Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

The jury was out two hours and fifteen minutes. Then they returned a verdict of guilty. But they asked such clemency as was consistent with the facts for the mates, on account of their extreme youth.

Adolph Pedersen was forthwith sentenced to eighteen months at Atlanta, and the boys were sentenced to six months in Essex County Jail.

Thus ends the story of one of the most fearful voyages known to truth or fiction. Even Wolf Larsen — Jack London’s Sea Wolf — could not have enacted the part of Pedersen.

Brutal, yes, but fair in his brutality. He would call his men to the deck. “Put up your fists and fight,” he would say, waiving the law that it was a crime to strike a master. Wolf Larsen at least gave his men a fighting chance!

The Horseman of Death by Anthony Wynne

This story began in Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction for September 17

From whence sprung that sinister affinity between the master and the beating hooves of an unseen horseman riding to the tower?

Synopsis of Previous Chapters

Threatening Sacha Malone that he knew her husband’s death was not accidental, Barrington Bryan blackmailed her into a promise to marry him, warning that her lover, Dick Lovelace, would be the price of her refusal. Sacha went with Dr. Eustace Hailey to The Black Tower of her uncle, Lord Gerald Templewood, to certify to his insanity. At intervals he heard the hoof-beats of an unseen horseman, which presaged his death; and at other times he communicated with his long dead fiancée, Beatrice. The medium of both of these phenomena was Mlle. Ninon Darelli, who Dr. Hailey accused of being fraudulent. She administered dope to Lord Templewood, and to quiet Sacha, had also administered dope to her. Under the spell of dope and Ninon’s hypnotism Sacha defied Barrington and attempted to kill him. Ninon was agitated when Barrington informed her of this, as he was her lover. At Lord Templewood’s, Dr. Hailey heard the mysterious hoof-beats, and shortly after Sacha appeared, saying she had ridden up on a horse.

Chapter XIX “I Warn You”

Lord Templewood had half risen in his chair. His hands clutched at the arms, so that their knuckles were blanched; and he glared at his niece Sacha.

“How dare you tell me that?” he cried hoarsely. “How dare you tell me that!”

Sacha started back, revealing to, Dr. Hailey, in that action, the utter weariness of her face.

“I... I’m so sorry if I — frightened you,” she faltered.

The old man seemed to gather new strength. He sprang to his feet with a degree of agility of which the doctor had not supposed him to be possessed.

“You lie,” he cried. “You are not sorry.”

His eyes glared. He drew himself up to his full height. His hands plucked at the front of his coat.

“Do you think that I do not know what you are about? That I do not understand your game? Ha!” He laughed, mirthlessly, displaying long teeth. “I know everything — everything.” His arm shot cut in a minatory gesture. “It is a plot between you and Lovelace to kill me.”

“My dear Uncle Gerald—”

Sacha’s voice thrilled with repudiation of a charge so monstrous. Dr. Hailey laid his hand on her hand, to bid her exercise all her self-control.

“Yes, to kill me.” The shrill voice had become almost screaming in its violence. “To kill me and to rob me. Why have you brought your doctor here? So that he can swear that my death was due to natural causes. Why have you galloped your horse round The Tower?

“So that my death may be due, apparently, to natural causes.” His face assumed suddenly a look of cold hatred. His violence, at the same moment was abated, “You thought,” he queried with a sneer, “that, at the sound of your horse’s hooves, my heart would stop?”

Sacha caught her breath in a gasp. That action seemed to whet her uncle’s desire to wound her. He took a step toward her.

“Ninon was a fraud. Why? Because Ninon stood between you and your object.”

He turned and strode to the bell. He rang it. A footman came to the room.

“Ask Mlle. Darelli to come here,” he told the man.

He sank back into his chair, and lay for a moment as if exhausted. Then, once again, he turned to Sacha.

“Why did you come?” he demanded abruptly.

“Because you sent for me.”

“I did not send for you.”

“May I remind you, Lord Templewood,” Dr. Hailey said, “that you consented this afternoon to my summoning your niece from London.”

“What do you want her here for, anyhow?”

“I want her to look after you.”

Lord Templewood banged his fist on the arm of his chair. He cried,