ommand
of the suspicious steamer.

CHAPTER XXXV

GENERAL NEWRY'S MAGNIFICENT YACHT

The biography of Captain Penn Sharp had been quite romantic within the
preceding year. In company with his brother he had been a detective in
New York during the greater portion of his lifetime. He had been an
honest and upright man; but in spite of this fact he had saved a
competence for a man of small desires before he was fifty years old. He
had never been married till the last year of his life.

He had what he called a "profession," and he had attended to it very
closely for twenty years or more. When he "had a case to 'work up,'" he
took it to his humble lodging with him, and studied out the problem.
There was nothing in his room that could be called a luxury, unless a
library of two hundred volumes were classed under that head; and he
spent all his leisure time in this apartment, having absolutely no
vices. He was a great reader, had never taken a vacation, and saved all
his money, which he had prudently invested.

In his younger days he had been to sea, and came home as the mate of a
large ship when he was twenty-two. His prospects in the commercial
marine were very promising; but his brother, believing he had peculiar
talent for the occupation in which he was himself engaged, induced him
to go into the business as his partner. He had been a success; but men
do not live as he did, depriving himself of rest or recreation, without
suffering for it. His health broke down.

Confident that a voyage at sea would build him up, he applied to Captain
Ringgold for any place he could offer him. Only the position of
quartermaster was available. He was glad to obtain this on board of such
a steamer. He had told his story, and the commander needed just such a
person. Mrs. Belgrave had married for her second husband a man who had
proved to be a robber and a villain. Her son Louis had discovered his
character long before she did, and, after fighting a long and severe
battle, had driven him away, recovering a large sum of money he had
purloined.

Captain Ringgold ascertained in Bermuda that the villain had another
wife in England. He promoted his quartermaster to the position of third
officer, and set him at work as a detective on the case. The recreant
husband had inherited a fortune in Bermuda, had purchased a steam-yacht,
and was still struggling to recover the wife who had discarded him,
believing the "Missing Million" was beh