Beadle's Dime Library No. 87

"The Scarlet Captain; or, The Prisoner of the Tower: A Story of Heroism" By Col. Delle Sara; *William Street* (N.Y.), February 11, 1880. This adventure serial is set in 1876 Dulcigno, on the Montenegro-Albania border during Ottoman upheaval. A tall, mysterious renegade—revealed to be Montenegrin-born but allied with the Turks—plots with Hassan El Moola (a Turkish colonel) and Phelim O'Flanagan (an Irish-born Bashi Bazouk commander) to kidnap Catherine Belina, Countess of Scutari, and use her to control the mountain territories between Turkish and Montenegrin lands. The scheme intersects with an American soldier of fortune, Lauderdale, who arrives at a roadside inn seeking the tower. There he encounters a scarlet-clad Montenegrin captain—whom he dubs "the Scarlet Captain"—whom he'd befriended months prior in Paris. The Captain reveals he has followed his beloved Alexina Petrovitch (the countess's foster-sister and an heiress) to the region. Both men resolve to infiltrate the tower that night, unaware of the countess's capture.