+-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+ BEADLE'S HALF DIME Library Entered as Second Class Matter at the New York, N. Y., Post Office. Copyrighted 1897, by BEADLE AND ADAMS. February 9, 1897. No. 1020. $2.50 a Year. PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY BEADLE AND ADAMS. Price, 5 cents. Vol. XL. No. 92 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. BARNEY BLAKE, THE BOY PRIVATEER; Or, The Cruise of the Queer Fish. BY HERRICK JOHNSTONE [Illustration: WITH A LUSTY CHEER THEY BID GOOD-BY TO THE SHIP.] Barney Blake, the Boy Privateer; OR, THE CRUISE of the QUEER FISH. BY HERRICK JOHNSTONE. CHAPTER I. THE SHIP AND HER CREW. It was upon a bright morning of the month of May, 1813, as I, a sailor just paid off from my last ship, was wandering along the wharves of Boston, that I was hailed by an old messmate, named Tony Trybrace. "Ship ahoy!" cried Tony. "The Barney Blake," I responded. "Out of employment, with compass gone, and nothing to steer by." "What!" cried Tony, giving me his flipper. "Do you want a ship? A strange wish to go unsatisfied in these times." "Yes," I hesitatingly rejoined, "but, you see, I've never been in the navy--always sailed in a merchantman--and--" "Nonsense!" cried Tony. "That kind of blarney won't do for these times. I shipped the other day on as cracky a craft as ever kicked the spray behind her. Come and join us." "What! on a man-o'-war?" "Better than that. On a bold privateer! Look out there to windward," said Tony, directing my attention with his pointing hand, "and tell me what you think of her. That's her, the brigantine, with her r'yals half furled." The vessel indicated to me by my friend did not go back on his off-hand description of her. "She's a splendid ship!" I exclaimed. "What name does she go by?" "The Queer Fish," was the reply. "She has six guns--eighteen-pounders--three on each side--with the prettiest thirty-pound brass swivel at her starn, this side of Davy Jones. She starts to-morrow for a year's cruise. Will you go?" "Yes." "Spoken like a Yankee tar. Come." A boat of the privateer was in waiting, and in a few moments we were in it.