Part 16 (1/2)
Was it wrong of me, Dan? Angus, will you forgive me?”
Harrigan raised his arms high above his head and stretched like one from whose wrists the manacles have been unlocked after a long imprisonment.
”McTee, are ye ready? There's a weight gone off my soul!”
”Harrigan, I've been a driver of men, but this girl has put me under the whip. When I'm through with you, I'm coming back to her.”
”It'll be your ghost that returns.”
Kate hesitated one instant as if to judge which was the greatest force toward evil. Then she dropped to her knees and caught the hands of McTee, those strong, cruel hands.
”If you will not fight, I'll--I'll be kind to you, I'll be everything you ask of me--”
”You're pleading for him?”
”No, no! For him and for you; for your two souls!”
”Bah! Mine was lost long ago, and I'll answer that there's a claim on Harrigan filed away in h.e.l.l. He's too strong to have lived clean.”
”Angus, we're all alone here--on the rim of the world, you've said--and in places like this the eye of G.o.d is on you.”
He laughed brutally: ”If He sees me, He'll look the other way.”
”Have done with the chatter,” broke in Harrigan. ”Ah-h, McTee, I see where my hands'll fit on your throat.”
”Come,” McTee answered without raising his voice; ”there's a corner of the beach where a current stands in close by the sh.o.r.e. You've been a traveling man, Harrigan. When I've killed you, I'll throw your body into the sea, and the tide will take you out to see the rest of the world.”
”Come,” said Harrigan; ”I'd as soon finish you there as here, and when you're dead, I'll sit you up against a tree and come down every day to watch you rot.”
The girl fell to the ground between them with her face buried in her arms, silent. The two men lowered their eyes for a moment upon her, and then turned and walked down the hill, going shoulder to shoulder like friends. So they came out upon the beach and walked along it until they reached the point of which McTee had spoken.
It was a level, hard-packed stretch of sand which offered firm footing and no rocks over which one of the fighters might stumble at a critical moment.
”Tis a lovely spot,” sighed Harrigan. ”Captain, you're a jewel of a man to have thought of it.”
”Aye, this is no deck at sea that can heave and twist and spoil my work.”
”It is not; and the palms of my hands are almost healed. Had you thought of that, captain?”
”As you lie choking, Harrigan, think of the girl. The minute I've heaved you into the sea, I go back to her.”
The hard breathing of the Irishman filled up the interval.
”I see one thing clear. It's that I'll have to kill you slow. A man like you, McTee, ought to taste his death a while before it comes. Come to me ar-rms, captain, I've a little secret to whisper in your ear.
Whisht! 'Twill not be long in the tellin'!”
McTee replied with a snarl, and the two commenced to circle slowly, drawing nearer at every step. On the very edge of leaping forward, Harrigan was astonished to see McTee straighten from his crouch and point out to sea.
”The eye of G.o.d!” muttered the Scotchman. ”She was right!”
Harrigan jumped back lest this should prove a maneuver to place him off his guard, and then looked in the indicated direction. It was true; a point of light, a white eye, peered at them from far across the water.