Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 674

This June 1890 issue features the serial "Red Ralph, the Rover: A Romance of Mystery Afloat and Ashore" by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham. The narrative opens with Kenton Carr, a dissolute young man, fleeing a curse from Salina the Sorceress after allegedly kidnapping a girl named Kate. Carr conspires with the red-haired sailor Red Ralph to locate the missing girl and a treasure she supposedly knows about. Unable to find her, Carr devises a plan to win his uncle's favor by fitting out a privateer during an impending war with England, hoping to restore his squandered inheritance. The story shifts to Celine Chetwyn, a Carolina plantation heiress rescued from pirates by Captain Bernard Bazil of the Columbian cruiser. She marries him despite rumors he's become a buccaneer. Years later, Celine returns mysteriously to her decaying ancestral home with two children before vanishing again. The issue concludes with Captain Bazil himself appearing as commander of an armed schooner entering a Carolina inlet at night, suggesting piratical intentions, as he discusses his search for funds with an officer named Costa.