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  [Illustration: "'STOP!'"]




     THE

     KIDNAPPED PRESIDENT

     BY

     GUY BOOTHBY

     AUTHOR OF

     'DR. NIKOLA,' 'A BID FOR FORTUNE,' 'THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE DEVIL,'
     ETC.

     ILLUSTRATIONS BY STANLEY L. WOOD

     _LONDON_

     WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED

     NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE

     1902




'THE KIDNAPPED PRESIDENT'




CHAPTER I


I suppose to every man, at some period in his life, there comes some
adventure upon which, in after life, he is destined to look back with
a feeling that is very near akin to astonishment. Somebody has said
that adventures are to the adventurous. In my case I must confess that
I do not see how the remark applies. I was certainly fourteen years at
sea, but in all that time, beyond having once fallen overboard in
Table Bay, and, of course, the great business of which it is the
purpose of this book to tell you, I cannot remember any circumstance
that I could dignify with the title of an adventure. The sailor's
calling in these times of giant steamships is so vastly different from
what it was in the old days of sailing ships and long voyages that,
with the most ordinary luck, a man might work his way up the ratlines
from apprentice to skipper with little less danger than would be met
with in a London merchant's office. Though I was not aware of it,
however, I was destined to have an adventure, stirring enough to
satisfy the most daring, before my seafaring life came to an end.

How well I remember the day on which I was appointed fourth officer of
the ocean liner _Pernambuco_, running from London to South America. I
should here remark that I held a second officer's certificate, but I
was, nevertheless, glad enough to take what I could get, in the hope
of being able to work my way up to something better. It was not a bad
rise, when all was said and done, to leave a ramshackle old tub of a
tramp for the comparatively luxurious life of a mail boat; much
jollier merely to run out to the Argentine and back, instead of
dodging at a snail's pace from port to port all round the world. Then
again there was the question of society. It was pleasanter in every
respect to have pretty girls to flirt with on deck, and to sit beside
one at meals, than to have no one to talk to save a captain who was in
an intoxicated state five days out of seven, a grumpy old chief mate,
and a Scotch engineer, who could recite anything Burns ever wrote,
backwards or forwards, as you might choose to ask him for it. When I
had been six months on board the _Pernambuco_, I was made third
officer; at the end of the year I signed my name on the pay-sheet as
second. Eventually I got my Master's Certificate, and became chief
officer. Now everybody knows, or ought to know, that the duties of
chief officer on board a big liner, and, for the matter of that, on
any other boat, are as onerous as they are varied. In the first place,
he is the chief executive officer of the ship, and is held
responsible, not only for its appearance, but also for the proper
working of the crew. It is a position that requires consummate tact.
He must know when to see things and when not to see them, must be able
to please the passengers, and yet protect the interests of his owners,
must, and this is not the least important fact, be able to keep his
men constantly employed, yet not earn for himself the reputation of
being too hard a task-master. Finally, he has to see that all the
credit for what he does is not appropriated by himself, but goes to
increase the _kudos_ of his commanding officer. If the latter is a
gentleman, and can appreciate his officers' endeavours at their real
value, matters will in all probability go smoothly; on the other hand,
however, if the captain is a bully, then the chief officer is likely
to wish himself elsewhere, or at least that he was the holder of some
other rank. This was my case on my last and most memorable voyage in
the service of a particular Company that every one knows, but which,
for various reasons, shall be nameless.

I had never met Captain Harveston until he joined us in dock on the
day previous to sailing, but I had heard some scarcely complimentary
remarks about him from men who had sailed with him. I must confess,
therefore, that I was prepared to dislike him. In appearance he was as
unlike a sailor as a man could well be, was a great dandy in his
dress, and evidently looked upon himself as an undoubted lady-killer.
So far as I was concerned, he had hardly set foot on the vessel before
he commenced finding fault. A ship in dock, before the passengers come
aboard, and while the thousand and one preparations are being made for
a voyage, is seldom an example of tidiness. Surely a skipper, who had
been at sea for thirty years, must have realized this; for some
reason, however, best known to himself, it pleased Captain Harveston
to inaugurate our acquaintance by telling me that he liked a "<DW74> and
span ship," and that he judged his officers by what he saw of their
work.

"You shall have nothing to complain of as soon as I get the workmen
out, sir," I replied, a bit nettled at being called over the coals
upon such a trumpery matter.

"I trust I shall not," he answered superciliously, and then strutted
down the bridge to his own cabin, which was just abaft the
chart-room.

As it turned out, the Isle of Wight was scarcely astern before the
trouble began. Young Herberts, our second officer, was the first to
get a wigging, and Harrison, the fourth, quickly followed suit. I felt
sure my time would not be long in coming, and I was not wrong. On the
second day out, and during my watch below, I was talking to the purser
in his cabin, when the fourth officer appeared to inform me that the
captain wished to see me on the promenade deck. Thither I made my way,
to find him seated there with a number of lady passengers round him.

"Surely he is not going to be nasty before these ladies," I said to
myself as I approached him.

I discovered, however, that this was exactly what he was going to do.

"Mr. Helmsworth," he began, "I am told that you have refused the
passengers the use of the bull-board."

"Indeed, sir, I have not," I replied. "I informed one of the gentlemen
who spoke to me about it that I would have it brought up directly we
were clear of the Channel. As a rule we never produce it until we're
out of the Bay. I had Captain Pomeroy's instructions to that effect."

"I am captain of this vessel now," he returned. "Please see that the
board is brought on deck at once. I must ask you for the