CHAPTER 26
On the promenade outside he met Sloan, the wireless operator, on hisway to Captain Henshaw's cabin with a slip of paper in his hand. Sloanwinked at him broadly.
"The good news has come, sir," he grinned. "Take a look at this!"
And McTee eagerly read the typewritten slip.
_Beatrice is rallying. Doctors have decided effusion of blood was nothemorrhage. Opinion now very hopeful._
"Will that bring the old boy around for a while?" asked Sloan.
"He'll slip you a twenty on the strength of that and give you a drinkas well," said McTee.
They reached the cabin and entered together to find that White Henshawlay on the couch in the corner. His physical strength was apparentlyexhausted, and one long, lean arm dangled to the floor. At sight of thedreaded wireless operator with the message in his hand, his yellow faceturned from yellow to pale ivory. He rose and supported himself withone hand against the wall, scowling as if he dared them to notice hisweakness.
"Good news!" called Sloan cheerily, and extended the paper.
The captain snatched the paper, his eyes were positively wolfish whilehe devoured the message.
"Sloan--good lad," he stammered. "Stay by your instrument every minute,my boy. Before night we'll have word that she's past all danger."
Sloan touched his cap and withdrew.
"Good news!" said McTee amiably. "I'm mighty glad to hear it, captain."
The old man fell back into a chair, holding the precious piece of paperwith its written lie in both trembling hands.
"Good news," he croaked. "Aye, McTee. You were right, lad! Those damneddoctors don't know their business. They're making the case out bad sothey'll get more credit for the cure. See how they're fooling with me--and me with my heart on fire in the middle of the sea!"
His eyes wandered strangely in the midst of his exultation.
"That would be a strange death, eh, McTee--to burn in the middle of thesea with a ship full of gold?"
The Scotchman shuddered.
"Forget that, man. You're not going to burn at sea. You're going toreach port with all your gold and you're going to stand beside Beatriceand say--"
Henshaw broke in: "And say, 'Beatrice, I've come to make you happy.We'll leave this country where the fogs are so thick and the sun nevershines, and we'll go south, far south, where there's summer all theyear.' That's what I'll say!"
"Right," nodded McTee. "If her lungs are weak, that's the place to takeher."
Henshaw jerked erect in his chair. "Weak lungs? Who said she had weaklungs? McTee, you're a fool! A little cold on the chest, that's allthat's the matter with the girl! The doctors have made the sickness--they and their rotten medicines! And now they're making sport out ofWhite Henshaw. I'll skin them alive, I will!"
McTee lighted a cigar and nodded judiciously as he puffed it.
"Very good idea, Henshaw. If you want me to, I'll go along and help youout."
"You're a brick, McTee. Maybe I'll need you. Getting old; not what Iused 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 losttime."
He caught up pen and paper, while McTee drew a long breath of relief. Amoment later he was astonished to note that the captain had not writtena single letter.
"I'd forgotten," murmured Henshaw. "When I started to write that orderthis morning--just as I was putting pen to paper--in came Sloan withthe message from the doctors saying that Beatrice was in a criticalsituation. It may be, captain, that this message is bad luck for me,eh?"
"Nonsense," said McTee easily, gripping his hand with rage, while hefought to control his voice. "You mustn't let superstitions run awaywith you."
"So! So!" frowned Henshaw. "You're a young man to give me advice,McTee. I've followed superstitions all my life. I tell you there'ssomething in those star-gazing devils of the South Seas. They knowthings 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--notby a long sight!"
"Well," said McTee, with a carefully assumed carelessness, "this shipbelongs to you--you're the skipper; but on a boat I was captain of, nodamned engineer would pull my beard and tell me to rightabout. Theynever got away with a line of chatter like that when Black McTee wasspeaking 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 theyjump out of their skins when they hear White Henshaw's voice."
"That's what I've heard," said the other dauntlessly, "but d'you thinkCampbell ever would have taken this chance if he didn't know you're notwhat you used to be?"
For reply Henshaw set his teeth and dipped the pen into the ink. As hepoised it above the paper, Sloan appeared at the door calling: "Oneminute, captain!"
The captain turned livid and rose slowly, crumpling the paper as he didso and letting it drop to the floor.
"Out with it!" he muttered in a hoarse whisper. "She's worse again!Damn you, McTee, I told you this message was bad luck!"
The wireless operator was much puzzled and glance from the Scotchmanto his skipper.
"I only wanted to know, sir, if you wish to send an answerto 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 wasabout to write, and tore it into small bits. Not until this task wasfinished was he able to speak to McTee.
"D'you see now? Is there nothing in my superstitions? Why, sir, justholding that pen over this piece of damnable paper brought Sloan onthe run to my door. If I'd written a single word, he'd of had a messagefrom the doctors saying that Beatrice was dying. I know!"
"You really think," began McTee, and some of his furious impatiencecrept into his voice--"you really think that writing on that piece ofpaper with your pen would have brought in Sloan with a wireless messagefrom the mainland?"
Henshaw shook his head slowly.
"There's no use trying to explain these things," he said, "butsometimes, McTee, there's a small voice that comes up inside of me andtells me what to do and what not to do. When I first saw the picture ofBeatrice--that one where she's just a slip of a child--there was avoice that said: 'Here's the spirit of your dead wife come back tolife. You must work for her and cherish her.' So I've done it. Andbecause I started to do it, the voice never left me. It warned me whento put to sea and when to stay in port. It gave me a hint when to buyand when to sell, and the result is that I'm rich--rich--rich. Gold inmy hand and gold in my brain, McTee!"
The Scotchman began to feel more and more that old age or his monomaniahad shaken White Henshaw's reason, but he said bitterly: "And Isuppose, if that voice never fails you and if these South Seas nativescan read the future, that you are bound to burn at sea?"
"Damn you!" said Henshaw, terribly moved. "What devil keeps puttingthat in your brain? Isn't it in mine all the day and all the night?Don't I see hellfire in the dark? Don't I see the same flames, blue andthin, dancing in the light of the sun at midday? Is the thing ever outof my mind? Were you put on this ship to keep dinning the idea into myears? If there's something more than the life on earth, then there mustbe a hell--and if there's a hell, then it's real hellfire 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 sendtheir spirits here to walk beside me. They wait in the dark--and theywhisper 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 beachthat last time in his loincloth, with his pig eyes; sometimes he seemsto be begging me to take pity on him; sometimes he seems to be laughingat me. And he's always got his hand outstretched. And Collins comesstroking his beard in the way he had, and he keeps his hand stretchedout to me. What do they want? Alms! Alms! Alms! They want my soul foralms to take it below and burn it in the hellfire--the thin, blueflames!"
He stopped in the midst of his ravings and drew himself erect, a smileof infinite cruelty on his lips.
"Let them all come with their damned, empty palms! They're ghosts, andthey cannot stop me so long as I follow the small voice that's insideof me. They can't stop me, and I'll win back to Beatrice. There I'msafe--safe! Her hands are thin and light and cool and as fragrant asflowers. She'll lay them on my eyelids and I'll go to sleep! And theghosts will close their empty hands. Ha! McTee, d'you know aught of thepower 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 yourtouch!"
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, "isstronger than armor plate to save the man she cares for. You can't seeit; you could never see it! But I tell you there are times when theghosts have come close to me, and then sometimes I've seen the shadowsof thin, small hands come in front of me and push them back. The handsof Beatrice push them back, and they're helpless to harm me!"