Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 982: "The Girl Storm-Pilot"

This 1896 Beadle and Adams weekly serialization, "The Girl Storm-Pilot: The Death-Bell of the Reefs," by G. Waldo Browne, opens with a pistol duel on a storm-lashed beach between Acton Marble and Wilfred Morland, with Marble motivated by romantic rivalry over a woman named Lena Riverton. Marble shoots Morland and conceals his body. A mysterious old man, Walf Ranger, arrives and speaks of a woman in a boat on the sea and a distressed ship firing distress signals. Marble relates folklore: a bell from the sunken Woland's Abbey—where a sorcerer disappeared during a storm twenty-two years prior—rings of its own accord during tempests, portending doom. Ranger, energized by purpose, determines to silence the bell and rescue the ship, enlisting Marble's aid as they navigate toward Woland's Wreck along dangerous coastal ledges during the raging storm.