CHAPTER 20
He rose and left Harrigan to the dark, which now lay so thick over thesea that he could only dimly make out the black, wallowing length ofthe ship. After a time, he went into the dingy forecastle and stretchedout on his bunk. Some of the sailors were already in bed, proppingtheir heads up with brawny, tattooed arms while they smoked theirpipes. For a time Harrigan pondered the mutiny, glancing at the stolidfaces of the smokers and trying to picture them in action when theywould steal through the night barefooted across the deck--some of themwith bludgeons, others with knives, and all with a thirst for murder.
Sleep began to overcome him, and he fought vainly against it. In achoppy sea the bows of a ship make the worst possible bed, for theytoss up and down with sickening rapidity and jar quickly from side toside; but when a vessel is plowing through a long-running ground swell,the bows of the ship move with a sway more soothing than the swing of ahammock in a wind. Under these circumstances Harrigan was lulled tosleep.
He woke at length with a consciousness, not of a light shining in hisface, but of one that had just been flashed across his eyes. Then aguarded voice said: "He's dead to the world; he won't hear nothin'."
Peering cautiously up from under the shelter of his eyelashes, he madeout a bulky figure leaning above him.
"Sure he's dead to the world," said a more distant voice. "After theday he must have put in with Campbell, he won't wake up till he'sdragged out. I know!"
"Lift his foot and let it drop," advised another. "If you can do thatto a man without waking him, you know he's not going to be waked up byany talkin'."
Harrigan's foot was immediately raised and dropped. He merely sighed asif in sleep, and continued to breathe heavily, regularly. After amoment he was conscious that the form above him had disappeared. Thenvery slowly he turned his head and raised his eyelids merely enough topeer through the lashes. The sailors sat cross-legged in a loose circleon the floor of the forecastle. At the four corners of the group satfour significant figures. They were like the posts of the prize ringsupporting the rope; that is to say, the less important sailors who satbetween them. Each of the four was a man of mark.
Facing Harrigan were Jacob Flint and Sam Hall. The former was a littleman, who might have lived unnoticed forever had it not been for aterrible scar which deformed his face. It was a cut received in a knifefight at a Chinese port. The white, gleaming line ran from the top ofhis temple, across the side of his right eye, and down to thecheekbone. The eye was blind as a result of the wound, but in healingthe cut had drawn the skin so that the lids of the eye were pulled awryin a perpetual, villainous squint. It was said that before this woundFlint had been merely an ordinary sailor, but that afterward he wasinspired to live up to the terror of his deformed face.
Sam Hall, the "corner post," at Flint's right, was a type of blondstupidity, huge of body, with a bull throat and a round, featurelessface. You looked in vain to find anything significant in this fellowbeyond his physical strength, until your glance lingered on his eyes.They were pale blue, expressionless, but they hinted at possibilitiesof berserker rage.
The other two, whose backs were toward Harrigan, were Garry Cochraneand Jim Kyle. The latter might have stood for a portrait of a pirate ofthe eighteenth century, with a drooping, red mustache and bristlingbeard. The reputation of this monster, however, was far less terriblethan that of any of the other three, certainly far less than GarryCochrane. This was a lean fellow with bright black eyes, glitteringlike a suspicious wolf's.
Between these corner posts sat the less distinguished sailors. Theymight have been notable cutthroats in any other assemblage ofhard-living men, but here they granted precedence willingly to the fourmore notable heroes.
Around the circle walked Jerry Hovey like a shepherd about his flock.It was apparent that they all held him in high favor. His chief claimto distinction, or perhaps his only one, was that he had served asbos'n for ten years under White Henshaw; but this record was enough towin the respect of even Garry Cochrane.
It was Jim Kyle who had peered into the face of Harrigan, for now hewas pushing to one side the lantern he had used and settling back intohis place in the circle. He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb.
"How'd you happen to miss out with the Irishman, Jerry?"
"Talk low or you may wake him," warned Hovey. "I lost him because thefool ain't sailed long enough to know White Henshaw. He has an ideathat mutiny at night is like hittin' a man when he's down--as if therewas any other way of hittin' Henshaw an' gettin' away with it!"
The chuckle of the sailors was like the rumble of the machinery below,blended and lost with that sound.
"So he's out--an' you know what that means," went on Hovey.
A light came into the pale eyes of Sam Hall, and his thick lips pulledback in a grin.
"Aye," he growled, "we do! He's a strong man, but"--and here he raisedhis vast arms and stretched them--"I'll tend to Harrigan!"
The voice of the bos'n was sharp: "None o' that! Wait till I giveorders, Sam, before you raise a hand. We're too far from the coast. Letold Henshaw bring us close inshore, an' then we'll turn loose."
"What I don't see," said one of the sailors, "is how we make out forhard cash after we hit the coast. We beach the Heron--all right; butthen we're turned loose in the woods without a cent."
"You're a fool," said Garry Cochrane. "We loot the ship before weabandon her. There'll be money somewhere."
"Aye," said Hovey, "there's money. That's what I got you together fortonight. There's money, and more of it than you ever dreamed of."
He waited for his words to take effect in the brains of the men,running his glance around the circle, and a light flashed in responseto each eye as it met his.
He continued: "White Henshaw cashed in every cent of his propertybefore he sailed in the _Heron_. I know, because he used me for some ofhis errands. And I know that he had a big safe put into his cabin. Forten years everything that White Henshaw has looked at turned into gold.I know! All that gold he's got in that safe--you can lay to that."
He turned to the sailor who had first raised the question: "Money?You'll have your share of the loot--if you can carry it!"
They drew in their breath as if they were drinking.
Hovey continued: "Now, lads, I know you're gettin' excited andimpatient. That's why I've got you together. You've got to wait. Anduntil I give the word, you've got to keep your eyes on the deck an' runevery time one of the mates of White Henshaw--damn his heart!--givesthe word. Why? Because one wrong word--one queer look--will tip off theskipper that something's wrong, and once he gets suspicious, you canlay to it that he'll find out what we're plannin'. I _know!_"
There was a grim significance in that repeated phrase, "I _know_," forit hinted at a knowledge more complete and evil than falls to the shareof the ordinary mortal.
"Lads, keep your eyes on the deck and play the game until I give theword! If the wind of this comes to the captain, it's overboard forJerry Hovey. I'd rather give myself to the sharks than to WhiteHenshaw. That's all.
"Now, lads, it's come to the point where we've got to know what we'lldo. There's two ways. One is to crowd all them what ain't in the mutinyinto one cabin an' keep 'em there till we beach the boat."
"So that they can get out and tell the land sharks what we've done?"suggested Garry Cochrane in disgust.
"Garry," said Hovey with deep feeling, "you're a lad after my heart.And you're right. If one of them lives, he'll be enough to put a halteraround the necks of each of us. We couldn't get away. If we're oncedescribed, there ain't no way we could dodge the law."
He grinned sardonically as he looked about the circle: "There'ssomething about us, lads, that makes us different from other men."
The sailors glanced appreciatively at the scarred countenances of theirfellows and laughed hoarsely.
"So the second way is the only way," went on Hovey, seeing that he hadscored his point. "The rest of the crew that ain't with us has got togo under. Are y
ou with me?"
"Aye," croaked the chorus, and every man looked down at the floor. Eachone had picked out the man he hated the most, and was preparing themanner of the killing.
"Good," said Hovey; "and now that we've agreed on that, we've got tochoose--"
He stopped, going rigid and blank of face. He had seen the open,chilling blue eye of Harrigan, who, drawn on into forgetfulness, hadlain for some time on his bunk watching the scene without caution.