"I know something about locks. What do I get, lads, if I open this one?"

"Five shares!"

"Ten shares!"

"Ten shares!" nodded Cochrane. "Good! Now keep still. I need quiet."

They were mute; not a breath was drawn; they scarcely dared move their eyes lest he should be disturbed. Cochrane touched the lock lightly and then rubbed his fingertips vigorously back and forth on the carpet— anything to stimulate those fine nerves which are as valuable to some criminals as eyes are to normal people.

With ear pressed close to the combination, he turned it slowly, by delicate degrees, waiting for the telltale click. They saw him set his teeth and grow eager as a hound on a scent of blood; they saw the fingers move rapidly and nervously, and then came a click which was audible through the entire room, and the door of the safe swung open. Still no one stirred, no one breathed. He took out a small canvas bag, he untied the top, he spilled the contents out, and then they saw bright gold, gold which inspires, and gold which destroys, gold the tempter and the murderer.

A wild scramble followed. They swept the gold up in handfuls and tossed it into the air, laughing like madmen as the light gleamed on the yellow surfaces. And at length when they were wearied of touching it and caressing it, Hovey apportioned the spoils: to Cochrane, by common assent, the ten shares, a fortune; to Sam Hall, Kyle, and Flint, two shares each, for they had been leaders in the fight; to himself ten shares, also by universal voice, and to each of the others, forty in all, his portion.

There was no fighting or complaint over the division of the spoils. What difference did a few hundred pieces here or there matter? Gold in floods, gold in oceans, was before them, and each man gathered his own share close.

But where there is gold there is death. One of the firemen said in the ear of Hovey: "The second assistant—Fritz Klopp—he is dying."

It was upon Klopp that they depended for the running of the Heron. Hovey merely laughed: "Carry him in here. He'll come to life when he sees this!"

They had left Klopp lying on the deck. He had been one of the first to leap at White Henshaw, and a bullet from the captain's revolver had torn its way through his lungs; his eyes were glazing fast when two of the firemen carried him into the outer cabin of White Henshaw and placed him in an armchair beside the desk.

"How are you, Klopp?" asked Hovey.

"I am dying," answered the engineer, and a faint pink froth bubbled to his lips as he spoke.

Hovey merely laughed; he spilled Klopp's share of the gold across the surface of the table, a gleaming pile.

"How are you, Klopp?" he repeated.

"I will live," croaked the dying man, and instantly his clutches were among the hundreds of coins, and his red mouth grinned with a ghastly joy. He had forgotten death.

"You will live!" rumbled Sam Hall. "A man would be a fool to die when there's so much money in sight. Where's your hurt?"

"I have no hurt," whispered Klopp hoarsely, "but I'm on fire inside. Water! Something to drink!"

"Something to drink, but not water," responded Hovey. "Hey, Kamasura! Drink! Whisky!"

Instantly Kamasura, who had evidently anticipated the order, came staggering into the room with a literal armful of bottles. Hovey himself brought a glass and placed it in the hand of Klopp and filled it to the brim.

"Drink!" shouted Hovey, and sprang upon a chair so that all might see him. "Drink to Fritz Klopp! White Henshaw potted him, but he laughs at death, and he'll bring the old Heron to shore. Here's to Fritz Klopp!"

Many a glass was raised high. They drank with a shout of applause to Fritz Klopp, who sat without stirring his glass, one hand upon it, and the other buried among the heaps of gold, his head resting against the back of the chair, and his red mouth still ajar in that horrible grin.

"What ye laughin' at?" yelled Sam Hall in his ear. "Are ye drunk at the sight of the money, man?"

There was no answer. Hall caught him by the shoulder to rouse him, but Klopp's head merely sagged far to one side, though his glazed eyes still seemed to be fixed upward upon the same spot on the ceiling at which he had been staring before.

"What is it?" cried one or two. "What does he see?"

"Death, you fools!" answered Hovey. "And how the devil will we bring the Heron to land without an engineer?"



CHAPTER 33

"Make Campbell run the ship," said Cochrane.

"You can't make a Scotchman do anything."

"Persuade him, then," went on Cochrane. "He'd sell his soul for a drink of that whisky. But if you can't persuade him, I'd trust to those fellows to make him do what you want."

And he pointed to the firemen.

"I'll let 'em play their little game till they're tired of it," answered Hovey, "an' then we'll bring up Campbell an' try what we can do with him."

The "little game" had now become a wild debauch. Except for the few unfortunates who had been detailed by Hovey to guard the prisoners and see that the fugitives in the wireless house made no attempt to rush the main cabin as a forlorn hope, every man of the crew was gathered in the captain's cabins or on the deck nearby. The fireroom was deserted; the engines stopped; the Heron floated idly on the swell of the sea; but heedless of this the mutineers celebrated their victory.

They divided their attention between drinking and gambling. They seemed feverishly eager to throw away their piles of gold. Some of them flipped coins at ten dollars a throw. Others tossed dice. One group of four sat around a greasy pack of cards betting on which man would draw the first jack.

Those who lost did not envy the winners. They looked about; gold was on all sides, heaps of it; if their hands were empty, their eyes were rich. Sam Hall lost his entire share within an hour, betting recklessly. He approached a gigantic fireman who squatted by the wall with a canvas bag clutched in one hand and a broken bottle in the other. The whisky had run out on the floor, but the fellow was too far gone to know the difference, and from time to time he raised the empty bottle to his lips.

"Money gone," said Hall. "Gimme!" And he held out his hand.

The fireman, with a vast grin, delved his hand into the bag and brought it forth loaded with gold, which Hall took without a word and returned to his game of rolling dice, one throw at five hundred dollars a throw. In ten minutes he went back to the fireman with a double handful of corns.

"Principal an' interest," grunted the big sailor, and dumped his gold into the canvas bag which, filled to overflowing, spilled a dozen coins upon the floor.

The fireman, with a groan of dull content, slipped prone on the floor and was instantly asleep, embracing the canvas bag in both arms. Every man in the crew was in a somewhat similar condition, saving Hovey, with his gray-blue, steady eyes, and Cochrane, with his glittering, shifty black. These two watched the rest descend toward swinish unconsciousness; they saw, and waited coolly, and now and then glanced at each other with faint smiles of understanding.

Somewhere in the waist of the ship Jacob Flint was singing shrill songs of infinite profanity, but otherwise there was no sound on the Heron as the sun went down, and all night long the old freighter wallowed sluggishly up and down on the waves, as if she waited for dawn before resuming her journey toward the shore.

There was a wisdom, however, in Hovey's laxness of discipline during the first day of his mastery. The next morning the men slept late, sprawling about the deck, and Hovey and Cochrane first roused ominous Jacob Flint and Sam Hall and Kyle. With this nucleus of five mighty men, men to be feared on land or sea, Hovey started to rouse the rest of the mutineers. They woke cursing and sad of stomach and head, and to the first orders they responded with cursing; the reply was a sledge-hammer blow from the fist of Hall or Kyle, and while the man lay on the deck, it was explained curtly and forcibly to him that while the Heron was at sea, he would have to obey Bos'n Hovey; but as soon as the ship reached land, each man could be his own master.

First of all the firemen were commanded to the hole to get up steam, but when this was done, it was found that there was some minor trouble with the machinery. An engineer was needed; Hovey, with Cochrane, Flint and Hall beside him, sent for Campbell, and retired to the cabin to await his coming.

There sat the body of Fritz Klopp as it had remained ever since the beginning of the revels the day before, grinning up at the ceiling. Hall and Flint raised the body, and the clutching fingers were found to be frozen by death immovably around a whole handful of gold. As Hall suggested, this would serve as lead to take him to the bottom of the sea. The others applauded the thought, and with his hand still full of gold, they carried Fritz Klopp to the rail and dumped him into the water.

