A Modern Corsair: a story of the Levant

Book I. When Greek Meets Greek

Chapter t>AGfi I — The Secret Committee of Lloyd's 5 II — The Lily of Southsea 28 III— The New York Herald's Correspondent's Instructions c;i IV— At Smyrna! In the Grand Hotel Huck ! The Wiles of Ag-athe the Serpent J3 V— The Richest Cargo of the Levant ! In the Old Castle 98

Book II. In The Toils

VI — At Gibraltar ! The man who was left at Malta . 129 VII— Captain Enos Drage Makes a Morning Visit ! A Strange Craft at Gravesend ! 156 VIII — The Order of Arrest! Opium takes a Rise! Baffled!!! 180 IX — Komanos & CompanyStrike Back! TheCaptain of the " Apollo " Finds a Hiding Place . . 206 X — The Hegira of Ernest Schnorr ! Komanos & Company Elect a New General Manager ! Brought to Bay !!!..'. 233

Book III

A STERN CHASE IS A LONG ONE. XI — A Phantom Ship at Smyrna ! Captain Enos Drage Heads the Boarders ! A Perplexing Puzzle 257 XII — Manager Schnorr's Scheme ! The richest Cargo • transhipped for Trieste ! The Floating Bottle ! The Run to Taganrog 276 XIII — At the Caf_ Greco in Constantinople ! The Changed Crew ! A Tyrant Supercargo ! Agathe' s Plan ! The Forlorn Hope ! . . . 295 XIV — Wrecked on Serpent Island ! The Transformed Passengers '. Howard Vinton Unmasked ! A Scheme Defeated ! The Ship's Papers ! The Friendly Flames ! The Explosion ! Vale Komanos & Company ! 329 XV — The Salvage Crew ! Proof at Last ! Trapped at Trieste. Dimitri Nicolo Turns the Tables ! Caspari's Flight ! Two Unhappy Pashas. Dividing the Reward. An Official Cruise on the Conqueror

Chapter I. The Secret Committee Of Lloyds

It was the very sloppiest afternoon of a stormy March day, which brought together three sturdy Brit ons, closely gathered around the fire, in an anteroom of the chambers of Lloyds, in the Royal Exchange at London. "I don't call to mind a worse day than this for many a long year," sullenly said Chairman Higginbotham, as he gazed at his fellow members of the Secret Com mittee, which had just been named. They were now lingering until the crowd of under writers, called together by the annual meeting of marine insurers for "ninety-four," should melt away into the dreary gloom wrapping that monster city, which has swamped old Londinium in its modern tide. One of the listeners looked up and gloomily nodded, as he vigorously wielded the poker, and then con tinued stirring up the dejectedly smoldering coals.

"Rough weather at sea!" growled member Thomas Walden, with a presage of professional misfortune. "Yes, it's a beastly day!" chimed in member Wilson •Waddingham, turning away from the window, whence he had gazed out upon a line of dripping umbrel las, spread four abreast. The wearied hansom horses slipped upon the inundated pavements, their drivers meanwhile hurling forth volleys of impreca tions from under their streaming storm wraps. The gas blinked dull and yellowish in both street and room. Even the great open hall of Lloyds was shaded in a gloomy penumbra. "I'll not venture home to-night! Stay in town!" ejaculated Waddingham, as he gazed out into the great rooms, now nearly deserted. "Very good," answered John Higginbotham. "Then you and Walden can come up and dine with me, and then, we can talk this whole thing over.

It's safer so. For I've been already warned that we must not meet here, nor even leave a single scrap of paper to betray us." "What's up now? Something crooked again?" said Walden, as he angrily thrust the poker deep into the heart of the fire, and then gave it up as a bad job. "The fact is," whispered Higginbotham, "Komanos and Company are at it again! Now, that's all I can tell you till we are safe at my house. I have been given full powers, and my secret instructions are only to be divulged to you. The Executive Committee are determined now to get at the truth of the matter, if it costs a hundred thousand pounds, that's all!'' The listeners had approached their chairman, and Walden muttered: "Those Levantines are the very devil's own — that's what they are!" "I was told to name my associates," continued their chief, "and so I selected you, for I know that we can work well together."

