by Max Brand
McTee tied the cold, wet towel around Harrigan’s forehead.
“I’ll kill you by inches, Harrigan. You’ll read hell in my eyes before your end. Drink this!”
He raised Harrigan’s almost lifeless head and forced the neck of a whisky bottle between his teeth.
“Ah-h!” said Harrigan, blinking and coughing after the strong liquor had burned its way down his throat. “The feel av your throat under me thumbs was sweeter than the touch av a colleen’s hand, McTee! I’m dead for shlape!”
And instantly his eyes closed; his breathing was deep and sonorous. The captain watched him for a long moment, then sat down and laying a hand on the sleeping man’s wrist, he counted the pulse carefully. It was irregular and feeble.
“Time is all he needs,” muttered McTee to himself, and he sat staring before him, dreaming. “A fool can live well,” he was thinking, “but it takes a great man to die well. Harrigan will make a fine death.” In the meantime the big Irishman slept heavily, and Black McTee tended him well, keeping the towel cool and wet about his forehead. The pulse was gaining rapidly in strength and regularity; sleep seemed to act upon Harrigan as food acts upon a starved man. At times he smiled, and McTee could guess at the dream which caused it. He was dreaming of killing McTee, and McTee sat by and understood, and smiled with deep content. He, also, was tasting his thoughts of the battle-to-be when, without any warning rap, the door swung open and the burly form of Bos’n Masters appeared.
“The first mate—” he began.
“Did you knock?”
“I’ve got no time to waste, the first mate—”
McTee rose. In the frank, bold eyes of the bos’n he read the open revolt, and understood. He had been beaten in open battle; his crew felt that they were liberated by the victory of their champion.
“Who told you to enter without knocking?” he broke in.
“I don’t need telling,” said the dauntless bos’n. “The first mate’s drunk an’—”
The heavy fist of McTee landed on Masters’s mouth and hurled him in a heap into the corner of the cabin. The captain seized him by the nape of the neck and jerked him back to his feet, blinking and gasping, thoroughly subdued.
“Get out and come in as you should.”
The bos’n fled. A moment later a timid knock came at the door and McTee bade him enter. He stepped in, cap in hand, his eyes on the floor.
“The first mate’s drunk, sir, an’ runnin’ amuck with the ship. He’s at the wheel an’ he won’t leave it. We’ve nearly scraped one reef already. You know this ain’t any open sea, sir. There’s green water everywhere.”
“Go up and give the fool my orders. Tell the second officer to take the wheel.”
The bos’n retreated, but he returned within a few moments.
“He won’t leave the wheel,” he reported. “He said you could take your orders to the devil, sir.”
“I’ll tie him to the deck and skin him alive,” said McTee calmly. “Stay here and watch Harrigan while I—”
He was jerked from his feet and hurled across the room, crashing against the cabin wall. When his senses returned, he was sitting on the floor staring stupidly into the white face of the bos’n, who was in a similar posture. Harrigan, who had been flung from the bunk, staggered to his feet.
“What the deuce is up?” asked the Irishman.
A chorus of piercing yells rose in answer from the deck outside.
“The end of the Mary Rogers,” said McTee. “Stay with me, Harrigan.”
He caught the latter by the arm and dragged him out onto the deck. The hull of the ship at the bow must have been literally ripped away by the impact against the reef; already the deck sloped sharply to the bows.
McTee raised a voice that rang like a trumpet over the clamor as he gave his orders to clear away the boats. If he had been a moment earlier, he might have succeeded in getting at least one of them safely launched, but now the Mary Rogers was settling to her doom with a speed which made the crew senseless with terror. A half-gale which promised to swell soon into a veritable hurricane seemed to be lifting the freighter by the heel and driving her nose into the sea. The quick settling twilight of the tropics made the waters doubly cold and dark.
