Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 972

# The Captain's Enemy

This serial adventure tale, published June 9, 1897, opens with dual narratives. In Nebraska, a Jewish trader hires Sergeant Mortimer Bainbridge to assassinate Captain Dudley Delmont; the sergeant shoots Delmont while off-duty, and the trader pays him and leaves by wagon train. However, Delmont survives. The scene shifts to Virginia, where a traveling soldier rides toward an estate called The Retreat. At a funeral service in a local graveyard, he reveals himself as the supposedly-dead Delmont, shocking his grieving sister Beatrice so severely she faints into the open grave. Delmont learns his father (Commodore Delmont) has died. That evening in the family library, Delmont, Beatrice, and Aubrey Moore (the commodore's secretary and rumored future son-in-law) discuss the circumstances. Delmont begins explaining how he came to be reported dead, mentioning his friendship with officer Mortimer Bainbridge—whose relationship to events remains unclear as the excerpt ends.