Part 2 (2/2)
”I didn't ask you to come.”
”Sure you didn't, but if you think you can treat me like a swine and get away with it--”
It was wonderful to see the eyes of McTee grow small. They seemed to retreat until they became points of light s.h.i.+ning from the deep shadow of his brow. They were met by the cold, incurious light of Harrigan's stare.
”You're a hard man, Harrigan.”
He made no answer, but listened to the deep thrum of the engines. It seemed to him that the force which drove the s.h.i.+p was like a part of McTee's will, a thing of steel.
”And I'm a hard man, Harrigan. On this s.h.i.+p I'm king. There's no will but my will; there's no right but my right; there's no law but my law.
Remember, on land we stood as equals. On this s.h.i.+p you stand and I sit.”
The thin lips did not curve, and yet they seemed to be smiling cruelly, and the eyes were probing deep, deep, deep into Harrigan's soul, weighing, measuring, searching.
”When we reach land,” said Harrigan, ”I got an idea I'll have to break you.”
He raised his hands, which trembled with the restrained power of his arms, and moved them as though slowly breaking a stick of wood.
”I've broken men--like that,” he finished.
”When I'm through with you, Harrigan, you'll take water from a Chinaman. You're the first man I've ever seen who could make me stop and look twice. I need a fellow like you, but first I've got to make you my man. The best colt in the world is no good until he learns to take the whip without bucking. I'm going to get you used to the whip.
This is frank talk, eh? Well, I'm a frank man. You're in the harness now, Harrigan; make up your mind: Will you pull or will you balk? Answer me!”
”I'll see you d.a.m.ned!”
”Good. You've started to balk, so now you'll have to feel the whip.”
He pulled a cord, and while they waited, the relentless duel of the eyes continued. A flash of instinct like a woman's intuition told Harrigan what impulse was moving McTee. He knew it was the same thing which makes the small schoolboy fight with the stranger; the same curiosity as to the unknown power, the same relentless will to be master, but now intensified a thousandfold in McTee, who looked for the first time, perhaps, on a man who might be his master. Harrigan knew, and smiled. He was confident. He half rejoiced in looking forward to the long struggle.
A knock came and the door opened.
”Masters,” said McTee to the boatswain, ”we're three hands short.”
”Yes, sir.”
”Here are the three hands. Take them forward.”
CHAPTER 3
Masters looked at Harrigan, started to laugh, looked again, and then silently held the door open. Harrigan stepped through it and followed to the forecastle, a dingy retreat in the high bow of the s.h.i.+p. He had to bend low to pa.s.s through the door, and inside he found that he could not stand erect. It was his first experience of working aboard a s.h.i.+p, and he expected to find a scrupulous neatness, and hammocks in place of beds. Instead he looked on a double row of bunks heaped with swarthy quilts, and the boatswain with a silent gesture indicated that one of these belonged to Harrigan. He went to it without a word and sat down cross-legged to survey his new quarters. It was more like the bunkhouse of a western ranch than anything else he had been in, but all reduced to a miniature, cramped and confined.
Now his eyes grew accustomed to the dim, unpleasant light which came from a single lantern hanging on the central post, and he began to make out the faces of the sailors. An oily-skinned Greek squatted on the bunk to his left. To his right was a Chinaman, marvelously emaciated; his lips pulled back in a continual smile, meaningless, like the grin of a corpse.
Opposite was the inevitable Englishman, slender, good-looking, with pale hair and bright, active eyes. Harrigan had traveled over half the world and never failed to find at least one subject of John Bull in any considerable group of men. This young fellow was talking with a giant Negro, his neighbor. The black man chattered with enthusiasm while the Englishman listened, nodding, intent.
<script>