Part 19 (2/2)

”Look here,” said Hovey, and he talked out of the corner of his mouth with a skill which would have become an old convict of many terms, ”I've had it put to me straight that you're a hard one. Is that the right dope?”

Harrigan smiled.

”Because if it is,” said Hovey, ”we're the best gang at bustin' up these hard guys that ever walked the deck of a s.h.i.+p. If you try any side steps and fancy ducking of your work, there'll be a disciplinin'

comin' your way at a gallop. Are you wise?”

Harrigan still smiled, but the coldness of his eye made the bos'n thoughtful. He was not one, however, to be easily cowed. Now he balled his fist and smote it against the palm of his other hand with a slap that resounded.

”On my own hook,” he stated, ”I can sling my mitts with the best of them, an' I'm always lookin' for work in that line. Now I'm sayin' all this in private, sonny, to let you know that Black McTee has wised up the skipper about you, and I'm keepin' a weather eye open. If you make one funny move, I'll be on your back.”

”All right, Jerry.”

”Don't call me Jerry, you swab! I'm the bos'n.”

”Look me in the eye, Jerry Hovey, me dear. If you so much as bat the lashes av wan eye in lookin' at me, I'll bust ye in two pieces like a sea biscuit, Jerry, an' I'll eat the biggest half an' throw the rest into the sea. Ar-r-re ye wise?”

Now, Jerry Hovey was a very big man, and he had thrashed men of larger bulk than Harrigan. But there was something about the Irishman's thickness of shoulder and length of arm that gave him pause. So first of all Jerry grew very thoughtful indeed, and then his habitual smile returned. Nevertheless, Harrigan did not forget those gray, alert eyes.

The bos'n went on in a gentler voice: ”I was tryin' you out, Harrigan.

I'll lay to it that the cap'n has the wrong idea about you. But will you tell me why he's ridin' you?”

”Sure. It's Black McTee. Before the _Mary Rogers_ went down, McTee was tryin' to break me. I guess he's asked this White Henshaw to try a hand. What have they got lined up for me?”

”You're to scrub down the bridge an' while your hands are still soft you go down to the fireroom an' pa.s.s coal. It'll tear your hands off, that work.”

Harrigan was gray, but he answered. ”That's an old story. McTee worked me like that all the time.”

”An' you didn't break?” gasped Hovey.

Harrigan grinned, but his smile stopped when he noticed a certain calculation in the face of the bos'n.

”Mate,” said Hovey, ”I guess you're about ripe for something I'm goin'

to say to you one of these days. Now go up to the bridge an' scrub it down.”

With the prospect of the long torture before him once more, Harrigan in a daze picked up the bucket of suds to which he was pointed and went with his brush toward the bridge. Through the mist which enveloped his brain broke wild thoughts--to steal upon McTee at the first meeting and hurl his hated body overboard. Yet even in his bewildered condition he realized what such an act would mean. Murder on land is bad enough, but murder at sea is doubly d.a.m.ned by the law. It was in the power of White Henshaw to hang him up to the mast.

Revolving these dismal prospects with downward head, he climbed from the waist of the s.h.i.+p to the cabin promenade, and there a voice hailed him, and he turned to see Kate Malone approaching. She was all in white--cap, canvas shoes, silk s.h.i.+rt absurdly lose at the throat, and linen coat with the sleeves turned far back so that her hands would not be enveloped. The duck trousers were also taken up several reefs.

”Good morning,” she said, and held out her hand.

He watched her smile wistfully, and then made a little gesture with his own hands, one burdened with the scrubbing brush and the other with the bucket.

”What does it mean?”

”h.e.l.l,” said Harrigan.

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