As they re-entered the cabin, Campbell was kicked in from the opposite door. His hands were manacled behind him, and the force of the kick, together with a sway of the ship, threw him off his balance. He crashed on his face at the feet of Hovey. The bos'n grew positively pale with pleasure. He selected a cigar from an open box on the table and lighted it leisurely.

At last he ordered: "Pick him up."

The chief engineer was jerked to his feet and stood with a trickle of blood running down from his split lip. His face was rather purple than red, and the dark pouches underneath his eyes told the horror of the night he had passed. Nevertheless, the eyes themselves were bright.

Far away, half heard, and drowned by any noise near at hand, was a sound of singing. It was Black McTee in the wireless house, half maddened by thirst and hunger and despair, and singing in defiance songs of bonny Scotland.

"There's been trouble aboard, chief," he said, "but now trouble's over. All over! We want you to take charge of the engines again and bring us to shore."

Campbell waited, not as if he had not heard. In spite of himself, Hovey stirred a trifle and grew uneasy. From a corner of the room he picked up a canvas bag and dropped it with a melodious jingling on the table in front of the engineer.

"This is your share," he said.

Campbell smiled faintly.

"And this," said Hovey, with a glance at his companions.

The smile had not altered on the lips of the Scotchman.

"With this money," said Hovey, forcing himself to remain calm, "you can retire from active work. You can get yourself a little place on the coast somewhere"—he had heard Campbell name some of his dreams—"and have a little cellar full of the right stuff, and have your friends run out to see you now an' then, an' talk over things that're goin' on at sea—where you ain't."

Here he placed a third bag of money on the table.

"You could do all that and more, chief—a lot more—with this money."

Hovey cut the lace which tied the mouth of one of the bags; he poured the gleaming contents across the table.

"Well?" he asked softly.

"Damn you!" whispered Campbell, and then, "You fool, am I not Scotch?"

"At least," went on the bos'n easily, "think it over, chief, and while you're thinkin', what d'you say to a drop of the real stuff?"

Campbell had not tasted either food or liquid since early the day before, and his eyes were moist as they stared at the two bottles.

"Set his hands free," said Hovey, "so that the chief can drink. We ain't half-bad fellers, Campbell; but we've got good cause for raisin' the hell you've seen on the Heron."

While he spoke, the arms of Campbell were set free, and glasses were shoved toward him, one full of Scotch and the other of seltzer. The mutineers were already raising their drinks for a toast when Campbell took his with a violently trembling hand. But as he lifted the liquor, he was fully conscious for the first time of a singing which had been faint in the air for some time, the songs of Black McTee in the wireless house, and now the big-throated Scotchman swung into a new air, plaintive and rapid in cadence, a death song and a war song at once, the speech of Bruce before Bannockburn, as Burns conceived it. Loud and true rang the voice of Black McTee, breaker of men:

"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots wham Bruce hae aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory!"

And the hand of Campbell checked on its way to his lips. "We're lookin' in your eyes, chief," said Hovey. And the song broke in:

"Wha would be a traitor slave, Let him turn and flee!"

Campbell was staring at the wall like one who sees a vision but cannot make out its meaning.

The voice of Black McTee swelled high and strong:

"Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freemen stand and freemen fa', Let him on wi' me!"

And the glass dropped from the lips of the Scotchman. It crashed against the hard floor. Broad Scotch was on his tongue.

"I canna drink wi' murderers!" he cried.

"Damn you!" said Hovey, and drove his fist into Campbell's face, hurling him to the deck.

The manacles were clapped on his wrists again; he was dragged once more to his feet.

"Take him out," said Hovey to the grinning sailors who had lingered in the door. "Take him back to the waist of the ship before the wireless house. Wait for me there. And see that Van Roos and Borgson are brought there also."



CHAPTER 34

As Campbell was dragged away, the bos'n said to his companions: "Now, lads, you see where Campbell stands!"

They growled for answer.

"But I'll get him!" went on Hovey. "I'm going to kill Van Roos and Borgson by inches before his eyes. And when he sees 'em die—they'll have to die, anyway, before we reach shore—Campbell will be water in our hands. He'll see 'em die, an' them in the wireless house will see 'em die. Their throats are thick with thirst by now. We'll show 'em water an' food, an' offer it to 'em if they'll give up Henshaw. If they won't, we'll show 'em how we'll kill 'em when they're too weak to resist. They'll see a sample in Van Roos and Borgson. Every yell they let out'll be an argument for us. We'll have Henshaw before the day's done."

Sam Hall pushed his thick fingers slowly through his hair, stupefied by this careful cruelty, and even the one eye of Jacob Flint grew dim, but Garry Cochrane slapped the bos'n on the shoulder heartily.

"Jerry," he said, "you got the makin's of a great man. Let's go start the fun."

On the way aft they passed the firemen sprawling on the shady side of the deck. They stumbled to their feet at sight of Hovey, and swore volubly that the hole of the ship was too hot for a man to live in it five minutes. Hovey passed them without a word. He had to tend to Campbell now, and without an engineer it was useless to work men in the fireroom.

First of all he had two buckets of water carried aft and placed just below the edge of the raised deck which supported the wireless house. There were dippers floating invitingly on the surface of the water in each bucket. Then from the galley of the ship Kamasura and Shida, the cabin boys, brought out steaming meats and cut loaves of bread and displayed the feast near the buckets of water. Upon this outlay gazed the famine-stricken fugitives, Sloan, McTee and Harrigan; Kate did not see, for she was caring for the sick captain. Hovey advanced and made a speech.

"We're actin' generous and open to you," he began. "We're offerin' you food an' water—all you want—in exchange for White Henshaw. He sold his soul to hell long ago, an' we've come to claim payment. It's overdue, that's what it is!"

"Aye, aye!" came a chorus of yells from the sailors. "White Henshaw's overdue."

"Look at this here water," went on Hovey, with a tempting wave of his hand. "Why not take this up an' help yourselves—after you've given us Henshaw?"

Sloan crowded in between Harrigan and McTee; his voice was a slavering murmur: "For pity's sake, boys, what we going to do?"

Harrigan and the big Scot exchanged glances. Faintly and slowly they smiled. There was a profound mutual understanding in that smile.

"I'm dying," went on Sloan eagerly and still in that slavering voice. "I'm burnin' up inside. For God's sake let 'em take him and finish him off!"

And always as he spoke his quick eyes went back and forth from face to face. They had neither eye nor voice for him. They turned their attention back to Hovey, who now spoke again hastily.

"But if you don't give us Henshaw, we'll take him, anyway. In one more day—or maybe two at the most—we'll come an' get you—understand? An' what we'll do to you when we get you will be this!"

He gestured over his shoulder. Eric Borgson was being led out on the deck by some of the crew.

"Look him over, Cap'n McTee. He's a big man, an' we're goin' to kill him by inches. So we're goin' to finish Van Roos—the same way. Speak out, lads; d'you want to die like these two are goin' to die, or will you turn over Henshaw—who needs killin'?"

McTee smiled benevolently down upon the upturned, furious faces of the mutineers, and muttered: "Harrigan, I could drink blood."

"An' lick your lips afther it," groaned the Irishman softly. "An' so could I, Angus! They're startin' their devil work. Let's go inside. I can't be standing the sight of it, McTee."

"Go inside an' let 'em rush the wireless house?" said McTee incredulously. "No, lad. We got to stay an' watch. Besides, maybe this is the way we'll all die—after we're too weak to fight 'em. And I'm rather curious to learn just how I'll die; I've always been!"

They were binding Borgson face down on the hatch.

"Look," said Harrigan. "Maybe it ain't goin' to be so bad as we thought. They're just goin' to lick Borgson the way he licked the Jap."

"They'll do more," replied McTee, shaking his head. "Henshaw and Borgson and Van Roos have really put those wild men through hell, and now they're going to get it back with interest."