Not till the bows of the Mary Rogers were deep below the waves and her propeller humming loudly in the air did the captain desist from his efforts to bring order out of the panic of the crew. Half a dozen men, with the Chinaman at their head, had cut one boat from its davits, but plunging into it before it fairly struck the water, they tipped it far to one side. It filled instantly and sank, leaving its occupants struggling on the surface. The Chinaman, who apparently could not swim, gave up the struggle at once. He threw his clutching hands high above his head and went down; his scream was the first death cry of the wreck of the Mary Rogers.
McTee, with Harrigan at his heels, rushed for the second lifeboat. Under the directions of the captain, pointed and emphasized by blows of his fist, the boat was swung safely from the davits and lowered to the sea. The instant that it rode the waves, bouncing up and down on the choppy surface, the crew began leaping in, the drunken mate being the first overside.
The lifeboat was loaded from stem to stern, and only Harrigan, McTee, and half a dozen more remained on the ship when the boat swung a dozen feet away from the Mary Rogers and with the next wave was picked up and smashed against the freighter. Its side went in like a matchbox pressed by a strong thumb, and it zigzagged quickly below the surface. The yells of the swimmers rose in a long wail. McTee caught Harrigan by the shoulder and shouted in his ear: “Stay close and do what I do.”
“Miss Malone!” yelled Harrigan in answer, and pointed.
She stood by the after-cabin, clinging to the rail with one hand while she attempted to adjust a life preserver with the other. The Mary Rogers lurched forward, a long slide that buried half of the ship under the sea. A giant wave towered above the side and licked the wheelhouse away.
“Let her go!” roared McTee. “Save ourselves and let her go.”
It was a matter of seconds now before the last of the Mary Rogers should disappear. They clambered up to the after-cabin.
“For the love av God, McTee, she’s a woman!”
The Irishman struggled up the deck toward the girl, but the captain caught him and held him fast.
“There’s one chance,” shouted Black McTee, and he pointed to the litter of the wrecked wheelhouse which tossed on the waves. “Overboard and make for a big timber.”
But the eyes of Harrigan held on the form of the girl. They could only make out the shadow of her form with her hair blowing wildly on the wind. Then as swift as the sway of a bird’s wing, a mass of black water tossed over the side of the Mary Rogers. When it was gone, the shadowy figure of the girl had disappeared with it.
“Now!” thundered McTee.
“Aye,” said Harrigan.
CHAPTER 9
THEY CLIMBED THE rail. Plainly Harrigan had made them delay too long, for now they had not time to swim beyond the reach of the swirl that would form when the ship went down. The Mary Rogers lurched to her grave as they sprang from the rail. A wave caught them and washed them beyond the grip of the whirlpool; another wave swung them back, and the waters sucked them down. Such was the force of that downward pull that it seemed to Harrigan as if a weight were attached to either foot. He drew a great, gasping breath before his head went under and then struck out with all his might.
When his lungs seemed bursting with the labor, he whirled to the surface again and drew another gasping breath. The storm had torn a rift in the clouds and through it looked the moon as if some god were peering through the curtain of mist to watch the havoc he was working. By this light Harrigan saw that he was being drawn down in a narrowing circle. Straight before him loomed a black fragment of the wreckage. He tried to swing to one side, but the current of the water bore him on. He received a heavy blow on the head and his senses went out like a snuffed light.
When consciousness return
ed, there was a sharp pain in both head and right shoulder, for it was on his shoulder that McTee had fastened his grip. The captain sprawled on a great timber, clutching it with both legs and one arm. With the free hand he held Harrigan. All this the Irishman saw by the haggard moonlight. Then they were pitched high up on the crest of a wave. As Harrigan grappled the timber with arms and legs, it turned over and over and then pitched down through empty space. The wind had literally cut away the top of the wave. He went down, submerged, and then rose to a giddy height again. As he caught a great breath of air, he saw that McTee was no longer on the timber.
