The Yellow Traffic
Summary
Against the salt-crusted granite of New England, the four-masted Caroline glides like a hymn etched in timber, her honest hold once fragrant with cod and salt hay now coveted by Silas Ketch, monied sphinx of the wharves who secretly funnels opium-yellow human cargo through moon-lacquered inlets. When Captain Amos Hale, salt-weathered and ledger-poor, mortgages his lady of spruce to Ketch’s vault of gold, he unwittingly signs away more than plank and sail: the merchant covets Hale’s daughter, Mercy, whose eyes carry the same storm-grey as the Atlantic, and covets too the schooner’s belly for a grim flotilla of Chinese laborers smuggled in nail-barred casks. Mercy, enamored of stalwart Coast Guardsman Elias Drake, spurns Ketch’s silk promises; her brother Josiah, wireless prodigy, strings copper antennae between mast-top and homestead attic so pulses of Morse may outrun the fastest revenue cutter. On a star-drunk outbound tide Ketch’s cutthroats erupt from hiding, clap irons on the crew, and twist Caroline into a ghost ship of the yellow traffic. Barrels roll like iron dice across her decks; inside, muffled heartbeats count the leagues to shore. From land, Mercy taps the spark-gap, intercepting Josiah’s skeletal SOS; Elias rallies a shore party while government marines close the coastal net. In the high-stakes crescendo, Josiah, made to walk the plank with wrists bound, slips his manacles, plummets forty feet, swims one-hundred-forty beneath the keel, claws up a rudder chain, and staggers onto the beach at dawn to guide the assault. Caroline, now black-flagged, is pursued beyond the breakers; blood glints on cutlass and marlin-spike as lawmen swarm her decks, the smugglers are brought to bay, and the schooner reclaims her rightful colors—yet not before Mercy, Elias, and a wireless key rewrite the morality of the sea.
Synopsis
The four-masted schooner "Caroline," a valuable seagoing vessel engaged in a peaceful legitimate trade along the rough coast of New England, is the central point around which this interesting drama revolves. Her owner has been forced by misfortune to borrow money from a wealthy merchant who is the secret head of a band of smugglers engaged in bringing Chinamen into the United States by landing them secretly upon a dangerous stretch of the seacoast. The merchant wants the "Caroline" for his illegal traffic, and has also made up his mind to obtain her captain-owner's daughter for his bride. The girl, however, is in love with a stalwart coast guard and is seconded in her dislike for the merchant by her brother who, besides being the first mate of the "Caroline," has rigged a wireless apparatus upon the vessel and upon the roof of their home, and has taught his sister how to communicate with him while he is at sea. The merchant succeeds in secreting a number of his desperate band in the hold of the "Caroline" when she sails upon one of her cruises, and thus gains possession of the vessel and places her crew in irons. She is immediately forced into the "yellow traffic" and used to pick up a cargo of Chinamen who are packed in barrels and loaded upon her deck. Meanwhile the activities of the merchant, the girl and the coast guard upon the land combined with the government's efforts to stop the operations of the smugglers add double interest to the story which reaches a splendid climax when the brother succeeds in communicating with his sister by wireless, is made to walk the plank, swims 140 feet under water, finally clinging to a rudder chain and reaching shore in time to lead a large force against the smugglers on land. He pursues the "Caroline" out to sea and leads an attack upon her ruffian crew, which ends in a hand-to-hand conflict and a triumph for the guardians of the law.