In the meantime little Kamasura stepped out from the crowd. He was naked to the waist, for the raw incisions which the lash had left would not bear the weight of clothes. He carried the blacksnake in his hands, drawing it caressingly through his hands as Borgson had done. Now the tying of Borgson was completed, and the sailors spread back in a loose circle to watch their entertainment.

The Japanese took his distance carefully, shifting repeatedly a matter of inches to make sure that no stroke would be wasted. Then he whirled the blacksnake over his head. They could see Borgson wince as the lash sang above him, and the muscles of his bare back flexed and stood up in knots that glistened under the sunlight. But the stroke did not fall. Kamasura had learned the lesson of creating suspense from the very man he was now about to torture. Harrigan bowed his head in his hands.

"I can't look, McTee," he muttered. "I'm sick inside—sick—sick!"

The last words came in a growl from the hollow of his throat. The blacksnake whirled through the air again and fell with a sharp slap like two broad hands clapped together, but Borgson did not cry out. His body writhed mutely, and down his back appeared a red mark. The whip whirled again and fell, this time bringing a stifled curse for a response. Once more it whirled, and this time merely cracked in the air. Again and again an idle snap in the air. Broken by that grim suspense, Borgson yelled in terror.

Kamasura laughed and glanced at the circle of sailors like a ringmaster in a circus in search of applause. The whip now whirled rapidly over his head and fell again and again, and every stroke brought a fresh and louder scream from the mate. Another sound, rhythmic and barbarous, punctuated those shrieks of anguish. It was the singing of Kamasura, who as he wielded the lash remembered a chant of his native land and shouted it now in time with the blows of the blacksnake.

On the upper deck Sloan lay prone on his face, sobbing with terror; Harrigan kept his face hid and clutched at his head with both hands; McTee stared straight down upon the scene of the torture with burning eyes. Inside the wheelhouse Kate crouched beside the bunk on which Henshaw was stretched, staring straight above his head. The fever had deprived him of the last of his senses.

"Your hands!" he muttered at length.

She placed them upon his forehead. She had done that repeatedly during the past day, and each time the effect had been marvelously soothing to the old man. Now at the touch he drew a deep breath of relief.

"Even in hell," he whispered at length—"even in hell you come to me, Beatrice! I knew you would!"

He caught her hands at the wrists; his fingers, despite his fever, were deadly cold, and a chill ate into her blood.

"I hear them yelling—the souls of the damned," he said quietly. "You can't hear it?"

"No, no!" she said. "I cannot hear!"

"Of course not," he went on with the same lack of emotion; "for, you see, you've come from heaven, and the coolness of heaven is in your hands, Beatrice. Put them against my temples, so! For every bit of the love I have given you you are permitted to repay me with coolness— coolness and comfort in hell!"

Suddenly he broke into exultant laughter, a sound more terrible than the wild wails from the deck.

"See!" he said, and his eyes twinkled as he stretched out a gaunt arm toward a corner of the room. "There's Johnny Carson lying naked on a bed of blue fire. Ha, ha, ha! Have you been waiting long for me to come, lad?"

She shut out the hungry, hideous light of his eyes with the palms of her hands. Now the screaming on the deck ceased abruptly.

"Beatrice!" he cried with a sudden terror.

"Yes," answered Kate.

"Ah," he said, and patted her hands endearingly. "When the silence came, I feared maybe you were leaving me. You won't do that?"

"No. I'll stay."

"So! Then I'll sleep. But waken me when they begin yelling again. They thought I'd come down to the same hell I sent them to, and that they'd watch me burn. But I fooled 'em, Beatrice, by loving you. You're the chip of wood that keeps me afloat—afloat—afloat—"

And he drifted into sleep, while she leaned against the bunk, almost unconscious from fear and exhaustion.



CHAPTER 35

Kamasura, in nowise loath to bring his work to an end, stood back and laid on the whip with redoubled vigor. The lash spatted sharply against the raw and bleeding flesh. The screams sank into moans, and the moans in turn declined to a mere horrible gasping of the breath. Even this ceased at length, and the quivering of the body stopped. Kamasura leaned over and slipped his hand under the body in the region of the heart. When he straightened up again, he made a gesture of finality with his crimsoned hands. The mate was dead.

They cut his body loose at once and pitched him over the rail, then turned their attention to Van Roos. Sam Hall was the inspired man this time, and according to his directions they lashed the body of the big mate on the same blood-spotted hatch cover where Borgson had lain a moment before, but this time the victim was placed upon his back. Hall himself attended to the tying of Van Roos's head, and he performed his work so ably that the mate could not change his position in the least particle. He was literally swathed in ropes; so much so, in fact, that it was difficult to see how he could be tormented. Sam Hall, however, insisted that this was what he wanted, and the crew consented to let him do his work.

"You've heard something, an' you've seen something," said Hovey at this juncture to Campbell; "but what you've seen and heard isn't nothin' to what'll happen to you unless you start handling the engines of the Heron. Why, Campbell, I'm goin' to give you to the firemen!"

"Hovey," answered the engineer calmly, "the only place I'd run this ship would be down to hell—your home port. That's final!"

The bos'n was white with rage.

"I'd like to tear your heart out an' feed it to the fish," he said, stepping close to Campbell, and then, remembering himself, he moved back and grinned: "But the men will find something better to do with you."

He crossed the deck and held up a bucket of water toward Harrigan and McTee. He raised a dipperful and allowed it to splash back in the bucket.

"Well?" asked Hovey.

They merely stared at him as if they had not heard him speak.

"All right," said Hovey, quite unmoved, "there's plenty of time for you to make up your minds. But if you wait too long—well, we'll come and get him. And the girl, too!"

He laughed and turned away.

"I thought," muttered McTee, "that we could end it by simply dying—but I forgot the girl."

"The girl," answered Harrigan, "and—and them! She's got to die before we're too far gone. You'll do that to save her from—them?"

McTee moistened his parched lips before he could speak.

"One of us has to do it, but it can't be me, Harrigan."

"Nor me, Angus. We'll wait till tonight. Maybe a ship'll pass and see us lyin' like a derelict and put a boat aboard, eh?"

"But if no ship comes, then we'll draw straws, eh?"

"Yes."

Two sharp, sudden cries now called their attention back to the waist of the ship to the blood-stained hatch cover where Van Roos lay.

Sam Hall had approached the big mate with a knife in his hand. He kneeled beside the prostrate body and fumbled at the face an instant. No one had been able to make out the significance of his act. Then the knife gleamed, and twice he plucked with one hand and cut with the knife. The two sharp cries answered him. Then he rose; two little trickles of blood ran down the face of the mate.

"Well?" asked Jacob Flint. "When does the game begin?"

"The game is just started," said Hall, "an' the sun will do the rest. I've cut off his eyelids!"

They stared a moment in amazement, and then an understanding broke on them. Every tribe of savages in the world has been accredited with this ingenious torture which blinded their victim and usually drove him mad. The sun was now climbing the sky rapidly, and already fell on the face of the mate. The tropic sun which scorches and burns the toughest of skins was now directed full on the pupils of his eyes.

The sailors sought comfortable positions and waited for a long exhibition of pain, but they were mistaken. The torture acted far more quickly than even the whip. There was no outcry. Not once during his struggles did Van Roos make a sound from his throat, save for a quick, heavy panting. Perhaps by contrast with the yells of Borgson, which were still in the ears of the men, this silence was more horrible than the most throat-filling shrieks. They could see Van Roos twisting his head ceaselessly and vainly to escape that blinding light. His ruddy face became swollen like the features of a drowned man. And that was all that happened—only that, and the panting, the quick, choppy panting like a running man. Finally one of the sailors rose with a mallet in his hand.

"Where you goin'?" asked Hall ominously.

"Going to finish him."

