pulps
Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 581
"The Gantlet-Runner" by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham is a serialized romance of privateering and pirate times. Chapter I opens in colonial Boston Harbor, where young Randolph Ravel, a disgraced British naval officer, arranges to send a diamond ring and letter to Lady Lulu Langdon via a sailor messenger. The letter confesses his long love for her and requests a midnight meeting. When Lady Lulu refuses his advances at the boat-house, Ravel's associates kidnap her and, when pursued by a British lugger, he throws her overboard. A courageous skipper aboard the lugger rescues her but mysteriously departs without revealing his identity. Chapter II shifts to the pre-Revolutionary War setting, describing British press-gang activities impressing American sailors in Boston Harbor, and introduces a small, fast schooner crewed by young sailors, establishing the political tensions underlying the narrative.