Beadle's Dime Library No. 635

This issue of Beadle & Adams (December 24, 1890) features "The Ex-Buccaneer," a serial romance by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, subtitled "A Romance of Sea Hands and Shore Hearts" and companion to "The Sea Thief." The narrative follows Lieutenant Harold Hartwell, a naval officer who returns to Boston commanding a warship, only to discover his wife Celia has transformed their modest home into a grand mansion. Hartwell learns she has successfully recovered a pirate treasure he had failed to obtain—a legacy from dying merchant captain Claude Cassiday, to whom Hartwell owed his life. Celia reveals she obtained copies of Hartwell's maps, chartered a vessel under false pretenses (claiming to retrieve her lover's body), and retrieved the treasure from a burial ground. She encountered the pirate Kent, who treated her chivalrously. The substantial fortune, including gems, gold, silver, and jewelry, now fills a hidden iron-lined closet. Hartwell proposes sharing the wealth with the Cassidays; his wife adamantly refuses, threatening to expose him as a murderer to naval authorities if he persists.