Hall caught the fellow's arm.

"Listen!" he whispered, and such was the silence that the hoarse whisper was audible all over the deck. "Don't you hear?"

And with one hand he kept beat for the quick breaths of the tortured man. At that moment there was a long sigh, and the breathing stopped. Hall strode angrily forward to his victim, but when he reached the hatch, Van Roos was dead. A blood vessel must have burst in his brain, and death was as instantaneous as though a bullet had struck him. So they cut him free, and his body followed that of Borgson over the rail. Then the eyes of the mutineers turned aft toward the wireless house, and then back upon Campbell. Six victims remained. One of the firemen slipped close to Hovey on naked feet. He did not speak, but his long, thin arm pointed toward the engineer.

"Not yet," said Hovey, "not yet! Tomorrow if he doesn't give in, we'll turn you loose on him."

The fireman grinned and went back on noiseless feet to his companions to spread the good tidings. Hovey approached the wireless house.

"We've got one show left to offer, but we're savin' it till tomorrow," he said. "So brace up, hearties, and keep cheer. You'll see Campbell go a way worse than either of these tomorrow."

"Wait," called Harrigan, suddenly roused. "D'you mean to say that you'd try your hellwork on a kind man like Campbell?"

"A kind man like Campbell?" echoed Hovey, and then laughed. "A kind man?"

And he retreated with no other answer, and left the fugitives aft to the merciless, sweltering heat of the sun. By the time the sun went down, they were so fevered by the need of water that they had not the strength to bless the cool falling of the dark; they still carried the fire of the sunlight in their blood.



CHAPTER 36

"This man Campbell," said Harrigan, "he's a true man, McTee, and he stood up to White Henshaw for my sake—for the sake of me and his Bobbie Burns. They plan to take him to hell tomorrow, Angus, and I've an idea that there's one chance in the thousand that I could steal in on the dogs tonight and bring him back with me."

"Can they do anything worse to him than they're doing to us?"

"Maybe not, but my heart would lie easier, McTee. I'll wait for the fever o' the sun to go out of me head an' for the crew to get drunk an' a little drunker."

So they waited while the noise of the nightly carousal waxed high and higher, and then died away by slow degrees. At length Harrigan stood up, gripped the hand of McTee in silent farewell, heard a whispered "Good luck!" and slipped noiselessly down the ladder and started across the deck in the shadow of the rail. From any portion of the main cabin eyes might be watching him; there was only the one chance in ten that the lookout whom Hovey had certainly stationed would not perceive him as he crept along under the shadow. Accordingly he went blindly forward.

If the lookout saw him, at least there was no outcry, no general alarm. He stood flat against the wall of the main cabin at length and rehearsed a plan, listening the while to the lapping of the waves against the side of the ship. Then he stole step by step up the ladder to the upper deck. His head was already above the ladder when he heard the light padding of a bare foot and saw a figure around the corner of the cabin.

Harrigan ducked out of sight and clung to the iron rounds ready to leap up and strike if the sailor should descend the ladder, though in that case the alarm would be given and his errand spoiled; but the sailor was apparently the lookout set there by Hovey. He stayed at the head of the ladder a moment, humming to himself, and then turned and walked on his beat to the other side of the ship. Harrigan slipped onto the deck and ran noiselessly to the side of the cabin. Here he flattened himself against the wall until the sentinel had again made the turn of his beat, and as the latter moved dimly out of sight through the darkness, the Irishman stole down the deck toward the forward cabins.

The first two windows showed dark and empty; if there were anyone inside, he must be asleep in the drunken torpor into which most of the crew seemed to have fallen. The door of the third room, formerly occupied by the second mate, stood ajar, and here by the dull light of an oil lantern, he saw Campbell tied hand and foot to a chair. He was placed close to a little table whereon sat a bottle of whisky, a siphon of seltzer, a tall glass, meat, bread, water—everything, in fact, with which the senses of the starving man could be tormented. And near him, sitting with elbows spread out on the edge of the table, was one of the firemen, grinning continually as if he had just heard some monstrous joke. The expression of Campbell was just as fixed, for his small eyes shifted eagerly, swiftly, from the food to the water, and back again.

The fireman—the same tall, gaunt fellow who had demanded that Hovey turn over Campbell to him and his companions that day—now leaned forward and raised a dipper of water from a bucket which sat on the floor, and allowed it to trickle back, splashing with what seemed to Harrigan the sweetest music in the world. Hovey must have taught him that trick, and its effect upon Campbell was worse than the beating of the whips. The fireman let his head roll loosely back as he laughed, and while his head was still back and his eyes squinting shut in the ecstasy of his delight, Harrigan leaped from the shadow of the door and struck at the throat—at the great Adam's apple which shook with the laughter. The blow must have nearly broken the man's neck. His head jerked forward with a whistling gasp of breath, and as he reached for the knife on the table, Harrigan struck again, this time just behind the ear. The man slid from his chair to the floor and lay in a queer heap—as if all the bones in his body were broken.

"Harrigan! Harrigan! Harrigan!" Campbell was whispering over and over, but still his eyes held like those of a starved wolf on the food. The moment his ropes were cut, he buried his teeth in the great chunk of roasted meat.

Harrigan jerked him away and held him by main force.

"Be a man!" he whispered. "We've got to take this food and this water back to the wireless house—if we can get there with it. Take hold of yourself, Campbell!"

The engineer nodded. Voices came close down the deck; instantly Harrigan jerked up the glass globe which protected the lantern's flame and blew out the light. They crouched shoulder to shoulder.

"I thought he was in here," said a voice at the door.

"He was," answered Hovey's voice, "but I guess they took him below— they said it was too cool for him up there. Ha, ha, ha!"

Their steps disappeared down the deck. After that Harrigan dared not show a light in the cabin window. He and Campbell located the meat and bread, which were given into the engineer's keeping, while Harrigan took the bucket of water. They slipped out onto the deck and hurried aft, keeping close to the side of the cabin, for the starlight would show their figures to any watchful eyes. At the rear edge of the cabin Harrigan halted Campbell and whispered: "There's a guard here. I got past him in the dark, but two of us loaded down like this can never go unseen down that ladder. We've got to get rid of him."

And he pulled out the knife which he had kept with him ever since the outbreak of the mutiny. They waited without daring to draw breath until the sailor came padding by with his naked feet. Harrigan crept out behind him, and when the sailor turned at the rail, the Irishman leaped in and struck, not with the blade, but with the haft of the knife; he could not kill from behind.

If it had been a solid blow, the sailor would have crumpled silently as the fireman had done a few moments before, but the impact glanced and merely cut his scalp as it knocked him down. He fell with a shout which was instantly answered from the front of the ship.

"Down the ladder! Run for it!" cried Harrigan to Campbell, and as the engineer clambered down, he stood guard above.

The sailor leaped up from the deck and lunged with a knife gleaming in his hand, but Harrigan slashed him across the arm, and he fled howling into the dark. Before Hovey and his men could reach the spot, Harrigan had climbed down the ladder with his precious bucket and was fleeing aft to the wireless house.

As he reached it, lights were showing from the main cabin, and there were choruses of yells announcing the discovery that Campbell was missed. But Harrigan and the rest of the fugitives scarcely heard the sounds. The Irishman was busy measuring as carefully as he could in the dark dippers of water which the others drank.

There was no sleep that night, partly from fear lest the infuriated mutineers should at last attempt to rush the wireless house, partly because they ate sparingly but long of the meat which Harrigan carved for them, and the bread, and partly also because of a singular odor which they had not noticed when they were tortured by thirst and hunger, and which now they observed for the first time. It was peculiarly pungent and heavy with a sickening suggestion of sweetness about it. None of them could describe it, saving Harrigan, who had been much in the country and likened the odor to the smell of an old straw stack which lay molding and rotting.

