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He thrust the second portrait into McTee's hands. It showed a rather thin-faced girl with abnormally large eyes and a rather pathetic smile. It was an appealing face rather than a pretty one. "Beautiful!" said McTee with forced enthusiasm. "Yes, beautiful! A little pinched, perhaps, but she'll fill out as she grows older. And those are her grandmother's eyes! Aye!"
As the Heron's stern dipped to a trough of a wave that towered blackly into the night, the outlines of McTee's form were blurred, but the next moment he was tossed up against the very heart of the starry sky. With that peculiar mixture of fear and thrilling exultation which he always felt when he came into the presence of the captain, Harrigan drew close.
"God!" screamed McTee, and gripped Harrigan's wrists, but the Irishman heaved him up and beat his head against the deck. McTee's jaws fell open, and a bloody froth bubbled to his lips; his eyes thrust out hideously. "Ah-h!" snarled Harrigan, and shifted his grip lower, his thumbs digging relentlessly into the great throat. This time the giant limbs of the captain relaxed as if in sleep.
As he approached the shelter, he heard voices and stopped short with a sudden pang; McTee had returned first and awakened the girl. Harrigan sighed. He knew now how he had wanted to watch her eyes open for the first time, the cool sea-green eyes lighted by bewilderment, surprise, and joy. All that delight had been McTee's.
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, shifting under the steady light from the lantern.
As he worked, he hummed a tune and saw the narrow jaw of McTee jut out. Harrigan smiled. He had scarcely finished stowing his bucket and brush away when the bos'n brought him word that he was wanted in the fireroom. Masters's face was serious. "What's the main idea?" asked Harrigan. The bos'n cast a worried eye fore and aft. "Black McTee's breakin' you," he said; "you're getting the whip."
The palms were still red and deeply scarred. Campbell said nothing, but his jaw set savagely. "I thought it was to be this all over again," went on Harrigan, "till I met you, chief. But with you for a friend I'll weather the storm. McTee's a hard man, but when Scot meets Scot I'll bet on the Campbells." "Would you bet on me against Black McTee?" queried the engineer, deeply moved.
Two pictures were in McTee's mind one of the safe piled full of gold, and the other of the half-crazed old skipper with his dying granddaughter. After all, it was only a matter of months before Henshaw would be dead, for certainly he would not long survive the death of Beatrice.
Then they would have their revenge. The second day was a repetition of the first. He began with scrubbing down the bridge. The suds, strong with lye, ate shrewdly at his raw hands. Still he hummed as he worked and watched McTee's frown grow dark. When he was ordered below to the fireroom, he wrapped his hands in the soft waste again.
He made no answer, but listened to the deep thrum of the engines. It seemed to him that the force which drove the ship was like a part of McTee's will, a thing of steel. "And I'm a hard man, Harrigan. On this ship I'm king. There's no will but my will; there's no right but my right; there's no law but my law. Remember, on land we stood as equals. On this ship you stand and I sit."
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