Mr. Keegan's Elopement

On the warship Denver as it nears Madeira, a taciturn boatswain's mate named Dennis Keegan quietly dominates the ship's gossip with his hard-earned authority and dry wit. The crew's talk centers on young Ensign Pennington and his romance with Miss Inglefield, an English girl whose disapproving father has only deepened the affair's allure. When Pennington seems ready to abandon the whole business and sail for England, his friend Morgan rebukes him for surrendering too soon, while Keegan arrives with a daring alternative: a secret escape plan. In Funchal, the plot turns into a race against time. Keegan spends his own money to arrange transport, a clergyman, and the needed cover, while the cautious master-at-arms carries the message ashore through Madeira's steep streets and exotic bulla-cartas. Miss Inglefield, poised and unexpectedly resolute, agrees to meet Pennington at the villa's back gate and be ready at half-past eleven. Pennington's disbelief gives way to hope as Keegan's practical ingenuity, rough loyalty, and command of every detail transform a hopeless courtship into a moonlit elopement full of comic urgency, romantic suspense, and the possibility of last-minute disaster. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.