"Delighted, I'm sure!" the juniors cried, and then the chief consulted his sturdy old Frodsham timer. "Let's see! Five now. I dine at seven, sharp. I've a few letters to write. Be on hand, sharp seven!" With a nod, the others passed out in search of the assorted cloaks, mackintoshes, goloshes, ponderous umbrellas and respirators, which are the only human armor 'gainst raw London fogs and driving British storms. Solid, stocky men, rosy of face and of cheery mien, this confidential committee of the famous Lloyds was of the unpretentious type of the British merchant. Resolutely clinging to the Albert frock and the im pervious British guinea hat, their sober exteriors hardly denoted men whose signatures were good on 'Change for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Good livers, trusty friends, true lovers, honest haters, sound and sweet at the core as Britain's solid apples, the three friends were all notable figures among the w-orld's greatest underwriters.

In a few moments, Higginbotham saw his friends disappear into two dripping four wheelers, and trundle away to the West End, where the schemes of the city crystallize into the solid comfort of the British home — the hub of the European wheel. "I wonder what the old Harry is up at Smyrna, now?" mused the committeeman, as he dropped his huge bulk into a chair by the window, and filled the pocket pipe, so dear to the Englishman. "There's no time to lose, if we would head them off. Let me see! This is the tenth. We could surely get our men out there by April first." The old underwriter watched the tide of vehicles pouring along now westward, for your British merchant, stubbornly conservative, comes late and goes early. The blinding gusts of chill rain hid from view the faces of those cowering within the humble hansom or the stately carriage of the bank director.

"I may as well now wire to my man to run up here, at any rate. I suppose that they'll give me free hand, as usual!" cried Higginbotham, as he rang for a page, and then briskly sent off an imperative telegram, ad dressed "Captain Enos Drage, R. N., St. Aubrey's Villa, Lenox Road, Southsea." "That will fetch the old campaigner in short order!" gleefully ruminated the writer. "He knows every corner of the footstool, and, I will wager, if Enos Drage will agree to go out there, these fellows will find it's a case of Greek meeting Greek. He is a match for the best of them!" In half an hour, Higginbotham locked up his desk with a resounding bang, which echoed through the great lonely rooms. His letters duly dispatched, the old merchant grasped his wraps and umbrella and sallied forth to meet his friends, five miles away, around the old mahogany, brought from the West Indies, when even a British fleet had to fight its way.

The secret labors before them weighed gloomily upon him. Standing alone in the main hall, Higginbotham be came reminiscent. "Bles~> me!" he cried. "How this interest has grown since the few sea captains first gathered at Lloyds' dingy coffee rooms in Abchurch lane! Even in 'eighteen twenty-four,' the 'Royal Ex change' and 'London Assurance' were the only com panies writing marine policies. To-day, Great Britain carries five-eighths of the cargoes of the world and insures three-quarters. Thousands of millions of pounds at risk annually. And now every ounce of gold that moves in commerce passes, once a year, through London. We get a bit of it, every time, so we do!" he chuckled, with sturdy English pride. And then the vexing subject of his secret committee labors returned. "There be land rats, and water rats," he growled, as he strode across the vast rooms, and gazed at a huge Mercator's Projection of the Waves, so boldly ruled by Britannia, and the land which only serves as a rim for good Queen Victoria's watery domain.

"We must block off these fellows' sly little game! At it again, are they? Well, we will see!" muttered the angry old man, as he strode along, brandishing his umbrella in indignation at those distant foes of the British underwriter, "Komanos and Company," of an unsavory Levantine renown. "We will see. Enos Drage is just the man to fight them!" was the Englishman's final decision, as he stumped down the slippery stairs. The great rooms were deserted by the members, and the silence was unbroken save by a knot of porters, janitors and messengers, who had now gathered in their own waiting rooms to talk the day's doings over, aided by generous flagons of "bitter." In the lonely "underwriters' room" there were still lingering a few modestly clad women, timidly poring over the "list of vessels arrived," happiness thrilling the heart of the "sailor's wife/' anxious to know of the safety of Jack at sea!

