Pirates! – Two Stories by George Allan England

Book Details

Pirates! – Two stories of how arrogance and naivete can lead to piracy and murder.

Maroon Key (1951)
Modern Piracy on the Spanish Main Encounters a Traditional Revolution in Those Same Parts—Not to Mention Hurricanes and Kidnapping.
Amateur Piracy Gives Way to Professional!
Chapter I – Amateur Pirate
Chapter II – Out-Pirated
Chapter III – Marooned
Chapter IV – Jorrocks Of Chetwynd-Scraggs
Chapter V – Luncheon Is Served
Chapter VI – Eden And A Menace
Chapter VII – Hurricane
Chapter VIII – Over The Reef
Chapter IX – Onward
Chapter X – War!
Chapter XI – Shirts, Hearts And Glory

Diamond! Diamond! (1952)
“To Carry Richness in the Pocket Is to Open the Door and Say Come In to Death!”
It Was a Real Diamond When the Millionaire Lost It; Paste When He Got It Back, What Had Happened in the Meantime?
Chapter I – The Luck Stone
Chapter II – A Drop In Diamonds
Chapter III – Starlight And Business
Chapter IV – Lost!
Chapter V – Real Or False
Chapter VI – Tangled Skeins
Chapter VII – Direct Action
Chapter VIII – Terror And Death
Chapter IX – Tense Moments
Chapter X – Hargreaves Gets Going
Chapter XI – Into The Enemy’s Camp
Chapter XII – War
Chapter XIII – Retribution

George Allan England (February 9, 1877 – June 26, 1936) was an American writer and explorer, best known for his speculative and science fiction. He attended Harvard University and later in life unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Maine.

Files:

1. England-Pirates.epub

Excerpt: Maroon Key

Chapter I

Amateur Pirate

SECOND MATE JIM WEATHERFORD snapped back to full consciousness, there in the midnight darkness, as the gun-muzzle jammed itself into his kidneys and the business-like voice growled:

“Stick ’em up!”

Weatherford obeyed. Though only twenty-seven and a scrapper, he knew when he was in a jam. The fault—was it all not very much his own? He’d been on watch, responsible for some two million dollars’ worth of yacht, for twenty-odd sleeping officers and crew, above all for the likewise slumbering owner, Henry B. Everington, himself.

And now—!

You might have thought the responsibility of safeguarding a financier rated at rather better than sixty million would have been enough to keep anyone broad awake. But the somnolent wizardry of tropical stardust and night-breeze, and of ponderings about a certain girl in Baltimore, can play odd tricksies on a fellow as he leans on the rail and looks ashore—

Second mate Jim Weatherford of the good yacht Mangariva had heard nothing and seen nothing as, silently and darkly, a dinghy had drifted out from Angel Rio’s fish-pier and across the star-wimpled harbor of Cayo Hueso. He had remained utterly oblivious to the approach of that vaguely moving blur, silently nearing the yacht now empty of all her guests; the yacht which, with her cruise now finished, was anchored there waiting to drydock in the morning.

Second mate Jim, a husky, white-uniformed figure, had continued to brood at the port rail. The dinghy had meantime eased along to the accommodation-ladder on the starboard side. Eight silent, dim men—some of them barefoot—had crept unobserved up that ladder to the holystoned deck. And then—

Then that gun-muzzle jammed into Weatherford’s back; that tense-murmured command, in a voice surprisingly familiar:

“Stick ’em up! And quiet, now, or else—!”

Hands aloft, the second mate growled: “Say, what the hell’s the big idea?”

“Never mind! Anybody else awake, aboard here?”

“How the devil do I know?”

“I mean, anybody else on watch? Come on, now!” With another jab of the automatic. “Spill it!”

“No, there ain’t.”

Now Weatherford felt his hands being pulled down behind his back. He sensed the grip of steel on wrists, heard a decisive click. And as he twisted part-way round, he saw vague figures there in the dim light from the pilot-house. One of these figures—the one that had held the gun on him—sketched a gesture of command to the others. Men silently crept to positions that must already have been assigned them. Pistols ready, they stationed themselves in the port and starboard gangways, and on the foredeck, where they could cover all exits from deck-houses, engine-room hatch, and fo’c’sle.

“What the blazes?” Second mate Jim demanded. “A hold-up, or what?”

“No, just a business conference, sweetheart,” gibed the chief of the raiders. “Come along, Weatherford. Now for a little heart-to-heart with the owner of this poverty-stricken scow!”

