Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document havebeen preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
"'STOP!'"
(Page 162.)
THE
KIDNAPPED PRESIDENT
BY
GUY BOOTHBY
AUTHOR OF
'DR. NIKOLA,' 'A BID FOR FORTUNE,' 'THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE DEVIL,'
ETC.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY STANLEY L. WOOD
LONDON
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE
1902
'THE KIDNAPPED PRESIDENT'
CHAPTER I
I suppose to every man, at some period in hislife, there comes some adventure upon which, inafter life, he is destined to look back with a feelingthat is very near akin to astonishment. Somebodyhas said that adventures are to the adventurous.In my case I must confess that I do not seehow the remark applies. I was certainly fourteenyears at sea, but in all that time, beyondhaving once fallen overboard in Table Bay, and,of course, the great business of which it is thepurpose of this book to tell you, I cannot rememberany circumstance that I could dignifywith the title of an adventure. The sailor'scalling in these times of giant steamships is sovastly different from what it was in the old daysof sailing ships and long voyages that, with themost ordinary luck, a man might work his way[Pg 8]up the ratlines from apprentice to skipper withlittle less danger than would be met with in aLondon merchant's office. Though I was notaware of it, however, I was destined to have anadventure, stirring enough to satisfy the mostdaring, before my seafaring life came to an end.
How well I remember the day on which Iwas appointed fourth officer of the ocean linerPernambuco, running from London to SouthAmerica. I should here remark that I held asecond officer's certificate, but I was, nevertheless,glad enough to take what I could get, in the hopeof being able to work my way up to somethingbetter. It was not a bad rise, when all was saidand done, to leave a ramshackle old tub of a trampfor the comparatively luxurious life of a mailboat; much jollier merely to run out to theArgentine and back, instead of dodging at asnail's pace from port to port all round theworld. Then again there was the question ofsociety. It was pleasanter in every respect to havepretty girls to flirt with on deck, and to sit besideone at meals, than to have no one to talk tosave a captain who was in an intoxicated statefive days out of seven, a grumpy old chief mate,and a Scotch engineer, who could recite anythingBurns ever wrote, backwards or forwards, as youmight choose to ask him for it. When I hadbeen six months on board the Pernambuco,[Pg 9]I was made third officer; at the end of the yearI signed my name on the pay-sheet as second.Eventually I got my Master's Certificate, andbecame chief officer. Now everybody knows, orought to know, that the duties of chief officer onboard a big liner, and, for the matter of that, onany other boat, are as onerous as they are varied.In the first place, he is the chief executive officerof the ship, and i