It seemed to increase—that smell—during the night, probably because their strength was returning and all their senses grew more acute. It was a torrid night, without moon, so that the blanket of dark pressed the heat down upon them and seemed to stifle the very breath.

With the coming of the first light of the dawn they noticed a peculiar phenomenon. Perhaps it was because of the evaporation of water under the fire of the sun, but the Heron seemed to be surrounded with a white vapor which rose shimmering in the slant rays of the morning. But even when the sun had risen well up in the sky, the vapor was still visible, clinging like a wraith about the ship. They wondered idly upon it, and wondered still more at the heat, which was now intense. They were interrupted in their conjectures by the call of Kate summoning them to the wireless house where Henshaw lay apparently at the last gasp.

He had altered marvelously in the past two days. That resemblance which he had always had to a mummy was now oddly intensified, for the cheeks were fallen, the neck withered to scarcely half its former size, the eyes sunk in purple hollows. He murmured without ceasing, his voice now rising hardly above a low whisper. Kate sat beside him, passing her hands slowly over his temples, for he complained of a fire rising within his brain.

His complaints died away under her touches, and he said at last, calmly but very, very faintly: "Beatrice, there is one thing I have not yet told you."

"Yes?" she asked gently, though she averted her eyes, for all the long hours he had filled with the stories of his crimes upon earth were poured into the ear of the spirit of his Beatrice, as he thought. One last and crowning atrocity was yet to be told.

"I have left out the greatest thing of all."

He paused to smile at the memory.

"You remember Samson's death, Beatrice? And how he pulled the house down on the shoulders of his enemies?"

"Yes."

"That was a wonderful way to die—wonderful! But I, Beatrice, look at me, child!—I have surpassed Samson! Listen! You will wonder and you will admire when you hear it! When I got the word that you were dead, I knew two things: first, that the prophecy of my death at sea would come true, and secondly that my gold must perish with me. You will never guess how long I pondered over a way to destroy my gold before I died! You will think I could have simply thrown it into the sea? Yes, but the ship was filled with men ready to mutiny, and they were hungry for my wealth. They would never have allowed me to destroy that gold! So I thought of a way—ah, it was an inspiration!—by which I could destroy my body, my wealth, and the lives of all the mutineers at once. Like Samson, I would pull the house on the heads of my enemies. Ha, ha, ha!"

His laughter was rather a grimace than a sound.

He went on: "See how cunningly, how carefully I worked! First I blew up the three lifeboats so that there would be no escape for the crew. Then I tampered with the dynamo so that it burned out, and they could not send out a wireless call for help. That touch was the best of all. Well, well! Then I went down into the hold, deep down, and I started a fire in the cargo. And then—"

"Oh, my God!" stammered Sloan.

The others were white, but they gestured at Sloan to silence him. The whisper continued: "And then I knew that they were done for. The wheat would not break into a sudden flame, but it would smolder and glow and spread from hour to hour and from day to day. The crew would know nothing of it for a long time. But when they guessed at what was happening, they would open the hatches to fight the fire with water. Then what would happen? Ah, my dear, there was the crowning touch; for when they opened the hatches, the current of air would feed the fire and the ship would be instantly in flames. And so they would burn like dogs with water, water all around them, and no boats to put off in—no boats. Ha, ha, ha!"

He choked with his laughter and gasped for breath.

"If it were possible for a bodiless spirit to perish, I should think that I am dying twice, Beatrice. The air is thick—this air of hell!"

He broke off short in his whispering and raised himself suddenly to an elbow. With the coming of death his voice grew strong and rang clearly: "They are in the corners—they are coming closer! Beatrice! Brush them away with your fingers as cold as snow. Beatrice, oh, my dear!"

And he was dead as he fell back on the bunk.

Sloan was already on the deck outside the wireless house, shrieking with all the power of his lungs: "Fire! Fire! The wheat in the hold!"



CHAPTER 37

And as Harrigan and McTee, followed by Kate and Campbell, ran out to the open air, they saw the crowd of the mutineers surge across the waist toward Sloan with upturned faces, wondering, and ready for terror. Hovey broke through their midst.

"Hovey!" shouted McTee. "Look at the mist over the sides! Draw a breath; smell of it! It is fire! Henshaw has set fire in the hold!"

It was plain to every brain in the instant. To every man came the thought of the complaints of the firemen concerning the heat in the hold of the Heron; the noxious odor like musty straw; the warmth, the deadly warmth of the decks. A volcano smoldered beneath them, and the mist was the sign of the coming outbreak of flames. And the mutineers stood mute, gaping at one another, looking for some hope, some comfort, and finding the same question repeated in every eye. McTee climbed down the ladder to the waist, followed by the rest of the fugitives. Ten minutes before they would have been torn to pieces by the wolf pack. Now no man had a thought for anything save his own death.

"Hovey," ordered McTee in his voice of thunder, "tell these fellows they must obey my voice from now on."

They roared, snatching at this ghost of a hope: "We will! We'll follow Black McTee! Hovey has brought us to hell!"

In a moment everyone was in frantic motion. Campbell started for the engine room to see what had caused the stopping of the ship. McTee himself, followed by Harrigan and the stokers, went down to the fireroom. It was fiery hot there, indeed. When the Scotchman swung down the ladder into the hole, it was like a blast from a furnace, and the air was foul with the nauseating odor of the smoldering wheat. The men gasped and struggled for breath, and yet they began to work without complaint.

All hands set to. The fires were shaken down and started afresh; the coal shoveled out from the bunkers. Then a fireman collapsed without a cry of warning. They carried him out to the upper air, and brought down two of the sailors to take his place. And the sailors went without a murmur. They were fighting for the one chance in ten thousand, the chance of bringing the ship to shore before the fire burst out in flame which would lick the Heron from one end to the other within an hour.

McTee went up to the bridge to take the bearings and lay the course. By the time his reckonings were completed, steam was up; Campbell had remedied the trouble in the engine room; the propeller began to turn, and a yell went up from the ship and tingled to heaven. When McTee came down from the bridge to the waist, leaving Hovey at the wheel, a dozen of the tars gathered about the new skipper, weeping and shouting, for in their eyes he was the deliverer, it was he who was giving them the fighting chance to live.

And how they fought! There was something awe-inspiring and almost beyond the human in the fury with which they labored. It was in the fireroom that their chief difficulty lay. The fireroom of a large steamer is a veritable furnace, and when to this heat was added that from the hold of the ship, it was truly a miracle that any living thing could exist there.

But Harrigan was in charge. When men wilted and pitched to their faces on the sooty, dusty floor, he trussed them under one arm and bore them up to the air. Then he went back and drove them on again. Before the end of that day, however, with the coast still a full thirty-hour run ahead of them, it became literally impossible to continue longer in the fireroom. But Harrigan would not leave. He had a hose introduced into the hold. The men worked absolutely naked with a stream of water playing on them. Now and again when one of them collapsed, Harrigan snatched the fire bar or the shovel from the hands of the worker and labored furiously until another substitute was found.

The necessity of his presence was amply demonstrated that night. The Irishman was too exhausted to continue another minute, and the men helped him to the deck and sluiced buckets of salt water over his great, trembling body. To keep the men at work, Campbell went down in the hole.

They had to carry him up in half an hour. Then McTee tried his hand. He stood the heat as well as Harrigan, but he could not inspire such daredevil enthusiasm in the men. They missed the raucous, cheery voice of Harrigan; they missed the inspiring sight of that flame-red hair; and they missed above all his peculiar driving force. In other words, when Harrigan came among them, they felt hope, and when a man has hope, he will work on in the face of death.

And at last McTee came up and begged Harrigan to go back. He went, and found an empty fireroom and dying fires. He ran back to the deck, and at his shout the dead veritably rose to life. Men staggered to their feet to follow him below. Every man on the ship took his turn. Hovey came down and passed coal; McTee came down and wielded the fire bar, doing the labor of three men while he could endure.

