The Sea Owl; or, The Lady Captain of the Gulf

The Sea Owl; or, The Lady Captain of the Gulf By Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, this romance of piracy was serialized in M. J. Ivers & Co.'s monthly magazine (August 1903, Vol. XXXV, No. 1075). The story follows Barton Keys, a disgraced Mississippi planter branded outlaw, who hides in a lagoon aboard a smuggler's lugger with Rita, the smuggler captain's daughter. Keys schemes revenge against Bradford Carr, a reformed tutor-turned-pirate-priest who exposed Keys's role in a murder and won the affections of Maud Brandt, a wealthy plantation heiress. Keys plans to visit the Brandt Plantation in disguise, threatening Carr by letter (purportedly from pirate captain "the Sea Owl") with kidnapping and violence unless he abandons his position and the lady. Rita agrees to disguise him thoroughly for the dangerous mission.