The barge of haunted lives

The Barge of Haunted Lives by J. Aubrey Tyson is a mystery-adventure novel with a framed narrative written in the early 20th century. It follows financier-host Hewitt Westfall as he gathers people with “haunted” pasts aboard a lavish, eerie barge to reveal how their fates intertwine, notably a veiled princess, a grim duck hunter, and a fugitive bridegroom. Their stories promise to converge around a sinister thread involving the Rajiid Buddha. At the start of the novel, a one‑eyed duck hunter, Colonel Canbeck, is surprised in the Long Island marshes by a young woman dropped there by a seaplane; together they board a strangely opulent barge whose salon holds faceless statues, armored suits with skulls, and a mummy. Westfall appears, names the woman as a princess, explains his barge as a refuge for “haunted lives,” and seats a table of guests known only by sobriquets while the woman attends veiled. He announces a series of linked confessions, beginning with the Fugitive Bridegroom, who recounts being cast into the sea after a yacht collision, surviving aboard a fire‑scorched derelict amid bats and an uncanny vampiric visitation, and then being rescued. Back in New York, he falls for Paula Trevison despite a rising dread; they marry and board an ocean liner, as the opening closes on the cusp of their departure and the larger mystery begins to unfurl.

The barge of haunted lives, by J. Aubrey Tyson. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #77879.