviathan. Its outlines 
melted into a black, outshowering mist, and from that mist leaped a 
giant. Up, up, he towered, tossed whirling arms a hundred feet abranch, 
shivered, and dissolved into a widespread cataract. The water below was 
lashed into fury, in the midst of which a mighty death agony beat back 
the troubled waves of the trade wind. Only then did the muffled double 
boom of the explosion reach the ears of the spectators, presently to be 
followed by a whispering, swift-skimming wavelet that swept irresistibly 
across the bigger surges and lapped the ship's side, as for a message 
that the work was done. 
 
Here and there in the sea a glint of silver, a patch of purple, or dull 
red, or a glistening apparition of black showed where the unintended 
victims of the explosion, the gay-hued open-sea fish of the warm waters, 
had succumbed to the force of the shock. Of the intended victim there was 
no sign save a few fragments of wood bobbing in a swirl of water. 
 
When Barnett, the ordnance officer in charge of the destruction, returned 
to the ship, Carter complimented him. 
 
"Good clean job, Barnett. She was a tough customer, too." 
 
"What was she?" asked Ives. 
 
"The _Caroline Lemp_, three-masted schooner. Anyone know about her?" 
 
Ives turned to the ship's surgeon, Trendon, a grizzled and brief-spoken 
veteran, who had at his finger's tips all the lore of all the waters 
under the reign of the moon. 
 
"What does the information bureau of the Seven Seas know about it?" 
 
"Lost three years ago--spring of 1901--got into ice field off the tip of 
the Aleutians. Some of the crew froze. Others got ashore. Part of 
survivors accounted for. Others not. Say they've turned native. Don't 

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