And the Heron drove on toward the shore. The morning passed; the afternoon wore away. It was a matter of hours now before the shore would be in sight, and McTee spread this news among the crew. He sent little Kamasura and Shida, the cabin boys, running here and there saying to every man they passed: "Four hours! Four hours! Four hours!" And then: "Three hours! Three hours! Three hours!"

And the crew swallowed whisky neat and returned to the fireroom.

At sunset, dim as a shadow, a thing to be guessed at rather than known, the man on the bridge sighted land. The word spread like lightning. The staggering workers in the fireroom heard and joined the cheer which Harrigan started. Then the catastrophe came.

A torch of red fire licked up the stern of the ship; the flames had eaten their way out to the open air!

It was the quick action of McTee which kept the panic from spreading to the hold of the ship at once and bringing up every one of the workers from the fireroom. He gathered the sailors on deck who had strength enough left to walk, and they made a line and attacked the flames with buckets of water. There was, of course, no possibility of quelling the fire at its source, for by this time the hold of the ship where the wheat was stowed must have been one glowing mass of smoldering matter. Yet they were able, for a time, to keep the course of the fire from spreading over the decks of the ship.

With this work fairly started, McTee ran back to the forward cabin and upper deck of the Heron and set several men to tear down some of the framework, sufficient at least to build enough rafts to maintain the crew in the water. So the three sections of the work went on—the firefighting, the lifesaving, and the driving of the ship. McTee on deck managed two ends of it; Harrigan in the fireroom handled the most desperate responsibility. It seemed as if these two men by their naked will power were lifting the lives of the crew away from the touch of death and hurling the ship toward the shore.

And now for an hour, for two hours, that ghastly labor continued. The entire stern of the Heron was a sheet of flames when the last workers staggered up from the fireroom, their skin seared and blistered by the terrific heat. Last of all came Harrigan, raving and cursing and imploring the men to return to their work. As he staggered up the deck, reeling and sobbing hoarsely, Kate Malone ran to him. She pointed out across the waters ahead of the ship. There rose the black shadow of the shore and under it a thin line of white—the breakers!

Now by McTee's direction the rafts were hoisted and dragged over the side of the ship, while one frail line of men remained to struggle against the encroaching flames.

They were licking into the waist of the Heron, and the wireless house was a mass of red; White Henshaw was burning at sea, and the prophecy was fulfilled.

The last of the rafts were hoisted overboard and half a dozen men tumbled into each. When the rest of the crew were overboard, McTee, Kate, and Harrigan, lingering behind by mutual consent, took one raft to themselves. All about them tossed the other rafts, and not one man of all the crowd had thought of the golden treasure which they were abandoning with the Heron. Each might be carrying a few gold pieces, but the wealth of White Henshaw would go back into the sea from which it came.

They had not abandoned the flaming ship too soon. A fresh breeze was sweeping from the ocean onto the shore, and red tongues licked about the main cabin and darted like reaching hands into the heart of the sky. By these flashes they could make out the struggling rafts where the sailors cheered and yelled in the triumph of their escape. But McTee set about erecting a jury sail.

He wrenched off two strips of board from their raft and across these he and Harrigan affixed their shirts. The same wind which had lashed the fires forward on the Heron now hurried the fugitives toward the shore. They had a serious purpose in outstripping the rest of the rafts, because when the mutineers reached the shore, the mood of gratitude which they held for Harrigan and McTee was sure to change, for these two men could submit enough evidence to hang them in any country in the world.

Looking back, the Heron was a belching volcano, which suddenly lifted in the center with the sound of a dozen siege guns in volleyed unison, and a column of fire vaulted high into the heavens. Before they reached the tossing heart of the breakers, the Heron was dwindling and sliding, fragment by fragment into the sea.

Through those breakers the last light from the ship helped them, and the wind tugging at their little jury sail aided to drive them on until they could swing off the raft and walk toward the beach, carrying Kate between them. On the safe, dry sands they turned, and as they looked back, the Heron slid forward into the ocean and quenched her fires with a hiss that was like a far-heard whisper of the sea.



CHAPTER 38

Meanwhile the shouts of the mutineers rang louder and louder as their rafts edged in toward the land, so the three turned again and made directly inland. A hundred yards from the edge of the water they were in a dense jungle such as only exists in a Central American swamp region, but they waded and splashed on, and clambered over rotten stumps, slick with wet moss, and stepped on fragments of wood that crumbled under their feet. And all the time they kept the girl between them, lifting her clear of the noisome water as much as possible.

The shouting of the mutineers, however, urged them on, and from the sound of the voices there was no doubt that Hovey and his men were combing the marsh for the fugitives. Torches had been made by the sailors, and behind them, now and then, they caught a glimpse of a winking eye of light. This drove them on, and just when the shouts of the mutineers began to die away, the marsh ended as abruptly as it had begun, and they started to climb a slope where the thicket changed to an almost open wood. The rise was not long, for after some hours of weary trudging, they reached a road.

Down this they straggled with stumbling feet. They had not spoken for nearly two hours, as though they wished to save even the breath of speech for some trial which might still await them. Kate was half unconscious with fatigue, and McTee on her left and Harrigan on her right carried most of her weight.

In this manner they came in sight of a light which developed into a low-roofed, broad house with a hospitable veranda stretching about it. They made directly for it, traversing a level field until they came to the door. McTee supported Kate while Harrigan knocked. There was silence within the house, and then a whisper, a stir, the padding of a slippered foot, and the door was jerked open. A tall man with a narrow, pointed beard appeared. He held a lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other; for those were troubled times in that republic. The light fell full on the haggard face of Kate, and the man started back.

"Enter, my children," he said in Spanish, and tossing his weapon onto a little hall table, he held out his hand to them.

With a great voice he brought his family and servants about them in a few seconds. To a wide-eyed girl with a frightened voice, he gave the care of Kate, and the two went off together. The master of the house himself attended to the needs of Harrigan and McTee.

There were few questions asked. This was a question of dire need, and the Spanish-American loves to show his hospitality. Talking was for the morning. In the meantime his guests would require what? Perhaps sleep? Perhaps a bath first? They answered him with one voice, for they both spoke a little Spanish, picked up in their wanderings. Sleep!

The next day they woke about noon to find clothes laid out for them, the immaculate white clothes which the tropics require. They were led to a high-ceilinged bathroom cool with glazed, white bricks which lined it, where the two servants poured over them bucket after bucket of cold water, and the grime of the voyage and the labors in the fireroom and the mighty weariness of their muscles disappeared little by little in slow degrees. Then a shave, then the white clothes, and they were ready for presentation to Senor Jose, Barrydos y Maria y Leon and his family.

And here was a time of many words indeed. It was McTee who told the story of the wreck, and even with his broken Spanish the tale was so vivid that Senor Jose was forced to rise and walk up and down the room, calling out upon a hundred various saints. In the end it was clear in his eyes that he had to deal with two heroes. As such they could have lived with him as honored guests forever.

Then Kate came into the room with the daughter of the house. She wore a green dress of some light material which fluttered into folds at every move. The Spaniard straightened up from his chair. The two big men followed suit, staring wide-eyed upon her. It seemed as if some miracle had been worked in her, for they looked in vain for any traces of her helpless weariness of the night before.

There was a color in her cheeks and her eyes were bright and quiet. To Senor Jose Barrydos y Maria y Leon she gave both her hands, and he bowed over them and kissed them both. His courtliness made Harrigan and McTee exchange a glance, perhaps of envy and perhaps of disquiet, for she accepted this profound courtesy with an ease as if she had been accustomed to nothing else all her life.

But what a smile there was for each of them afterward! It left them speechless, so that they glowered upon each other and were glad of the soft flow of Senor Jose's words as he led them in to the breakfast table.

