Part 34 (2/2)

”She's dead?” McTee asked softly when they stood on the promenade outside.

”She is. She must have been dying at about the time I brought in that other message--the one you told me to bring.”

They avoided each other's eyes. Inside the cabin they heard a faint sound like paper crumpled up. Then they caught a moan from the room--a soft sound such as the wind makes when it hums around the corners of a tall building.

They were silent for a time, listening with painful intentness. Not another murmur came from the cabin. Sloan wiped his wet forehead and whispered shakily: ”I wouldn't mind it so much if he'd curse and rave.

But to sit like that, not making a sound--it ain't natural, Captain McTee.”

”Hush, you fool,” said McTee. ”White Henshaw is alone with his dead.

And it's me that he blames for it. I brought him the bad luck.”

Sloan shuddered.

”Then I wouldn't have your name for ten thousand dollars, sir.”

”If there's bad luck,” said McTee solemnly, for every sailor has some superst.i.tious belief, ”it's on the entire s.h.i.+p--on every one of the crew as well as on me. We'll have to pay for this--all of us--and pay high. We're apt to _feel_ it before long. And I've got to go back to that cabin after a while!”

He spoke it as another man might say: ”And an hour from now I have to face the firing squad.”

But when he returned to the cabin, he heard no outburst of reproaches from White Henshaw. The door to Henshaw's bedroom was closed, and McTee could hear the captain stirring about in it, working at some nameless task over which he hummed continually, now and then breaking into little s.n.a.t.c.hes of song. McTee was stupefied. He tried to explain to himself by imagining that Henshaw was one of those hard-headed men who live for the present and never waste time thinking of the past. He had made many plans for his granddaughter. Now she was dead, and he dismissed her from his mind.

This explanation might be the truth, but nevertheless the steady humming wore on McTee's nerves until finally he knocked on the door of the inner cabin. It was dusk by this time, and when Henshaw opened the door, he was carrying a lantern.

”You!” he muttered. ”Well, captain?”

”You seem busy,” said McTee uneasily, s.h.i.+fting under the steady light from the lantern. ”I thought I might be able to help you.”

”At the work I'm doing no man can help,” answered Henshaw.

”What work?”

”I'm calculating profit and loss.”

”On your cargo?”

”Cargo? Yes, yes! Profit and loss on this cargo.”

And he broke into a harsh laugh. Obviously Henshaw was lying, yet the Scotchman went on with the conversation, eager to draw out some hidden meaning.

”It's an odd idea of yours, this, to bring a s.h.i.+pment of wheat from the south seas to Central America.”

”Aye, the first time it's ever been done. This wheat came all the way from Australia and the United States, and now it's going back again.

I'll tell you why. Wheat is scarce for export even in the States just now, so I'm taking a gambling chance on getting this to port before the first quant.i.ties come from the north. If I get in in time, I'll clean up--big.”

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