THE pirate—for anyone who forcibly seizes a vessel in commission may be rated in that category—seemed to need no guidance in finding the Mangariva’s owner. Quite obviously, he well knew his way around the yacht. Followed by only one of his crew, and with his gun-barrel prodding Second mate Jim ahead of him, he silently made for the entrance door leading to Henry B. Everington’s quarters.

Vague in that midnight gloom, with only here or there a shaded incandescent softly glowing, appeared glimpses of the spacious sun-parlor deck with its huge, cushioned wicker chairs and divans, its book-laden tables, and the parrot asleep in an immense brass cage.

Beyond, the automatic elevator gave access to lower decks. The pirate ignored it, and prodded his captive down the dim-lit, curving stair, with hand-wrought iron bannisters that had been ravished from a Venetian palace. And so the trio reached a long corridor, thick-carpeted with Oriental rugs, each worth a fortune.

ALONG this corridor opened some of the many guest-suites, every suite distinctively furnished and tinted. Past several of these, lay the master’s apartment, itself.

“Well, here we are,” remarked the pirate, stopping.

“That’s right, Mr. Brandon,” Second mate Jim assented. With cool, speculative eyes he regarded his captor. Even in that half-light very well he knew him. “And may I ask how you happen to be coming back aboard, like this? After being Mr. Everington’s guest for about six weeks on our cruise, and then saying good-by with all the others, not twelve hours ago?”

“Never mind that, Weatherford!” the pirate interrupted. A tall, shouldery, rather red-headed man of perhaps thirty, who could look mighty dangerous, rather precluded discussion. “The less you say now, the healthier it’ll be for you!”

Brandon—Varney Howell Brandon, head of Brandon & Co., Statistical Reports—drew a key from the pocket of his yachting-trousers and opened the door of his ex-host’s private suite. This key, of the sort known as “skeleton,” had just that afternoon been made for him by an expert locksmith up in the town of Cayo Hueso. Evidently Brandon had overlooked few details in preparation for this raid.

As the door swung open, he gestured for Second mate Jim to enter first; then followed and closed the door, leaving his attendant comrade-in-piracy outside in the corridor, on guard with drawn pistol.

INSIDE the master’s apartment, heavier darkness reigned. No incandescent was burning here. Through silk-curtained windows, only a vague glimmer of light penetrated from a gangway. The invader, seeming to know perfectly well the lay of things, at once switched on lights. A rosepink illumination flooded the sitting-room. Brandon turned toward the closed bedroom door, through which was audible a faint snoring. He pocketed his gun, opened that door, raised a beckoning finger to the manacled second mate.

“You’re in on this conference, too!” said he.

“Conference, Mr. Brandon? What is the idea? After all these weeks aboard here, with the others, surely you’ve had plenty of time for business conferences—without coming back here like this, and sticking up the place!”

“That’s enough, Weatherford! Come here!”

A moment, Second mate Jim’s eye appraised the invader, who had so recently been a guest. Hard-faced now and with a menacing gleam in his look, Brandon gave back the mate’s scrutiny with interest. Handcuffed, helpless. Weatherford had no choice but to obey. Grim-jawed, he passed into the bedroom. Brandon followed, closed the door, made a light.

This light fell on the brass bed where slept the master of more than sixty millions —a stoutish, ruddy-faced man with white mustache and brows. A man whose age probably counted one year for every million of his rating.

“Now then,” smiled Brandon, “now for the sleeping beauty!”

FOR a moment he stood looking down at Everington, who in the fatuous relaxation of deep slumber looked far other than the commanding figure made familiar to the world by innumerable newspaper portraits.

Deplorable as it seems, a sleeping millionaire may show marked resemblances to a slumbering hobo. Now lying there on his back, somewhat in need of a shave, with his mouth agape and with toothless gums exposed, the snoring Henry B. Everington looked anything but a Captain of Finance.

As the sudden light impinged on his lids, these twitched, opened, blinked. For a moment, a look of utter confusion and non-comprehension enveloped the invaders of Everington’s privacy. But swiftly rationality surged over him. Thoughts reentered his baldish head. With a swift up-rearing, he surged to a sitting position, in rather absurd pink-striped silk pajamas. From his eye flashed a gleam of the hot temper that had made him internationally famous.

“What—what the devil?” he demanded. “Hell of a thing—wake a man up, middle of night! What’s up, Weatherford? And you, Brandon—you back? What—?”

Excerpt From: George Allan England. “Pirates!.”