by Max Brand
“Why do you keep the whip over him, Angus? He has saved your life, and you his. Why will you not treat him as one strong and generous man would treat another?”
“Because I love you, Kate.”
“Angus, would you stop if you knew I loved him?”
“Is that a fair question, Kate? Even if you said you loved him, I could not stop, because I would have to do my best to save you from yourself.”
She looked her query silently.
“He is not worthy of you, Kate. Because he seems generous and simple, do not be deceived. He is capable of things which even Black McTee would turn from. I know it, for I know his type. But I, Kate—your head is turned; do you hear me?”
She rose and cried: “Why have you both thought from the first that I must choose between you? Are there no other men in the whole world?”
He answered doggedly: “You will never find another who will love you as we do. To one of us you must finally belong.”
“And that is why you go ahead with your schemes to torture Harrigan, certain that when he is finished I will be helpless?”
“No, I am certain of nothing. But I am absolutely sure that Harrigan stands between you and me, and I will have him done for.”
“Let me think, Angus. You have pulled my old world about my ears, and now I am trying to build another kingdom where force is the only god. Can there be such a place?”
Four bells sounded. He wondered if Hovey would bring Harrigan at the time they had agreed upon. And she stood with her hands pressed against her eyes, trembling.
“In one thing at least you spoke the truth, Angus. There are only two men left for me in the world. I must choose between you and Harrigan.”
“Until that time comes, I must fight for you, Kate, in the only way I know how to fight—with both my hands, trying to kill the things that stand between us—Hush!”
For he heard the rumble of two deep voices near the door.
CHAPTER 25
Kate and McTee both stood frozen with attention, for one of the voices was Harrigan’s, saying: “And why the devil have you brought me away up here, bos’n?”
“Because we have to watch sharp, Harrigan. There are some of the lads we can’t trust too far, and they mustn’t overhear us when we talk.”
“Why, Hovey, they can hear us inside the cabin.”
“She cannot. This is the girl’s cabin, and I saw her go out a while ago.”
“Well, then, what is it you want to know?”
“I’ll tell you, man to man. When you said you were with us last night, I’ve been thinking you might have said it for fear of the lads.”
“Hovey, you’re thick in the head. Didn’t you hear me talk?”
“I did, and I may be thick in the head, but I can’t rest easy till you give me your hand and tell me you’re playin’ straight with us. You were backward at first, Harrigan.”
There was an instant of pause, and then Harrigan answered: “I can’t take your hand, Hovey.”
McTee set his teeth. To have his plans upset when all so far had gone with perfect smoothness was maddening.
“Why not?” asked Hovey sharply.
“It’s just a queer hunch I’ve always had. I don’t like the idea of takin’ any oath. I’m a man of action, Hovey. When the night comes, give me a club, and you’ll see where I stand!”
There was a subdued, purring danger in his voice which made Kate tremble. Evidently it convinced Hovey.
“I guess you’re right, Harrigan. I don’t want to doubt you; God knows we got a need for men like you when the time comes. The other lads think there’ll be nothin’ to it, but I know Henshaw—I know!”
“It’ll be a hard nut to crack. I don’t make any mistake about that,” said Harrigan; “but if we work cool and with a rush, we’ll sweep them off their feet.”
“Now you’re talkin’,” said Hovey. “Speed is the thing we want most. Speed, and no quarter.”
“You’ll need no urging for that. The boys are all set to kill. Have the officers many revolvers?”
“Not many. Salvain has one, and so has Henshaw. I don’t think the rest pack any. Harrigan, I’ve got a weight off my mind, knowing that you’re sure with us. And you’ll get any share of the loot you want to name.”
There was another brief pause.
“I’m easy satisfied,” said Harrigan. “What I want is that the girl who has this cabin—Kate Malone—should be handled with gloves.”
“Ah, there speaks the Irish!”
“I want the care of her to fall to my hands.”