And hard by the fatal "record of marine disasters" also hovered a trinity of pale-faced watchers, whose rusty black told that the worst was already known. And yet, with the fond heart of woman, they came day by day to scan the two enormous ledgers, in hopes that the log of some happy bark might yet tell of "boats picked up at sea," of the survivors of frail raft voyages, of the smoke signal on the lonely sand spit, and of the dead come to life again. For through the gray cloud of mystery which wraps the cruel waste of waters, the star of hope twinkles ever, though its rays be dimmed, and the straggling light reaches far into the longing heart of Nancy Lee. Their feet raised no echoes on the floor daily trodden by merchants, ship-owners, brokers, underwriters, and grave-faced messengers. Around the walls were clustered nautical instruments of quaint design — the giant self-registering anemome ter and the anemoscope.

In dusty corners, the standard barometers, solemnly swung there in haughty scorn of the clap trap aneroids, with their staring white baby faces and their unreliable hands. Filled with shining mercury, the old "reliables" were vowed to the service of that winged god, patron alike of thief, voy ager and smug trader. Vast rolls of maps, and great atlases of yellowed charts, decorated wall and table. The huge oaken chairs spread out their hospitable arms to clasp again the pompous merchant, with his pendulous lip and crafty eye, as he listened to eager agent or bluff captain, bound in blue and brass, so redolent of oakum, tar and "marine stores." Here, the "registered members of Lloyds" annually risk three hundreds of millions of dollars in chances on floating hulls and cargoes. The tidy little sum of sixty millions of the red sovereigns bearing the perennial smile of Victoria, by the grace of God Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India!

From this great room, thousand filaments of talking wires and cables reach out to the uttermost parts of the earth! To this room, for the austere records of "Lloyds' List," four thousand agents send telegrams, the mere cost of transmission rolling up to a king's yearly revenue. The nerve center of the marine trade of the world is here in this dingy hall. In the vast adjoining reading rooms, the journals of the whole world, in fifty languages, are arranged, so that he who sails may read, as well as he who runs! The rays of Lloyds' all-seeing eye light up the earth from pole to pole, wherever man dares to venture, and its fiat can beggar Puck's girdle around the world to a mere slow performance. The lightning flash of Lloyds' message follows the roll of the English drum around the earth, and its secret agents, its fast friends, its true servitors, are on every bark which proves Britannia's title to the empire of the waters on the face of the earth.

And under other flags, the honest sailor leans upon "Lloyds' List" and "Lloyds' Register of British and Foreign Shipping," to the dismay of all other mun dane marine authorities. "Bureau Veritas," the "Aus trian Lloyds," and all minor argus-eyed watchers "pale their ineffectual fires" before this maelstrom of power money — men — records — and nautical science. So grave, so austere, this self-governing body of Britons, that even the government bends to it, politi cians eagerly woo its chilly regard, and the news journ als kneel before the august throne of Lloyds! It is only filled by the shadowy presence of the ideal British merchant, whose inviolable word is his sacred bond ! For, here, pounds, shillings and pence are paid in righteous equity. Woe be to the erring who fight against its slow awakening wrath!

There is no escape but death, or the perpetual effacement of the transported "lifer!" If a bit of jollity ever lights up the somber shades of Lloyds, it gleams out in the "Captains' rooms," where ships are daily bartered and sold, where men for golden hire bind themselves to the issues of life and death, and where owners and masters can meet in friendship over a drop of spirits and a friendly Havana. Here the brother returned from Plover Bay, by the icy Behring Straits, meets his cradle mate from the sweltering Red Sea,— here, the grizzled father running a Japanese merchant trader, sometimes rejoins his son, the slim cadet of the great P. and O. Men coming back from misty Magellan hobnob with those who have braved that "Cape of Storms," so queerly named "Good Hope," and the whaler from Baffin's Bay chats here with his chum, an R. N. man, who commands the yacht of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales.

A diversity of pathways, — an equality of brav ery and skill,— a common, breezy bluffness,—charac terize all these Mother Carey's chickens. Men who in the wild storms of an Atlantic gale have often sent up the cheery signal, "We will stand by you!" when its signal lifted the chill of death from the failing hearts of the distressed! The heroes of peace, the brave and true. And when the great doors clanged, and the last fal tering woman had slipped away to the shades of the London docks, — far away, the cheery voice of John Higginbotham answered his butler, as the man in the blue and bluff livery said, "Gentlemen are already in the library, sir! Telegram just come, sir!" Standing on the doorstep of his solidly splendid home, the Lloyds' director cried, "Good! By Jove! Drage will be up in the morning!"

