Harrigan Part 34

"The Irishman!" Henshaw muttered. "I forgot. McTee, I'm getting old!"

"Only careless," answered the other, "but it's a bad thing to be careless where Harrigan is concerned. A man like that, Henshaw, could lead your mutineers, and lead them well. Hovey told me that every one of the crew looks up to the Irishman."

"He's got to be crippled--or put out of the way," stated Henshaw calmly. "I was a fool. I forgot about Harrigan."

"It may be," said McTee, "that he'll be put out of the way tonight."

"McTee, I begin to see that you have brains."

The latter waved the sinister compliment aside.

"Suppose the little--er--experiment fails? Doesn't it occur to you that that message might be written out and sent to Campbell?"

The captain changed color, and his eyes s.h.i.+fted.

"I've told you--" he began.

"Nonsense," said McTee. "I'll write the thing, if you want, and all you'll have to do is to sign it."

"Would that make any difference?" asked Henshaw wistfully.

"Of course," said McTee. "Here we go. You've got to do something to tame Harrigan, captain, or there'll be the deuce to pay."

And as he spoke, he picked up pen and paper and began to write, Henshaw in the meantime walking to the door in an agony of apprehension as if he expected to see the dreaded figure of Sloan appear. McTee wrote:

_From Captain Henshaw to Chief Engineer Douglas Campbell

Sir:

On the receipt of this order, you will at once place Daniel Harrigan at work pa.s.sing coal, beginning this day with a double s.h.i.+ft, and continuing hereafter one s.h.i.+ft a day.

(Signed)_

"Here you are, captain," he called, and Henshaw turned reluctantly from the door and sat down at the table.

"Bad luck's in it," he muttered, "but something has to be done-- something has to be done!"

He wrote: "Captain Hensh--" but at this point the voice of Sloan spoke from the open door.

"A message, captain."

With a choked cry Henshaw whirled and rose, supporting himself against the edge of the table with both trembling hands. His accusing eyes were on McTee.

"Sloan!" he called in his hoa.r.s.e whisper at last, but still his d.a.m.ning gaze held hard upon McTee.

The wireless operator advanced a step at a time into the room, placed the written message on the edge of the table, and then sprang back as if in mortal fear. Henshaw, still keeping his glance upon the Scotchman with a terrible earnestness, picked up the sheet of paper on which he had been signing his name, and tore it slowly, methodically, into small strips. As the last of the small fragments fluttered to the floor, his hand went out to the message Sloan had brought and drew it to his side.

He waved his arm in a sweeping gesture that commanded the other two from his presence, and they slipped from the cabin without a word.

CHAPTER 28

"She's dead?" McTee asked softly when they stood on the promenade outside.

"She is. She must have been dying at about the time I brought in that other message--the one you told me to bring."

They avoided each other's eyes. Inside the cabin they heard a faint sound like paper crumpled up. Then they caught a moan from the room--a soft sound such as the wind makes when it hums around the corners of a tall building.

They were silent for a time, listening with painful intentness. Not another murmur came from the cabin. Sloan wiped his wet forehead and whispered shakily: "I wouldn't mind it so much if he'd curse and rave.

But to sit like that, not making a sound--it ain't natural, Captain McTee."

"Hush, you fool," said McTee. "White Henshaw is alone with his dead.

And it's me that he blames for it. I brought him the bad luck."

Sloan shuddered.

"Then I wouldn't have your name for ten thousand dollars, sir."

"If there's bad luck," said McTee solemnly, for every sailor has some superst.i.tious belief, "it's on the entire s.h.i.+p--on every one of the crew as well as on me. We'll have to pay for this--all of us--and pay high. We're apt to _feel_ it before long. And I've got to go back to that cabin after a while!"

He spoke it as another man might say: "And an hour from now I have to face the firing squad."

But when he returned to the cabin, he heard no outburst of reproaches from White Henshaw. The door to Henshaw's bedroom was closed, and McTee could hear the captain stirring about in it, working at some nameless task over which he hummed continually, now and then breaking into little s.n.a.t.c.hes of song. McTee was stupefied. He tried to explain to himself by imagining that Henshaw was one of those hard-headed men who live for the present and never waste time thinking of the past. He had made many plans for his granddaughter. Now she was dead, and he dismissed her from his mind.

This explanation might be the truth, but nevertheless the steady humming wore on McTee's nerves until finally he knocked on the door of the inner cabin. It was dusk by this time, and when Henshaw opened the door, he was carrying a lantern.

"You!" he muttered. "Well, captain?"

"You seem busy," said McTee uneasily, s.h.i.+fting under the steady light from the lantern. "I thought I might be able to help you."

"At the work I'm doing no man can help," answered Henshaw.

"What work?"

"I'm calculating profit and loss."

"On your cargo?"

"Cargo? Yes, yes! Profit and loss on this cargo."

And he broke into a harsh laugh. Obviously Henshaw was lying, yet the Scotchman went on with the conversation, eager to draw out some hidden meaning.

"It's an odd idea of yours, this, to bring a s.h.i.+pment of wheat from the south seas to Central America."

"Aye, the first time it's ever been done. This wheat came all the way from Australia and the United States, and now it's going back again.

I'll tell you why. Wheat is scarce for export even in the States just now, so I'm taking a gambling chance on getting this to port before the first quant.i.ties come from the north. If I get in in time, I'll clean up--big."