And the four of them went aft carrying McTee's body. On the promenade
they passed Kate Malone. She shrank against the rail, her eyes blank
and her face white.
"He's dead!" she cried.
"He's just beginnin' to live," said Harrigan.
The captain was muttering faintly as they laid him on the bunk in his
room. "Now get out," commanded Harrigan. "I will be alone with him when
he wakes up. I have something to whisper in his ear."
"Is it safe?" said the first mate to the chief engineer, gesturing with
his weapon.
Harrigan snatched it away and waved it like a club above his head.
"Get out, or I'll bash your skull in."
His face was hideous, cut and blood-stained, starved with the long
hunger and lighted with the victory. They slunk from the cabin, backing
out as if they expected him to rush them. Harrigan locked the door and
started to tend the captain. He washed McTee to the waist, cleansed the
cut places carefully, and covered them with narrow strips of adhesive
tape which he found in a small medicine chest. As the heavier breathing
of the captain indicated that he was about to recover his senses,
Harrigan performed the same services for himself. It was slow work, for
now that the stimulus of action was gone, his weakness grew on him in
recurrent waves. Finally a sound made him turn to see McTee propping
himself up on the bunk with one elbow; his eyes, unconfused and steady,
looked brightly out at Harrigan.
"You beat me?"
"It was the swing of the deck that rolled you over and broke your grip.
I've stayed to tell you that."
"Chances or no chances, you beat me."
"Man, you'd have busted my back if it hadn't been for that buck of the
ship. When your hand came away, it took the skin with it."
"And that's why you didn't finish me?"
"Aye."
"You'll never have the chance again."
"I want no chances; I want no help except my own strength as it was
before you withered me with your hellfire."
"When we stand up again, I'll kill you, Harrigan."
"When we stand up again, I'll break you, Black McTee--like a rotten
stick."
"Lie down here," said the captain, rising quickly. "You're sick."
He forced Harrigan onto the bunk and stretched him out at full length.
The Irishman clenched his hands and fought against the sleep which
crept over his senses.
"There's fire in my brain," muttered Harrigan, "an' it's trying to burn
its way out."
McTee dipped a towel in cool water.
"I kept the rest of them away," went on the Irishman. "When you woke
up, I wanted you to hear why I didn't finish you."
He raised his shaking hands and gripped at the air.
"Ah-h! When me ould silf is back, I'll shtand up to ye. Tis a promise,
McTee. Black McTee, Black McTee--I'll make ye Red McTee--red as the
palms av me hands."
McTee tied the cold, wet towel around Harrigan's forehead.
"I'll kill you by inches, Harrigan. You'll read hell in my eyes before
your end. Drink this!"
He raised Harrigan's almost lifeless head and forced the neck of a
whisky bottle between his teeth.
"Ah-h!" said Harrigan, blinking and coughing after the strong liquor
had burned its way down his throat. "The feel av your throat under me
thumbs was sweeter than the touch av a colleen's hand, McTee! I'm dead
for shlape!"
And instantly his eyes closed; his breathing was deep and sonorous. The
captain watched him for a long moment, then sat down and laying a hand
on the sleeping man's wrist, he counted the pulse carefully. It was
irregular and feeble.
"Time is all he needs," muttered McTee to himself, and he sat staring
before him, dreaming. "A fool can live well," he was thinking, "but it
takes a great man to die well. Harrigan will make a fine death." In the
meantime the big Irishman slept heavily, and Black McTee tended him
well, keeping the towel cool and wet about his forehead. The pulse was
gaining rapidly in strength and regularity; sleep seemed to act upon
Harrigan as food acts upon a starved man. At times he smiled, and McTee
could guess at the dream which caused it. He was dreaming of killing
McTee, and McTee sat by and understood, and smiled with deep content.
He, also, was tasting his thoughts of the battle-to-be when, without
any warning rap, the door swung open and the burly form of Bos'n
Masters appeared.
"The first mate--" he began.
"Did you knock?"
"I've got no time to waste, the first mate--"
McTee rose. In the frank, bold eyes of the bos'n he read the open
revolt, and understood. He had been beaten in open battle; his crew
felt that they were liberated by the victory of their champion.
"Who told you to enter without knocking?" he broke
in.
"I don't need telling," said the dauntless bos'n. "The first mate's
drunk an'--"
The heavy fist of McTee landed on Masters's mouth and hurled him in a
heap into the corner of the cabin. The captain seized him by the nape
of the neck and jerked him back to his feet, blinking and gasping,
thoroughly subdued.