One of the twelve annually named committeemen who handle the vast affairs of Lloyds, with power to make and unmake men and fortunes, John Higginbotham always left his outside cares at his front door. Well on his way to the Lord Mayorship of London, he had already served on Lloyds' Managing Commit tee for twenty years by an almost universal suffrage. Sound and sweet-hearted as a British oak, the old man soberly bore his budding civic honors, and gave to all even handed justice, — to his friends the warm grip of the same honest hand which had crushed many a skulking rogue. A member of the greatest London Livery Company, a director of the Bank of England, and a baronet in future ! He murmured, "Bright idea that of Van Lennep, to have the Austrian Lloyds' agent at Brindisi wire the warning to me.

I suppose that he sent a man over there with it. That Smyrna gang is a deadly one. Poor agent Robinson reported 'drowned fish ing.' Yes! But the ugly bullet hole in his back told another story! Beastly assassins! If any living, man can trap them, old Enos Drage is the very chap ! Fever proof, bullet proof, honest and true, he could take a liner into any port of the world without a pilot. But will he go? Can he go out at once?" Higginbotham was now divested of all his damp envelopes, and was taking his sherry and bitters with his friends, before he finally recovered his composure. "By Jove, he must go! It's only a lark for Enos, and I will make it an object. Unlimited backing — that's what the Twelve say." And the Twelve, for whom he was to do battle, were more powerful in their peaceful rule of maritime affairs, in these piping times of peace, than the haughty ermined Council who gath ered the harvest of the Lion's Mouth, and ruled Venice, in Draconian cruelty, in the old days, when fair Ven ice, the bride of the Adriatic, ruled the very same Levant wherefrom the rosy Briton now swore to chase his shadowy foes, "Komanos and Company," an undis covered cabal of incognito villains.

It was two hours before the cheese and crackers, and the spirits and priceless cigars, signalized the close of the great merchant's solemn daily feeding. In his jovial hospitality, the host had deliberately exhausted the motions of the gastronomic manual of arms. Nothing but the sudden disappearance of the entire Royal family, or the flying away of the dome of St. Paul's, would have disturbed Higginbotham at his well-earned dinner. He was a man of poise. "Now, gentlemen," the master said, briskly, "now, to business!" as he led the way to the library. In the stately British home, this apartment, hallowed by the presence of great minds, gone on before, is sacred to all formal interviews, from marriage proposi tions to the opening of the will, where the greedy heirs cluster around with silent lips, hungry eyes and beating hearts.

"I am going to tell you a strange story, gentlemen," said the host. "I've heard already from the very man I want. He will be up here in the morning, from Southsea, and, if we agree on him, we can all turn the thing over for the last time to-morrow night. We have to trust to some good man, with the sole charge of a very important affair. I've sent for him, suppos ing that you would kindly back me up." Both the well-dined colleagues nodded "as of course." "Who's your man?" briefly demanded Wal den. "Captain Enos Drage, Royal Navy, retired," said the chief, glaring around as if to defy the whole world's verdict. "Fine old chap, have met him," interjected Wad dingham. "No end of a cool, hardy old chap. Went out to China with Sherard Osborn, I think, in '62." "Just so," cried Walden. "He commanded the 'Shun Lee,' an armed steamer, on the Yang-tse-Kiang.

They tell me that he ruled the river as far as HangkoW, Taepings or no Taepings! Game old boy!" "Well, I'm glad you both like him! He's got a nasty bit of work cut out for him!" the host replied, as they then settled themselves cozily in the great Cor dovan leather arm chairs. "He's going to run up against a cruel, crafty and bloody gang out there at Smyrna. You know how they killed poor Robinson, the local agent of 'The Underwriters' and Agency Association of London,' out there, three years ago! Now, our man in charge there now, A. O. Van Lennep, knows that he can not fight these bloody chaps alone. So he has secretly sent on to me for help. All of the men in the Associa tion are also members of Lloyds', and I am deep in the thing myself. We've got poor Robinson still to revenge, and my mind is made up to fight these fellows from here — but watch them, over there — by new men whom Komanos and Company don't know.