“Aye, you could have ten like her, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Then I’m your man, Hovey. There comes one of the mates. Let’s move on.”
“Right-o, lad.”
Their voices retreated, and after a time McTee looked down at Kate. She was dazed, as if someone had struck her in the face.
“What does it mean, Angus?”
“Wasn’t it plain? Mutiny!”
She struck her hand sharply across her forehead with a little moan.
“I warned you, Kate, that he was capable of anything, but I never dreamed of a proof coming as quickly as this.”
“I can’t believe it; I won’t believe it.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Why should I blame him?” he said. “He sees a way to get you. I could almost sink as low as that myself—but not quite—not quite! I know something of mutinies at sea. Have you noticed the fellows who are in this crew?”
“I don’t know—yes—I’m too sick to remember a single face except one scar-faced man.”
“On the whole they’re the roughest lot I’ve ever seen cooped up together. If they should be turned loose, they would make a shambles of this ship—a red shambles, Kate!”
There was not a trace of color in her face. She watched him with a horrified fascination.
“Of course,” he went on easily, “I’ll be the first one to go down. Harrigan would see to that. Well, it would be a worthwhile fight—while I lasted!”
“It can never take place!” she said desperately. “You are forewarned. Tell Captain Henshaw at once, and—”
He raised his hand solemnly.
“You must not do that, Kate. You must promise me not to speak a word on the subject until I have given you leave.”
“I will promise you anything—but why not speak of it at once? I feel as if we were standing over a—a magazine of powder!”
“We are—only worse. But it would be madness to warn Henshaw now. He is unnerved—almost insane. His granddaughter, for whom he had made all his fortune and to whom he is going in the States—”
“Yes, Salvain told me. She is dying; it is pitiful, Angus, but—”
“He must not be told. He would start with the hand of iron, and the first act of violence which he committed would be the touch of fire which would set off this powder magazine. No, we must wait. Perhaps in a little time I may be able to win over one of the mutineers and from him learn all their plans, and then turn the tables on them. But I must first know all the men who are concerned in the uprising. When we do move—shall I spare Harrigan, Kate?”
He tried to ask it frankly, but a devil of malice was in his eyes.
“I don’t know—I can’t think! Angus, what did Dan mean?”
“I warned you of what he was capable,” he said.
She caught his hands, stammering: “You are all that is left to me. You will stand between me and danger, Angus? You will protect me? But wait! I could go to Harrigan. I know that if I plead with him, I can win him away from the mutineers!”
“Kate, you are hysterical! Don’t you see that a man who is capable of planning a wholesale murder in the night would be quite able to lie to you? No, no! Whatever you do, you must promise me not to speak a word of this to anyone, most of all, to Harrigan.”
“I will promise anything—I will do anything. It all rests with you, Angus.”
“And when we strike at the mutine
ers—if Harrigan falls, will you absolve me of his death, Kate?”
She was terribly moved, standing stiff and straight and helpless like a child about to be punished.
“Angus, for the sake of pity, do not ask me.”
“I must know.”
“Angus,” came her broken voice, “I cannot give up my faith in him.”
His face grew as dark as night, but he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and said: “Your mind is distraught. You shall have time to think this over; but remember, Kate, we must fight fire with fire, and the time has come when you must choose between us.”
And then, very wisely, he slipped from the room.
CHAPTER 26
On the promenade outside he met Sloan, the wireless operator, on his way to Captain Henshaw’s cabin with a slip of paper in his hand. Sloan winked at him broadly.
“The good news has come, sir,” he grinned. “Take a look at this!”
And McTee eagerly read the typewritten slip.
Beatrice is rallying. Doctors have decided effusion of blood was not hemorrhage. Opinion now very hopeful.
“Will that bring the old boy around for a while?” asked Sloan.
“He’ll slip you a twenty on the strength of that and give you a drink as well,” said McTee.
