The Gambler Pirate; or, Bessie, the Lady of the Lagoon

# The Gambler Pirate: Bessie, the Lady of the Lagoon

By Col. Prentiss Ingraham, this serial adventure follows Frank Forrester, an officer aboard a small yacht in Mississippi Sound who is ambushed by his mutinous crew—three seamen led by one calling himself Marco. The crew, claiming Forrester is actually "Forrester the Freebooter," deliberately wreck the yacht on Shark's Back reef to capture him for a bounty. Before they can secure him, the beautiful and resolute Bessie Gito, a mysterious young woman known as the Lady of the Lagoon, arrives in her surf-skiff. Witnessing Forrester's predicament, she brandishes a duck-gun, locks the mutineers in the cabin, and rescues the manacled Forrester, sailing toward shore despite gunfire from the wrecked vessel and a pursuing black sloop emerging from the lagoon.