A shout reached him, the sound being cut off in the middle by the noise of the wind and waves. He saw McTee a dozen feet away, swimming furiously. He came almost close enough to touch the timber with his hands, and then a twist of the wave separated them. Harrigan worked down the timber until he reached the end of the stanchion which was nearest Black McTee. All that time the captain was struggling, but could not draw closer. The wood was drifting before the wind faster than he could swim.
When he reached the end of the timber, Harrigan wound his long arms tightly around it and let his legs draw out on the water. McTee, seeing the purpose of the maneuver, redoubled his efforts. On a wave crest the storm swept Harrigan still farther away; then they dropped into a hollow and instantly he felt a mighty grip fall on his ankle. They pitched up again with the surge of a wave so sharp and sudden that what with his own weight and the tugging burden of McTee behind him, Harrigan felt as if his arms would be torn from their sockets. He kept his hold by a mighty effort, and the tremendous grip of McTee held fast on his ankle until they dropped once more into a hollow. Then the captain jerked himself hand over hand up the body of Harrigan until he reached the timber. They lay panting and exhausted on the stanchion, embracing it with arms and legs.
Sometimes the wind sent the timber with its human freight lunging through a towering wave; and several times the force of the storm caught them and whirled them over and over. When they rose to a wave crest, they struggled bitterly for life; when they fell into the trough, they drew long breaths and freshened their holds.
Save once when Harrigan reached out his hand and set it upon that of Black McTee. The captain met the grip, and by the wild moonlight they stared into each other’s faces. That handshake almost cost them their lives, for the next moment the full breath of the storm caught them and wrenched furiously at their bodies. Yet neither of them regretted the handclasp, for all its cost. If they died now, it would be as brothers. They had at least escaped from the greatest of all horrors, a lonely death.
It seemed as if the storm acknowledged the strength of their determination. It fell away as suddenly as it had risen. A heavy ground swell still ran, but without the wind to roughen the surface and sharpen the crests, the big timber rode safely through the sea. The storm clouds were dropping back in a widening circle beneath the moon when, as they heaved up on the top of a wave, Harrigan suddenly pointed straight ahead and shouted hoarsely. On the horizon squatted a black shadow, darker than any cloud.
All night they watched the shadow grow, and when the morning came and the tropic dawn stepped suddenly up from the east, the light glinted on the unmistakable green of verdure.
With the help of the steady wind they drifted slowly closer and closer to the island. By noon they abandoned the timber and started swimming, but the submerged beach went out far more gradually than they had expected. The last hundred yards they walked arm in arm, floundering through the gentle surf.
Then they stumbled up the beach, reeling with weariness, and sprawled out in the shade of a palm tree. They were asleep almost before they struck the sand.
It was late afternoon when they woke, ravenously hungry, their throats burning with thirst. For food McTee climbed a coconut palm and knocked down some of the fruit. They split the gourds open on a rock, drank the liquor, and ate heartily of the meat. That quelled their appetites, but the sweet liquor only partially appeased their thirst, and they started to search the island for a spring. First they went to the center of the place to a small hill, and from the top of this they surveyed their domain. The island was not more than a thousand yards in width and three or four miles in length. Nowhere was there any sign of even a hut.
“Well?” queried Harrigan, seeing McTee frown.
“We can live here,” explained the captain, “but God knows how long it will be before we sight a ship. Our only hope is for some tramp freighter that’s trying to find a short cut through the reefs. Even if we sight a tramp, how’ll we signal her?”
“With a fire.”
“Aye, if one passes at night. We could stack up wood on the top of this hill. The island isn’t charted. If a skipper saw a light, he might take a chance and send a boat. But how could we kindle a fire?”
They went slowly down the hill, their heads bent. At the base, as if placed in their path to cheer them in this moment of gloom, they found a spring. It ran a dozen feet and disappeared into a crevice. They cupped the water in their hands and drank long and deep. When they stood up again, McTee dropped a hand on Harrigan’s shoulder. He said: “You’ve cause enough for hating me.”
“Pal,” said Harrigan, “you’re nine parts devil, but the part of you that’s a man makes up for all the rest.”