"Get out and come in as you should."
The bos'n fled. A moment later a timid knock came at the door and McTee
bade him enter. He stepped in, cap in hand, his eyes on the floor.
"The first mate's drunk, sir, an' runnin' amuck with the ship. He's at
the wheel an' he won't leave it. We've nearly scraped one reef already.
You know this ain't any open sea, sir. There's green water everywhere."
"Go up and give the fool my orders. Tell the second officer to take the
wheel."
The bos'n retreated, but he returned within a few moments.
"He won't leave the wheel," he reported. "He said you could take your
orders to the devil, sir."
"I'll tie him to the deck and skin him alive," said McTee calmly. "Stay
here and watch Harrigan while I--"
He was jerked from his feet and hurled across the room, crashing
against the cabin wall. When his senses returned, he was sitting on the
floor staring stupidly into the white face of the bos'n, who was in a
similar posture. Harrigan, who had been flung from the bunk, staggered
to his feet.
"What the deuce is up?" asked the Irishman.
A chorus of piercing yells rose in answer from the deck outside.
"The end of the _Mary Rogers_," said McTee. "Stay with me, Harrigan."
He caught the latter by the arm and dragged him out onto the deck. The
hull of the ship at the bow must have been literally ripped away by the
impact against the reef; already the deck sloped sharply to the bows.
McTee raised a voice that rang like a trumpet over the clamor as he
gave his orders to clear away the boats. If he had been a moment
earlier, he might have succeeded in getting at least one of them safely
launched, but now the _Mary Rogers_ was settling to her doom with a
speed which made the crew senseless with terror. A half-gale which
promised to swell soon into a veritable hurricane seemed to be lifting
the freighter by the heel and driving her nose into the sea. The quick
settling twilight of the tropics made the waters doubly cold and dark.
Not till the bows of the _Mary Rogers_ were deep below the waves and
her propeller humming loudly in the air did the captain desist from his
efforts to bring order out of the panic of the crew. Half a dozen men,
with the Chinaman at their head, had cut one boat from its davits, but
plunging into it before it fairly struck the water, they tipped it far
to one side. It filled instantly and sank, leaving its occupants
struggling on the surface. The Chinaman, who apparently could not swim,
gave up the struggle at once. He threw his clutching hands high above
his head and went down; his scream was the first death cry of the wreck
of the _Mary Rogers_.
McTee, with Harrigan at his heels, rushed for the second lifeboat.
Under the directions of the captain, pointed and emphasized by blows of
his fist, the boat was swung safely from the davits and lowered to the
sea. The instant that it rode the waves, bouncing up and down on the
choppy surface, the crew began leaping in, the drunken mate being the
first overside.
The lifeboat was loaded from stem to stern, and only Harrigan, McTee,
and half a dozen more remained on the ship when the boat swung a dozen
feet away from the _Mary Rogers_ and with the next wave was picked up
and smashed against the freighter. Its side went in like a matchbox
pressed by a strong thumb, and it zigzagged quickly below the surface.
The yells of the swimmers rose in a long wail. McTee caught Harrigan by
the shoulder and shouted in his ear: "Stay close and do what I do."
"Miss Malone!" yelled Harrigan in answer, and pointed.
She stood by the after-cabin, clinging to the rail with one hand while
she attempted to adjust a life preserver with the other. The _Mary
Rogers_ lurched forward, a long slide that buried half of the ship
under the sea. A giant wave towered above the side and licked the
wheelhouse away.
"Let her go!" roared McTee. "Save ourselves and let her
go."
It was a matter of seconds now before the last of the _Mary Rogers_
should disappear. They clambered up to the after-cabin.
"For the love av God, McTee, she's a woman!"
The Irishman struggled up the deck toward the girl, but the captain
caught him and held him fast.
"There's one chance," shouted Black McTee, and he pointed to the litter
of the wrecked wheelhouse which tossed on the waves. "Overboard and
make for a big timber."
But the eyes of Harrigan held on the form of the girl. They could only
make out the shadow of her form with her hair blowing wildly on the
wind. Then as swift as the sway of a bird's wing, a mass of black water
tossed over the side of the _Mary Rogers_. When it was gone, the
shadowy figure of the girl had disappeared with it.
"Now!" thundered McTee.
"Aye," said Harrigan.