Part 24 (1/2)

”Sure he's dead to the world,” said a more distant voice. ”After the day he must have put in with Campbell, he won't wake up till he's dragged out. I know!”

”Lift his foot and let it drop,” advised another. ”If you can do that to a man without waking him, you know he's not going to be waked up by any talkin'.”

Harrigan's foot was immediately raised and dropped. He merely sighed as if in sleep, and continued to breathe heavily, regularly. After a moment he was conscious that the form above him had disappeared. Then very slowly he turned his head and raised his eyelids merely enough to peer through the lashes. The sailors sat cross-legged in a loose circle on the floor of the forecastle. At the four corners of the group sat four significant figures. They were like the posts of the prize ring supporting the rope; that is to say, the less important sailors who sat between them. Each of the four was a man of mark.

Facing Harrigan were Jacob Flint and Sam Hall. The former was a little man, who might have lived unnoticed forever had it not been for a terrible scar which deformed his face. It was a cut received in a knife fight at a Chinese port. The white, gleaming line ran from the top of his temple, across the side of his right eye, and down to the cheekbone. The eye was blind as a result of the wound, but in healing the cut had drawn the skin so that the lids of the eye were pulled awry in a perpetual, villainous squint. It was said that before this wound Flint had been merely an ordinary sailor, but that afterward he was inspired to live up to the terror of his deformed face.

Sam Hall, the ”corner post,” at Flint's right, was a type of blond stupidity, huge of body, with a bull throat and a round, featureless face. You looked in vain to find anything significant in this fellow beyond his physical strength, until your glance lingered on his eyes.

They were pale blue, expressionless, but they hinted at possibilities of berserker rage.

The other two, whose backs were toward Harrigan, were Garry Cochrane and Jim Kyle. The latter might have stood for a portrait of a pirate of the eighteenth century, with a drooping, red mustache and bristling beard. The reputation of this monster, however, was far less terrible than that of any of the other three, certainly far less than Garry Cochrane. This was a lean fellow with bright black eyes, glittering like a suspicious wolf's.

Between these corner posts sat the less distinguished sailors. They might have been notable cutthroats in any other a.s.semblage of hard-living men, but here they granted precedence willingly to the four more notable heroes.

Around the circle walked Jerry Hovey like a shepherd about his flock.

It was apparent that they all held him in high favor. His chief claim to distinction, or perhaps his only one, was that he had served as bos'n for ten years under White Henshaw; but this record was enough to win the respect of even Garry Cochrane.

It was Jim Kyle who had peered into the face of Harrigan, for now he was pus.h.i.+ng to one side the lantern he had used and settling back into his place in the circle. He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb.

”How'd you happen to miss out with the Irishman, Jerry?”

”Talk low or you may wake him,” warned Hovey. ”I lost him because the fool ain't sailed long enough to know White Henshaw. He has an idea that mutiny at night is like hittin' a man when he's down--as if there was any other way of hittin' Henshaw an' gettin' away with it!”

The chuckle of the sailors was like the rumble of the machinery below, blended and lost with that sound.

”So he's out--an' you know what that means,” went on Hovey.

A light came into the pale eyes of Sam Hall, and his thick lips pulled back in a grin.

”Aye,” he growled, ”we do! He's a strong man, but”--and here he raised his vast arms and stretched them--”I'll tend to Harrigan!”

The voice of the bos'n was sharp: ”None o' that! Wait till I give orders, Sam, before you raise a hand. We're too far from the coast. Let old Henshaw bring us close insh.o.r.e, an' then we'll turn loose.”

”What I don't see,” said one of the sailors, ”is how we make out for hard cash after we hit the coast. We beach the Heron--all right; but then we're turned loose in the woods without a cent.”

”You're a fool,” said Garry Cochrane. ”We loot the s.h.i.+p before we abandon her. There'll be money somewhere.”

”Aye,” said Hovey, ”there's money. That's what I got you together for tonight. There's money, and more of it than you ever dreamed of.”

He waited for his words to take effect in the brains of the men, running his glance around the circle, and a light flashed in response to each eye as it met his.

He continued: ”White Henshaw cashed in every cent of his property before he sailed in the _Heron_. I know, because he used me for some of his errands. And I know that he had a big safe put into his cabin. For ten years everything that White Henshaw has looked at turned into gold.

I know! All that gold he's got in that safe--you can lay to that.”

He turned to the sailor who had first raised the question: ”Money?

You'll have your share of the loot--if you can carry it!”

They drew in their breath as if they were drinking.