The adventures of Captain O'Shea

BOOKS BY RALPH D. PAINE
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN O’SHEA
BY RALPH D. PAINE
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1913
Copyright, 1913, by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Published September, 1913
When the Cubans, led by Gomez and Maceo, were waging their final rebellion against the immemorial tyranny of Spain, it may be recalled that there was much filibustering out of American ports, and a lively demand for seafaring men of an intrepid temper who could be relied on to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. Such a one was young Captain O’Shea, and, moreover, he was no amateur at this ticklish industry, having already “jolted one presidente off his perch in Hayti, and set fire to the coat-tails of another one in Honduras,” as he explained to the swarthy gentlemen of the Cuban Junta in New York, who passed on his credentials.
They gave him a sea-going tug called the Fearless , permitted him to pick his own crew, and told him where to find his cargo, in a fairly lonesome inlet of the Florida coast. Thereafter he was to work out his own salvation. The programme was likely to be anything else than monotonous. To be nabbed by a Yankee cruiser in home waters for breaking the laws of nations meant that Captain O’Shea would cool his heels in a Federal jail, a mishap most distasteful to a man of a roving disposition. To run afoul of the Spanish blockading fleet in Cuban waters was to be unceremoniously shot full of holes and drowned in the bargain.
Such risks as these were incidental to his trade, and Captain O’Shea maintained his cheerful composure until the Fearless had taken her explosive cargo on board and was dropping the sandy coast-line of Florida over her stern. Then he scrutinized his passengers and became annoyed. The Junta had sent him a Cuban colonel and forty patriots, recruited from the cigar factories of Tampa and Key West, who ardently, even clamorously, desired to return to their native land and fight for the glorious cause of liberty.