Harrigan Part 32

"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 superst.i.tions run away with you."

"So! So!" frowned Henshaw. "You're a young man to give me advice, McTee. I've followed superst.i.tions 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 a.s.sumed carelessness, "this ship belongs to you--you're the skipper; but on a boat I was captain of, no d.a.m.ned 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 hoa.r.s.e whisper. "She's worse again!

d.a.m.n 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 superst.i.tions? Why, sir, just holding that pen over this piece of d.a.m.nable 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?"

"d.a.m.n 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 h.e.l.lfire 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 h.e.l.l--and if there's a h.e.l.l, then it's real h.e.l.lfire 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 h.e.l.lfire--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 d.a.m.ned, 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!"

He raised his hand like a guard, but two lean, thin hands, incredibly strong, closed on his wrists.

"A woman's love," went on the old buccaneer of the South Seas, "is stronger than armor plate to save the man she cares for. You can't see it; you could never see it! But I tell you there are times when the ghosts have come close to me, and then sometimes I've seen the shadows of thin, small hands come in front of me and push them back. The hands of Beatrice push them back, and they're helpless to harm me!"

CHAPTER 27

But McTee wrenched his arms away and fled out on the deck. He blundered into Jerry Hovey, who started back at sight of him.

"What's happened, sir?" asked the bos'n. "Been seein' ghosts?"

"d.a.m.n you," growled McTee, "I had a nap and a bad dream--a h.e.l.l of a nightmare."

"You look it! You heard what Harrigan said? Does that sound as if I had enough backing?"

"If the rest of them are as strong for it as Harrigan, it does."

"As strong for it as Harrigan? Between you and me--just a whisper in your ear--I don't think Harrigan is half as strong for it as he talks.

I don't trust him, somehow."