McTee brooded: “Now we’re standing on the rim of the world, and we’ve got to be brother to each other. But what if we get off the island — there’s small chance of it, but what if we should? Would we remember then how we took hands in the trough of the sea?”
Harrigan raised his hand.
“So help me God—” he began.
“Wait!” broke in McTee. “Don’t say it. Suppose we get off the island, and when we reach port find one thing which we both want. What then?”
Harrigan remembered a word from the Bible.
“I’ll never covet one of your belongin’s, McTee, an’ I’ll never cross your wishes.”
“Your hair is red, Harrigan, and mine is black; your eye is blue and mine is black. We were made to want the same thing in different ways. I’ve never met my mate before. I can stand it here on the rim of the world — but in the world itself — what then, Harrigan?”
They stepped apart, and the glance of the black eye crossed that of the cold blue.
“Ah-h, McTee, are ye dark inside and out? Is the black av your eye the same as the soot in your heart?”
“Harrigan, you were born to fight and forget; I was born to fight and remember. Well, I take no oath, but here’s my hand. It’s better than the oath of most men.”
“A strange fist,” grinned Harrigan; “soft in the palm and hard over the knuckles — like mine.”
They went down the hill toward the beach, Harrigan singing and McTee silent, with downward head. On the beach they started for some rocks which shelved out into the water, for it was possible that they might find some sort of shellfish on the rocks below the surface of the water. Before they reached the place, however, McTee stopped and pointed out across the waves. Some object tossed slowly up and down a short distance from the beach.
“From the wreck,” said McTee. “I didn’t think it would drift quite as fast as this.”
They waded out to examine; the water was not over their waists when they reached it. They found a whole section from the side of the wheelhouse, the timbers intact.
On it lay Kate Malone, unconscious.
Manifestly she never could have kept on the big fragment during the night of the storm had it not been for a piece of stout twine with which she had tied her left wrist to a projecting bolt. She had wrapped the cord many times, but despite this it had worn away her skin and sunk deep in the flesh of her arm. Half her clothes were torn away as she had been thrown about on the boards. Whether from exhaustion or the pain of her cut wrist, she had fainted and evidently lain in this position for several hours; one side of her face was burned pink by the heat of the sun.
They dragged the float in, and McTee knelt beside
the girl and pressed an ear against her breast.
“Living!” he announced. “Now we’re three on the rim of the world.”
“Which makes a crowd,” grinned Harrigan.
CHAPTER 10
THEY STARTED WORKING eagerly to revive her. While McTee bathed her face and throat with handfuls of the sea water, Harrigan worked to liberate her from the twine. It was not easy. The twine was wet, and the knot held fast. Finally he gnawed it in two with his teeth. McTee, at the same time, elicited a faint moan. Her wrist was bruised and swollen rather than dangerously cut. Harrigan stuffed the twine into his hip pocket; then the two Adams carried their Eve to the shade of a tree and watched the color come back to her face by slow degrees.
The wind now increased suddenly as it had done on the evening of the wreck. It rose even as the day darkened, and in a moment it was rushing through the trees screaming in a constantly rising crescendo. The rain was coming, and against that tropical squall shelter was necessary.
The two men ran down the beach and returned dragging the ponderous section of the wheelhouse. They leaned the frame against two trunks at the same instant that the first big drops of rain rattled against it. Overhead they were quite securely protected by the dense and interweaving foliage of the two trees, but still the wind whistled in at either side and over and under the frame of boards. Of one accord they dropped beside their patient.
She was trembling violently; they heard the light, continuous chattering of her teeth. After her many hours under the merciless sun, this sudden change of temperature might bring on the fever against which they could not fight. They stripped off their shirts and wound them carefully around her shivering body. McTee lifted her in his arms and sat down with his back to the wind. Harrigan took a place beside him, and they caught her close. They seemed to be striving by the force of their will to drive the heat from their own blood into her trembling body. But still she moaned in her delirium, and the shivering would not stop.