Fortune Unawares — J. Allan Dunn

NED KENNEDY, who tells the story, while at college becomes the intimate friend of En Sue, a young Chinese student, and inveterate gambler. In the course of a fight springing from crooked playing detected by En Sue, Kennedy saves the former's life. En Sue's gratitude knows no bounds, and he gives Kennedy a little godling of good luck in remembrance.The wanderlust takes Kennedy to Shanghai, where he is found by Li Yuen, En Sue's aristocratic and wealthy father, who offers him a job as keeper of a lighthouse on a reef in the South China Sea, which he accepts as a preparation for something better. Toward the end of his year as lighthouse keeper a great storm comes up, and in the midst of it a small boat is wrecked on his reef. Going down to the water he discovers two dead men in the boat, and in the hand of one a large and beautiful ruby, the value of which will be many thousands of dollars. He is tempted to keep it as his own, but his conscience tells him it does not belong to him. Endeavoring to find the rightful owner and return the ruby, Kennedy becomes embroiled in international intrigue and tangles with pirates and slavers in a wild adventure crafted by one of pulp fiction's most popular and prolific writers.Fortune Unawares originally appeared in the pages of Argosy All-Story Weekly, and was later released in hardcover under the pen name, Joseph Montague.