Part 44 (1/2)

”You remember Samson's death, Beatrice? And how he pulled the house down on the shoulders of his enemies?”

”Yes.”

”That was a wonderful way to die--wonderful! But I, Beatrice, look at me, child!--I have surpa.s.sed Samson! Listen! You will wonder and you will admire when you hear it! When I got the word that you were dead, I knew two things: first, that the prophecy of my death at sea would come true, and secondly that my gold must perish with me. You will never guess how long I pondered over a way to destroy my gold before I died!

You will think I could have simply thrown it into the sea? Yes, but the s.h.i.+p was filled with men ready to mutiny, and they were hungry for my wealth. They would never have allowed me to destroy that gold! So I thought of a way--ah, it was an inspiration!--by which I could destroy my body, my wealth, and the lives of all the mutineers at once. Like Samson, I would pull the house on the heads of my enemies. Ha, ha, ha!”

His laughter was rather a grimace than a sound.

He went on: ”See how cunningly, how carefully I worked! First I blew up the three lifeboats so that there would be no escape for the crew. Then I tampered with the dynamo so that it burned out, and they could not send out a wireless call for help. That touch was the best of all.

Well, well! Then I went down into the hold, deep down, and I started a fire in the cargo. And then--”

”Oh, my G.o.d!” stammered Sloan.

The others were white, but they gestured at Sloan to silence him. The whisper continued: ”And then I knew that they were done for. The wheat would not break into a sudden flame, but it would smolder and glow and spread from hour to hour and from day to day. The crew would know nothing of it for a long time. But when they guessed at what was happening, they would open the hatches to fight the fire with water.

Then what would happen? Ah, my dear, there was the crowning touch; for when they opened the hatches, the current of air would feed the fire and the s.h.i.+p would be instantly in flames. And so they would burn like dogs with water, water all around them, and no boats to put off in--no boats. Ha, ha, ha!”

He choked with his laughter and gasped for breath.

”If it were possible for a bodiless spirit to perish, I should think that I am dying twice, Beatrice. The air is thick--this air of h.e.l.l!”

He broke off short in his whispering and raised himself suddenly to an elbow. With the coming of death his voice grew strong and rang clearly: ”They are in the corners--they are coming closer! Beatrice! Brush them away with your fingers as cold as snow. Beatrice, oh, my dear!”

And he was dead as he fell back on the bunk.

Sloan was already on the deck outside the wireless house, shrieking with all the power of his lungs: ”Fire! Fire! The wheat in the hold!”

CHAPTER 37

And as Harrigan and McTee, followed by Kate and Campbell, ran out to the open air, they saw the crowd of the mutineers surge across the waist toward Sloan with upturned faces, wondering, and ready for terror. Hovey broke through their midst.

”Hovey!” shouted McTee. ”Look at the mist over the sides! Draw a breath; smell of it! It is fire! Henshaw has set fire in the hold!”

It was plain to every brain in the instant. To every man came the thought of the complaints of the firemen concerning the heat in the hold of the _Heron_; the noxious odor like musty straw; the warmth, the deadly warmth of the decks. A volcano smoldered beneath them, and the mist was the sign of the coming outbreak of flames. And the mutineers stood mute, gaping at one another, looking for some hope, some comfort, and finding the same question repeated in every eye. McTee climbed down the ladder to the waist, followed by the rest of the fugitives. Ten minutes before they would have been torn to pieces by the wolf pack.

Now no man had a thought for anything save his own death.

”Hovey,” ordered McTee in his voice of thunder, ”tell these fellows they must obey my voice from now on.”

They roared, s.n.a.t.c.hing at this ghost of a hope: ”We will! We'll follow Black McTee! Hovey has brought us to h.e.l.l!”

In a moment everyone was in frantic motion. Campbell started for the engine room to see what had caused the stopping of the s.h.i.+p. McTee himself, followed by Harrigan and the stokers, went down to the fireroom. It was fiery hot there, indeed. When the Scotchman swung down the ladder into the hole, it was like a blast from a furnace, and the air was foul with the nauseating odor of the smoldering wheat. The men gasped and struggled for breath, and yet they began to work without complaint.

All hands set to. The fires were shaken down and started afresh; the coal shoveled out from the bunkers. Then a fireman collapsed without a cry of warning. They carried him out to the upper air, and brought down two of the sailors to take his place. And the sailors went without a murmur. They were fighting for the one chance in ten thousand, the chance of bringing the s.h.i.+p to sh.o.r.e before the fire burst out in flame which would lick the _Heron_ from one end to the other within an hour.

McTee went up to the bridge to take the bearings and lay the course. By the time his reckonings were completed, steam was up; Campbell had remedied the trouble in the engine room; the propeller began to turn, and a yell went up from the s.h.i.+p and tingled to heaven. When McTee came down from the bridge to the waist, leaving Hovey at the wheel, a dozen of the tars gathered about the new skipper, weeping and shouting, for in their eyes he was the deliverer, it was he who was giving them the fighting chance to live.