And when the meal had progressed a little and some of the edge of the novelty of the situation and story had worn away, the Spaniard said: "But is it not true? Strange news floats in the air this week."

"What news?" asked Harrigan. "Our wireless was out of commission for days."

"True! Then you must learn from me?"

He drew a breath and stiffened in his chair, then with a gesture of apology and a smile he added: "Why should I hunt for pompous words? I can tell you in one phrase: the world is at war, gentlemen!"

They merely gaped upon him.

"German troops have entered Belgium; France, England, and Russia are at war with Germany and Austria!"

He waited for the astonishment to die away in their eyes.

Kate was shaking her head. "It is impossible," she said. "There may be a disturbance, but the world is past the time of great wars. Men are now too civilized, and—"

Here she stopped, for her eyes fell on the faces of Harrigan and McTee. Civilized? No; she had seen enough to know that civilization strikes no deeper in human nature than clothes go to change the man.

"Civilized?" Don Jose had taken her up. "Ah, madam, already wild tales reach us of the Germans in Belgium."

"But there was a treaty," she cried, "and the greatest nations in the world have guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium. Germany herself—"

"True!" said Jose; "but it is because of the violation of Belgian neutrality, among other things, that England has entered the war, it is said."

"Ah-h!" said Harrigan, lapsing suddenly from Spanish into his Irish brogue. "Thrue for ye, man! John Bull will take the Kaiser by the throat. In time of peace, why, to hell with England, say I, like all good Irishmen; but in time av war-r, it's shoulder to shoulder, John Bull an' Paddy, say I, an' we'll lick the wor-r-rld!"

And McTee broke in savagely. "You forget the Scotch. Without the Scotch, England and Ireland—what could they do? Nothing!"

"Could they not?" said Harrigan, with rising temper. "I tell ye, ye black Highlander, that wan Irishman—"

"Hush," said Kate earnestly; for the Spaniard was staring at them in amaze. "It is a world war, and no time for jealousy. England—Scotland —Ireland—and America, too, in time—we will all be fighting for one purpose. And when the last test comes, the United States—"

She stopped with a gesture of pride, and Harrigan said with deep feeling: "Aye, they're a hard lot, the Yankees. But as for the Scotch," he went on in a murmur which only McTee could hear—"as for the Scotch, I wouldn't be wipin' my feet on 'em, when it comes to the fightin'. D'ye hear me, McTee?"

"And understand," said McTee, smiling broadly, so that none of the rest might understand; "our time is close at hand, Harrigan. We're on dry land."

"We are—thank God," answered Harrigan, "but play the game, McTee, till the girl is cared for."

In the meantime Senor Jose had explained to Kate the nearness of the city—El Ciudad Grande—for she had been asking many urgent questions. The upshot of their conversation was that their host offered to take them immediately into the town, where they could find accommodation at the one hotel—if they refused his further hospitality. So in half an hour Senor Jose's carriage of state was harnessed and the four journeyed into El Ciudad Grande.

Senor Jose went with them to explain to the hotel owner that these were his guests—his dear friends—his friends of many years' standing—in fact, his relatives in close blood. In short, he recommended the party to the special care of the hotelkeeper. Business called the hospitable Spaniard away. He refused to accept any consideration for the clothes which he donated to the party, and McTee jingled a handful of Henshaw's gold in vain. Senor Jose must depart, but he would return the next day. So the three stood alone together at last. Harrigan was the first to speak.

"I've an engagement. I'm afther havin' some important business on hand, Kate, colleen, so I'll be steppin' out." And he turned to go.

"Wait," she called. "I know what your engagements are when the Irish comes so thick on your tongue, Dan. You were about to have an engagement also, Angus?"

McTee glowered on Harrigan for having so clumsily betrayed them.

"You are like children," she said softly, "and you let me read your minds."

She bowed her head in long thought.

Then: "Didn't we pass the sign of the British consul down the street over that little building?"

"Yes," said McTee, wondering, and again she was lost in thought.

Then she raised her head and stepped close to them with that smile, half whimsical and half sad.

"I'm going to ask you to let me be alone for a time—for a long time. It will be sunset in five hours. Will you let me have that long to do some hard thinking? And will you promise me during that time that you will not fly at each other's throats the moment you are out of my sight? For what I will have to say at sunset I know will make a great deal of difference in your attitude to each other."

"I'll promise," said Harrigan suddenly. "I've waited so long—I can stand five hours more."

"I'll promise," said McTee; but he scowled upon the floor.



CHAPTER 39

They left her and walked from the hotel. At the door Harrigan turned fiercely upon the Scotchman.

"Do what ye please for the five hours, McTee, but give me the room I need for breathin'. D'ye hear? Otherwise I'll be forgettin' me promises."

"Do I hear ye?" answered McTee, snarling. "Aye, growl while you may. I'll stop that throat of yours for good—tonight."

He turned on his heel, and the two men separated. Harrigan struck with a long swing out over a road which led into the rolling fields near the little town. He walked rapidly, and his thoughts kept pace, for he was counting his chances to win Kate as a miser counts his hoard of gold. Two pictures weighed large in his mind. One was of Kate at ease in the home of the Spaniard. Such ease would never be his; she came from another social world—a higher sphere. The second picture was of McTee climbing down from the wireless house and calmly assuming command of the mutineers in the crisis. Such a maneuver would never have occurred to the Irishman, and it was only through that maneuver that the ship had been brought to shore, for nothing save the iron will of McTee could have directed the mutineers.

When the sun hung low, he turned and strode back toward the village, and despair trailed him like his shadow.

He began to see clearly now what he had always feared. She loved McTee—McTee, who spoke clear, pure English, when he chose, and who could talk of many things. She loved McTee, but she dared not avow that love for fear of infuriating Harrigan and thereby risking the life of the Scotchman. It grew plainer and plainer. With the thought of Kate came another, far different, and yet blending one with another. When he reached the village, it was still a short time before sunset. He went straight to the British consulate and entered, for he had reached the solution of his puzzle.

"My name's Harrigan," he said to the little man with the sideburns and the studious eyes, "and I've come to know if the old country has sent for volunteers. I want to go over."

"The old country," said the consul, "has called for volunteers, and I have discovered a means of sending our boys across the water; but"—and here he examined Harrigan shrewdly—"but it's an easy thing to take an Irish name. How am I to know you're not a German, my friend? I've never seen you before."

Harrigan swelled.

"A German? Me?" he muttered, and then, his head tilted back: "Ye little wan-eyed, lantern-jawed, flat-headed block, is it me—is it Harrigan ye call a German? Shtep out from behind the desk an' let me see av you're a man!"

Strangely enough, the consul did not seem irritated by this outburst. He was, in fact, smiling. Then his hand went out to the Irishman.

"Mr. Harrigan," he said, "I'm honored by knowing you."

Harrigan stared and accepted the hand with caution; there was still battle in his eyes.

"And can you send me over?" he asked doubtfully.

"I can. As I said before, we've raised a small fund for just this purpose."

He drew out a piece of paper and commenced taking down the particulars of Harrigan's name and birth and other details. Then a short typewritten note signed by the consul ended the interview. He gave Harrigan directions about how he could reach a shipping agent on the eastern coast, handed over the note, and the Irishman stepped out of the little office already on his way to the world war. He took no pleasure in his resolution, but wandered slowly back toward the hotel with downward head. He would speak a curt farewell and step out of the lives of the two. It would be very simple unless McTee showed some exultation, but if he did—Here Harrigan refused to think further.

It was well after sunset when he crossed the veranda, and at the door he found McTee striding up and down.

"Harrigan," said McTee.

"Well?", growled Harrigan.

"Stand over here close to me, and keep your face shut while I'm speaking. It won't take me long."

The words were insulting enough, but the voice which spoke them was sadly subdued.

