Part 37 (2/2)

”You're right again. We'll go to her cabin now and tell her. But don't give her a hint of all that we fear. She already knows about the mutiny--and she knows about your part in it.”

”You saw to that, McTee?” said Harrigan softly, as he pulled on his s.h.i.+rt.

”I did.”

”Ah-h, Angus, that fight'll be even better than I was afther thinkin'.”

And they went forward, walking again shoulder to shoulder. It was Harrigan who stood in front at her door and knocked. She opened it wide, but at sight of him started to slam it again. He blocked it with his foot.

”I've not come for my own sake,” he said in a hard voice, ”but the two of us have come together.”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and she made out the towering form of McTee. At that she opened the door, glancing curiously from one to the other. The eyes of Harrigan went from her face to McTee, and his eyes flamed.

”Speak up, McTee,” he said savagely. ”Tell her you lied about me.”

The Scotchman glowered upon him.

”I'll tell her what I've just found out,” he answered coldly, and turned to Kate. ”We were mistaken in what we thought when we overheard Hovey talking with Harrigan. Dan was simply playing a part with them-- he was trying to learn their plans so as to use them against the mutineers when the time came.”

There was a joyousness in her voice that cut McTee like a knife as she cried: ”I knew! I knew! My instinct fought for you, Dan. I couldn't believe what I heard!”

”What you both heard?” he said bitterly. ”I remember now. It was when I talked with Hovey in front of this cabin?”

”Ask no more questions,” said McTee. ”I'm seeing red now.”

”Black! You see nothin' but black, ye swine! The soot in your soul is a stain in your eyes, McTee.”

They turned toward the door, but she sprang before it and set her shoulders against the boards.

”Sit down--you too, Dan.”

They obeyed slowly, McTee taking the edge of the bunk and Harrigan lowering his bulk to the little campstool, which groaned beneath his weight. She sat on a chair between them, while she looked from face to face.

”When you came in you were friends,” she said, ”and the only thing that could bring you to friends.h.i.+p was danger. There is danger. What?”

They exchanged glances of wonder at this shrewd interpretation.

”There is danger,” said McTee at length, ”and it's a danger which is something more than the mutiny, perhaps.”

”I will tell it,” said Harrigan.

He drew his chair closer to Kate and leaned over so that his face was near hers. She knew at once that he had forgotten all about the presence of McTee.

”Kate, I will not lie to ye, colleen”--here McTee set his teeth, but Harrigan went on--”I hate McTee, and it's for your sake that I hate him. And it's for your sake that I'm goin' to forget it for a while.

There's throuble abroad--there's a cloud over this s.h.i.+p an' a curse on it--”

”What he means to say,” broke in McTee, and then he became aware that she had not heard him speak, and he saw her smiling as she drank in the musical brogue of the Irishman.

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