They reached the cabin and entered together to find that White Henshaw lay on the couch in the corner. His physical strength was apparently exhausted, and one long, lean arm dangled to the floor. At sight of the dreaded wireless operator with the message in his hand, his yellow face turned from yellow to pale ivory. He rose and supported himself with one hand against the wall, scowling as if he dared them to notice his weakness.
“Good news!” called Sloan cheerily, and extended the paper.
The captain snatched the paper, his eyes were positively wolfish while he devoured the message.
“Sloan—good lad,” he stammered. “Stay by your instrument every minute, my boy. Before night we’ll have word that she’s past all danger.”
Sloan touched his cap and withdrew.
“Good news!” said McTee amiably. “I’m mighty glad to hear it, captain.”
The old man fell back into a chair, holding the precious piece of paper with its written lie in both trembling hands.
“Good news,” he croaked. “Aye, McTee. You were right, lad! Those damned doctors don’t know their business. They’re making the case out bad so they’ll get more credit for the cure. See how they’re fooling with me— and me with my heart on fire in the middle of the sea!”
His eyes wandered strangely in the midst of his exultation.
“That would be a strange death, eh, McTee—to burn in the middle of the sea with a ship full of gold?”
The Scotchman shuddered.
“Forget that, man. You’re not going to burn at sea. You’re going to reach port with all your gold and you’re going to stand beside Beatrice and say—”
Henshaw broke in: “And say, ‘Beatrice, I’ve come to make you happy. We’ll leave this country where the fogs are so thick and the sun never shines, and we’ll go south, far south, where there’s summer all the year.’ That’s what I’ll say!”
“Right,” nodded McTee. “If her lungs are weak, that’s the place to take her.”
Henshaw jerked erect in his chair. “Weak lungs? Who said she had weak lungs? McTee, you’re a fool! A little cold on the chest, that’s all that’s the matter with the girl! The doctors have made the sickness— they and their rotten medicines! And now they’re making sport out of White Henshaw. I’ll skin them alive, I will!”
McTee lighted a cigar and nodded judiciously as he puffed it.
“Very good idea, Henshaw. If you want me to, I’ll go along and help you out.”
“You’re a brick, McTee. Maybe I’ll need you. Getting old; not what I used to be.”
“I see you’re not,” said McTee boldly.
Henshaw scowled: “What do you mean?”
“That affair of Harrigan. He’s still going scot-free, you know.”
“Right! McTee, I’m getting feeble-minded, but I’ll make up for lost time.”
He caught up pen and paper, while McTee drew a long breath of relief. A moment later he was astonished to note that the captain had not written a single letter.
“I’d forgotten,” murmured Henshaw. “When I started to write that order this morning—just as I was putting pen to paper—in came Sloan with the message from the doctors saying that Beatrice was in a critical situation. It may be, captain, that this message is bad luck for me, eh?”
“Nonsense,” said McTee easily, gripping his hand with rage, while he fought to control his voice. “You mustn’t let superstitions run away with you.”
“So! So!” frowned Henshaw. “You’re a young man to give me advice, McTee. I’ve followed superstitions all my life. I tell you there’s something in those star-gazing devils of the South Seas. They know things that aren’t in the books.”
“What about the old fool who prophesied that you’d die by fire at sea?”
Henshaw shivered, and his eyes narrowed as he stared at McTee.
“How do you know he’s an old fool, eh? We haven’t reached port yet—not by a long sight!”
“Well,” said McTee, with a carefully assumed carelessness, “this ship belongs to you—you’re the skipper; but on a boat I was captain of, no damned engineer would pull my beard and tell me to rightabout. They never got away with a line of chatter like that when Black McTee was speaking to them. Never!”
At this comparison the face of Henshaw grew marvelously evil.
“McTee,” he said, “men step lively when you speak to them—but they jump out of their skins when they hear White Henshaw’s voice.”