"Listen," said McTee. "What I've got to say is harder for me to do than anything I've ever done in my life. So don't make me repeat anything. Harrigan, I've tried to beat you by fair means or foul ever since we met—ever since you saved my hide in the Ivilei district of Honolulu. I've tried to get you down, and I've failed. I fought you"—here he ground his teeth in agony—"and you beat me."

"It was the bucking of the deck that beat you," put in Harrigan.

"Shut up till I'm through or I'll wring your neck and break your back! I've failed to down you, Harrigan. You beat me on the Mary Rogers. You made a fool of me on the island. And on the Heron—"

He paused again, breathing hard.

"On the Heron, it was you who brought us food and water when we were dying. And afterward, when Henshaw died, I jumped out before the mutineers and took command of them because I thought I could win back in Kate's mind any ground which I'd lost before. I paraded the deck before her eyes; I gave commands; I was the man of the hour; I was driving the Heron to the shore in spite of the fire."

"You were," admitted Harrigan sadly. "It was a great work you did, McTee. It was that which won her—"

"But even when I was in command, you proved yourself the better man, Harrigan."

The Irishman leaned back against the wall, gasping, weak with astonishment.

McTee went on: "I paraded the deck; I made a play to make her admire me, and for a while I succeeded, until the time came when you were carried up to the deck too weak to keep the men at work in the fireroom. Ah, Harrigan, that was a great moment to me. I said to Kate: 'Harrigan has done well, but of course he can't control men—his mind is too simple.'"

"Did you say that?" murmured Harrigan, and hatred made his voice soft, almost reverent.

"I did, and I went on: 'I suppose I'll have to go down there and drive the lads back to their work.' So down I went, but you know what happened. They wouldn't work for me. They stood around looking stupid at me and left me alone in the fireroom, and I had to come back on deck, in the sight of Kate, and rouse you out of your sleep and beg you to go back and try to make the lads keep at their work. And you got up to your knees, struggling to get back your consciousness! And you staggered to your feet, and you called to the firemen who lay senseless and sick on the deck around you—sick for sleep—and when they heard you call, they got up, groaning, and they reeled after you back to their work in the fireroom, and some of them dragged themselves along on their hands and knees. Oh, God!"

He struck his clenched fist across his eyes.

"And all the time I was watching the awe and the wonder come up like a fire in the eyes of Kate, while she looked after you."

Harrigan watched him with the same stupid amazement.

"Harrigan," said McTee at last, "you've won her. When I walked out by myself today, I saw that I was the only obstacle between her and her happiness. She doesn't dare tell you she loves you, for fear that I'll try to kill you. So I've decided to step out from between—I have stepped out! I'm going back to Scotland and get into the war. If I have fighting enough, I can forget the girl, maybe, and you! I've talked to the British consul already, and he's given me a note that will take me over the water. So, Harrigan, I've merely come to say good-by to you— and you can say good-by for me to Kate."

"Wait," said Harrigan. "There are a good many kinds of fools, but a Scotch fool is the worst of all. Take that paper out of your pocket and tear it up. Ah-h, McTee, ye blind man! Can't ye see that gir-rl's been eatin' out her hear-rt for the love av ye, damn your eyes? Can't ye see that the only thing that keeps her from throwin' her ar-rms around your neck is the fear of Harrigan? Look!"

He pulled out the note which the consul had given him.

"I've got the same thing you have. I'm going to go over the water. I tell you, I've seen her eyes whin she looked at ye, McTee, an' that's how I know she loves ye. Tear up your paper! A blight on ye! May ye have long life and make the girl happy—an' rot in hell after!"

"By God," said McTee, "we've both been thinking the same thing at the same time. And maybe we're both wrong. Kate said she had something to say to us. Let's see her first and hear her speak."

"It'll break my heart to hear her confess she loves ye, McTee—but I'll go!"

They went to the sleepy clerk behind the desk and asked him to send up word to Miss Malone that they wished to see her.

"Ah, Miss Malone," said the clerk, nodding, "before she left—"

"Left?" echoed the two giants in voices of thunder.

"She gave me this note to deliver to you."

And he passed them the envelope. Each of them placed a hand upon it and stared stupidly at the other.

"Open it!" said Harrigan hoarsely.

"I'm troubled with my old failing—a weakness of the eyes," said McTee. "Open it yourself."

Harrigan opened it at last and drew out the paper within. They stood under a light, shoulder to shoulder, and read with difficulty, for the hand of Harrigan which held the paper shook.

_Dear lads, dear Dan and Angus:

As soon as you left me, I went to the British consul, and from him I learned the shortest way of cutting across country to the railroad. By the time you read this, I am on the train and speeding north to the States.

I have known for a long time that the only thing which keeps you from being fast friends is the love which each of you says he has for me. So I have decided to step from between you, for there is nothing on earth so glorious as the deep friendship of one strong man for another.

I fear you may try to follow me, but I warn you that it would be useless. I have taken a course of training, and I am qualified as a nurse. The Red Cross of America will soon be sending units across the water to care for the wounded of the Allies. I shall go with one of the first units. You might be able to trace me to the States, but you will never be able to trace me overseas. This is good-by.

It is hard to say it in writing. I want to take your hands and tell you how much you mean to me. But I could not wait to do that. For your own sakes I have to flee from you both.

Now that I have said good-by, it is easier to add another thing. I care for both of you more than for any man I have ever known, but one of you I love with all my soul. Even now I dare not say which, for it might make enmity and jealousy between you, and enmity between such men as you means only one thing—death.

I have tried to find courage to stand before you and say which of you I love, but I cannot. At the last moment I grow weak at the thought of the battle which would follow. My only resort is to resign him I care for beyond all friends, and him I love beyond all other men.

I know that when I am gone, you will become fast friends, and together you will be kings of men. And in time—for a man's life is filled with actions which rub out all memories—you will forget that you loved me, I know; but perhaps you will not forget that because I resigned you both, I built a foundation of rock for your friendship.

You will be happy, you will be strong, you will be true to one another. And for that I am glad. But to you whom I love: Oh, my dear, it is breaking my heart to leave you!

Kate

One hand of each was on the paper as they lowered it and stared into each other's face, with a black doubt, and a wild hope. Then of one accord they raised the paper and read it through again.

"And to think," muttered Harrigan at last, "that I should have ruined her happiness. I could tear my heart out, McTee!"

"Harrigan," said the big Scotchman solemnly, "it is you she means. See! She cried over the paper while she was writing. No woman could weep for Black McTee!"

"And no woman could write like that to Harrigan. Angus, you can keep the knowledge that she loves you, but let me keep the letter. Ah-h, McTee, I'll be afther keepin' it forninst me heart!"

"Let's go outside," said McTee. "There is no air in this room."

They went out into the black night, and as they walked, each kept his hand upon the letter, so that it seemed to be a power which tied them together.

"Angus," said Harrigan after a time, "we'll be fightin' for the letter soon. Why should we? I know every line of it by heart."

"I know every word," answered McTee.

"I've a thought," said Harrigan. "In the ould days, whin a great man died, they used to burn his body. An' now I'm feelin' as if somethin' had died in me—the hope av winnin' Kate, McTee. So let's burn her letter between us, eh?"

"Harrigan," said McTee with heartfelt emotion, "that thought is well worthy of you!"

They knelt on the little spot. They placed the paper between them. Each scratched a match and lighted one side of the paper; the flames rose and met in the middle of the letter. Yet they did not watch the progress of the fire; by the sudden flare of light they gazed steadily into each other's face, straining their eyes as the light died away as though each had discovered in the other something new and strange. When they looked down, the paper was merely a dim, red glow which passed away as quickly as a flush dies from the face, and the wind carried away the frail ashes. Then they rose and walked shoulder to shoulder on and into the night.

THE END