I'm told to spare no expense, but to break up every swindling scheme now going on there, and to follow them to the bitter end. To expose them first is the needed action. "Now, Drage was a dashing middy in the Crimean war, and he came home a lieutenant. He knows the Orient and Levant as few men do." "What's up with 'Komanos and Company'? What's their little game?" demanded Walden. "Oh ! for that," briskly said the host, "nearly all the marine decalogue. Smuggling, false cargo work, in surance frauds, barratry, a bit of sneaking piracy, and veiled assassination! All these things can easily be traced to this elusive firm of 'Komanos and Company.' No one knows the personnel.'' "Can't you locate their home nest?" wrathfully cried Walden. "Not so easy a job," said the host. "There are four of their ships and cargoes on the black list of false wrecks in the last ten years.

A fellow named Emile Bouclair turns up now as the manager at Smyrna. He has the procuration of 'Komanos and Company.' They have been heard of heretofore at Alexandria, Port Said, Jaffa, Beyrout, Tripoli, Cyprus, Smyrna, Piraeus, Chio, Salonique, Rhodes, Candia, Constantinople, Tre bizonde, Batoum, Odessa, and Trieste. Now, the 'Austrian Lloyds ' have lately been swindled by this same daring gang, who seem also to be secretly backed by many of the Greek, Turkish and Egyptian merchants of the Levant, with the Armenians of all grades, some Jewish confederates, and, what is worse, they have a great hold upon all the Turkish authorities of every port where the red flag shows its white cres cent. You know what Turkish officials are after?" he grinned. "Backsheesh, I suppose!" growled Waddingham.

"The man who goes out there surely takes his life in his hand. Your old dreadnaught, Enos Drage, would seem to be just the right man. What is the specific affair on the tapis, now? Some new swindle?" "All I know is, that a giant fraud is under way. That I must at once come to the rescue of our eastern interests, and that I am to be given carte blanche. There must be no long chain of correspondence to be tray ,us. Of course Her Majesty's ministers, consuls, and naval commanders in the Mediterranean and Le vant will give the agent whom I send out all the secret assistance in their power." Higginbotham drained his steaming toddy and said, "There you are! You can now see as far into the grindstone as I can!" The juniors gazed at each other. "Look here!" said Wralden. "You are really the very man to direct the whole affair.

Your skipper will be up to-morrow. Go over the whole thing with him. We will all meet here to-morrow night and then hear your final orders. We both know that they only named three men, so that our signatures on these secret disbursements would save your estate any trouble in case of any accident. Of course one of us will always be on hand here in London to answer the secret agent's call. "So go on and engage this Captain Drage, if you can get him. We will ratify all you do. You can telegraph to-morrow in the 'Anglo-Indian's' own ci pher, to inform the anxious Van Lennep. Say, In spector coming!' He will then post your man thor oughly on his arrival. We will know of all your plans, observe your progress, and we can aid you here, so Lloyds' interests will be safe. Go in, governor, and cut out the whole cloth as you will."

Higginbotham was secretly pleased at the unanim ity of his junior advisers. "Then, as you say so, I'll go ahead to-morrow morn ing with old Enos!" The two friends went out and braved the gusty storms of the streets, where the feeble yellow gaslight wildly flared in the tempest. Only vice, crime or misery was abroad on London streets, — the ragged homeless crowded in dripping areaway and gusty alley, — and yet the pleasure seekers of society gaily breasted the storm 'in their splendid equipages, glad to escape the deathly chill of the lan guorous British home. Long after the juniors had "shunted their moral responsibilities" off on to the broad shoulders of their host, the old man sat there, alone, gazing into his fire. He saw there visions of derelict boats, storm driven, of rich cargoes foully submerged by villain sailors, of missing ships masquerading in the antipodes, under changed color, rig, private marks, with false papers and stolen names.

All the dangers which attack the insured hull and cargo hovered around the old under writer as a financial nightmare. "I wonder," he said, as he rang for his butler to bring his bedroom candle and "night cap," "I wonder if 'Komanos and Company' can match that Yankee skipper whom we nailed out in Australia! That gay mariner ran away with the ship and stole three cargoes) He changed her rig four times, illegally used the Guat emalan, Hawaiian, and Japanese flag, borrowed money twice on 'bottomrv bond,' unblushinglv sold hull and cargo at Melbourne, pouched his money, and was only given away at last, by a little lark with a woman." The old man slowly stumped off to bed. "The Yankee only robbed," he muttered as he climbed the stairs, "but 'Komanos and Company' have always left a bloody trail. Thugs as well as thieves!'' and vainly his wandering thoughts that night tried to resolve the mystery always clinging to the smooth faced French man, Emile Bouclair, whose luxurious apartments were the scene, this very night, of a gay little supper, a deux, in the Grand Hotel Huck at Smyrna.

