Part 38 (2/2)

”Black looks on all sides, and no talk,” said Harrigan.

”A falling barometer,” nodded McTee, ”and things are just as bad in the cabin. You've heard about the wireless breaking?”

”I have. What does it mean?”

”It may have been done by the mutineers. I doubt it. But that isn't all that's happened. This is a pretty cool day for the tropics.”

Harrigan stared at him, baffled by the sudden change of the conversation.

”It is cool,” he a.s.sented.

”But in the fireroom it's hotter than it's been at any time since the _Heron_ started on this trip. The second a.s.sistant came up to complain to Henshaw, and I heard them.

”'There's something wrong with the air shafts,' he said to White Henshaw.

”'Look here,' said Henshaw, 'I've had enough grumbling from the fireroom. Put a fan in the air shaft, and don't come up here again with any nonsense. D'you expect to find cool breezes in the South Seas? No, they're hot as fire--hot as fire--hot as fire!'

”He repeated those words three times over in a way that made my flesh creep, and then he laughed. Even the second saw that something was wrong. He took a long look at Henshaw, and then he went out with his head down.”

”What did it all mean?” asked Harrigan.

”I don't know. I don't dare think what it means. But if my guess is right, then the _Heron_ is a lot nearer h.e.l.l than even you and I expected. Look, there goes Fritz Klopp, the first a.s.sistant engineer.

I'll wager he's got another complaint about the heat in the fireroom.”

They watched Klopp go into the captain's cabin, waited a moment, and then the door flew open and Klopp sprang out and fled aft like a man pursued. Henshaw came to the open door and peered after the engineer and laughed silently.

McTee muttered: ”That's the way the devil laughs when he watches the d.a.m.ned souls pa.s.s by.”

Here Henshaw glanced up and saw them watching him from the bridge. His face altered suddenly to a malevolence so terrible that both the men stepped back. Harrigan was trembling like a hysterical girl. He looked in the face of McTee and saw that the Scotchman had blanched. For a long moment they exchanged glances, and then McTee went down from the bridge and entered the cabin.

Henshaw was not there. He had evidently gone into the inner room, and McTee sat down to wait. The time had come for him to ask questions, and he was nerving himself for the ordeal. His plans were disturbed by a m.u.f.fled sound from the inner cabin, a sound so unusual that McTee stiffened in his chair with horror and then rose slowly.

Tiptoe he stole across the floor and laid a hand lightly on the k.n.o.b of the door of the captain's private room. It turned easily without any creak, and the door opened a few inches. There sat Henshaw with his back to McTee, leaning over a table. Gold pieces were spilled loosely across the surface of the wood--possibly the contents of three or four of those small canvas bags--and Henshaw leaned forward with his forehead resting upon the glittering yellow coins and one hand clutching a quant.i.ty of them. His other hand held a photograph of the dead Beatrice. The sound continued. It was the low sobbing of the captain, a hoa.r.s.e and horrible murmur.

McTee closed the door and went back onto the deck, for he suddenly understood the futility of questions. Harrigan, in the meantime, had waited for the return of McTee, and when the latter did not come, the Irishman lingered on the bridge for an hour or more, pottering about with his brush in a pretense of finis.h.i.+ng up a perfect job. His attention was drawn then by a gathering crowd and bustle in the waist of the s.h.i.+p between the wheelhouse and the forecastle. The entire crew of the _Heron_ seemed to be mustering, with the exception of those needed to keep the engines running. They stood in a circle, leaving the cover of the hatch clear.

He hurried down to witness the ceremony, and as he reached the waist, he saw Henshaw take up his position with folded arms in the very center of the hatch. A moment later Kamasura was led up by Eric Borgson and Jan Van Roos.

The two mates, under the direction of Henshaw, lashed the j.a.panese face down upon the hatch, pulling his arms and legs taut with ropes that fastened to the bolts on all sides of the hatch cover.

When he was securely tied, Kamasura was stripped to the waist, and then Harrigan saw Borgson, grinning evilly, step up with a long whip in his hand. It was a blacksnake, heavily loaded and stiff at the b.u.t.t and tapering gradually to a slender, supple, snakelike body, with a thin, sinister lash. Borgson whirled the whip around his head to get its balance. Henshaw stepped back, still with folded arms.

”This fellow Kamasura,” he announced to the crew, ”has blown up the boats of the _Heron_. There's no doubt of it. Borgson caught him almost in the act. I could do worse things than this to Kamasura, but I've decided to flog him until he confesses.”

There was not a word of answer from the crew; they waited, hushed, ominous. A whisper sounded in the ear of Harrigan, who stood with gritting teeth and clenched hands.

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