Capitán Pantera: Piratas modernos

# "Piratas Modernos" by P. V. Debrigode

This opening chapter, "Dos Marineros y un Saco," establishes a crime-adventure narrative set in 1920s Shanghai. Ross Maloney, an eighteen-year-old American sailor from Kentucky, arrives penniless at a dockside bar after being dismissed from a ship. After being drugged and robbed of ten dollars by the bartender, he meets Mei-Hsi, a Chinese-European girl, who offers him employment at her father's kimono shop. Over a month, Maloney gains modest wages and becomes engaged to Mei-Hsi. When two American sailors from a Kentucky warship visit the shop, they assault Mei-Hsi and beat Maloney, who cannot defend her. Mei-Hsi, disgusted by his passivity, dismisses him, telling him he is a cowardly white man unworthy of her. Maloney departs humiliated, experiencing an unfamiliar inner turmoil beyond physical pain.