For the battle of wits was on, and "Komanos and Company" were gleeful. London was just a bit less disagreeable when John Higginbotham descended the next morning into the cosy breakfast room. In the absence of his family at their Kentish country seat, the table was set for two only. There was nothing unusual in the snowy cloth, the brightest of all silver services, variously and hideously hall marked, the toast racks, egg cups, marmalade jars, and all the paraphernalia of that English breakfast which is a part of the unwritten Constitution. The great Persian cat blinked at the red Irish setter, affec tionately following the master in. The vast house was silent save for the flitting about of the neat house maids and the solemn tread of the grave-faced servants. Huge silent drawing-rooms were piled with all the barbaric spoil of either Ind, the past tribute of grateful captains.

An indefinable odor of Canton, a waft of Cairo, a fragrance of Borneo spices, and South Sea incense groves, still clung to the sober atmosphere of the Briton's home. As Higginbotham entered, a brisk voice challenged him from behind a particularly damp copy of the "Times." "Hello, old chap, what's up?" cried the visitor. As the paper was tossed on a lounge, the alert form of Captain Enos Drage, R. N., displayed his well-cut tweeds, and he nodded, in answer to the underwriter s cheery morning greeting. The men were seated at table before the captain's eager curiosity was satisfied. The naval man's spare form was still of athletic mould, his high domed pointed head yet bore a fair wreath of brown hair, and a struggling whisker covered his heavy boned jaws. There was the very snap of steel springs in his firm white fingers.

The broad shining forehead was lit up with the wonderful frosty gray blue eyes, which could flash on occasion with the glint of steel. The whole some tan of forty years at sea hid all the evidences of Enos Drage's sixty-eight years. In the hallway re posed his mackintosh, stout umbrella and horse-hide traveling bag, which were old campaigners of distinc tion. And the north countryman's motto, "Ready, aye, ready!" seemed to be expressed in the lines of the firm lips surmounting his carven chin. When Captain Enos Drage, R. N., sported the uniform of his rank, the Sebastopol medal on his breast vied in honor there with the Burmese, Chinese, India mutiny, and the easily won Egyptian. When Enos Drage heard the echoes of the eighty-ton guns die away at Alexandria, he at last hung up his well-notched cutlass with a grim satisfaction.

On this particular morning it ornamented the wall of his library at St. Aubrey's Villa, Lenox Road, South sea. "Old Salamander," fondly so-called, bore the marks of bullet, Ashantee knife, and Burmese spear, and yet, sound in hull and rigging, he bowsed along over life's uncertain sea, saved by his hard head, and guided by a nose which would have delighted that great Corsican, who once cried, "Give me men with plenty of nose." Crunching his toast, swallowing his soda, and sip ping his dish of tea, Enos Drage held his wondering soul in well disciplined check. But, when his bit of fish and eggs had vanished, he said, "What's up, John? Another sunken steamer to raise? Another flyaway Yankee to lariat? Any more fishing for a couple of thousand tons of water pipes in the frozen Gulf of Finland?

You never want me unless you are in trouble!" Higginbotham's face grew grave. "Come in here, Enos!" he said, leading the way to the library. They threaded the solemn splendors of the main hall. Drage lit his manilla when the host had stuffed his pipe. "Enos, I never knew you to go back on anything," he began. "Only the Chinese stink-pots," cautiously hedged the naval captain. The underwriter laughed at the one timidity of a man who had faced the cross-fire of a hundred and fifty sixty-four pounders, at Sebastopol, in a cockboat of a naval tug, leading Her Majesty's fleet into action. "All right, I admit the stink-pots, but, nothing else!" Drage's steady eyes glared in a mute assent. "Somebody has got to go out to Smyrna and face a gang of infernal cut-throats and swindlers! They're a beastly lot, this 'Komanos and Company!' Can you go out there?"