“That’s what I’ve heard,” said the other dauntlessly, “but d’you think Campbell ever would have taken this chance if he didn’t know you’re not what you used to be?”
For reply Henshaw set his teeth and dipped the pen into the ink. As he poised it above the paper, Sloan appeared at the door calling: “One minute, captain!”
The captain turned livid and rose slowly, crumpling the paper as he did so and letting it drop to the floor.
“Out with it!” he muttered in a hoarse whisper. “She’s worse again! Damn you, McTee, I told you this message was bad luck!”
The wireless operator was much puzzled and glance from the Scotchman to his skipper.
“I only wanted to know, sir, if you wish to send an answer to this last wireless. Any congratulations?”
“No—get out!”
And as Sloan fled from the door with a wondering side glance at McTee, Henshaw sank back into his chair, picked up the paper on which he was about to write, and tore it into small bits. Not until this task was finished was he able to speak to McTee.
“D’you see now? Is there nothing in my superstitions? Why, sir, just holding that pen over this piece of damnable paper brought Sloan on the run to my door. If I’d written a single word, he’d of had a message from the doctors saying that Beatrice was dying. I know!”
“You really think,” began McTee, and some of his furious impatience crept into his voice—“you really think that writing on that piece of paper with your pen would have brought in Sloan with a wireless message from the mainland?”
Henshaw shook his head slowly.
“There’s no use trying to explain these things,” he said, “but sometimes, McTee, there’s a small voice that comes up inside of me and tells me what to do and what not to do. When I first saw the picture of Beatrice—that one where she’s just a slip of a child—there was a voice that said: ‘Here’s the spirit of your dead wife come back to life. You must work for her and cherish her.’ So I’ve done it. And because I started to do it, the voice never left me. It warned me when to put to sea and when to stay in port. It gave me a hint when to buy and when to sell, and the result is that I’m rich—rich—rich. Gold in my hand and gold in my brain, McTee!”
The Scotchman began to
feel more and more that old age or his monomania had shaken White Henshaw’s reason, but he said bitterly: “And I suppose, if that voice never fails you and if these South Seas natives can read the future, that you are bound to burn at sea?”
“Damn you!” said Henshaw, terribly moved. “What devil keeps putting that in your brain? Isn’t it in mine all the day and all the night? Don’t I see hellfire in the dark? Don’t I see the same flames, blue and thin, dancing in the light of the sun at midday? Is the thing ever out of my mind? Were you put on this ship to keep dinning the idea into my ears? If there’s something more than the life on earth, then there must be a hell—and if there’s a hell, then it’s real hellfire that I see!”
He paused and pointed a gaunt, trembling arm at McTee:
“D’you understand? The men I’ve killed before they died—they send their spirits here to walk beside me. They wait in the dark—and they whisper in my ear!”
McTee swallowed hard and commenced to edge toward the door.
“Farley is always hanging around—Farley, as I saw him on the beach that last time in his loincloth, with his pig eyes; sometimes he seems to be begging me to take pity on him; sometimes he seems to be laughing at me. And he’s always got his hand outstretched. And Collins comes stroking his beard in the way he had, and he keeps his hand stretched out to me. What do they want? Alms! Alms! Alms! They want my soul for alms to take it below and burn it in the hellfire—the thin, blue flames!”
He stopped in the midst of his ravings and drew himself erect, a smile of infinite cruelty on his lips.
“Let them all come with their damned, empty palms! They’re ghosts, and they cannot stop me so long as I follow the small voice that’s inside of me. They can’t stop me, and I’ll win back to Beatrice. There I’m safe—safe! Her hands are thin and light and cool and as fragrant as flowers. She’ll lay them on my eyelids and I’ll go to sleep! And the ghosts will close their empty hands. Ha! McTee, d’you know aught of the power of a woman’s love?”
He stepped close to the burly Scotchman.
“Keep off,” growled McTee. “I want none of you! There’s poison in your touch!”