Part 39 (1/2)
It was McTee who murmured: ”Hold onto yourself, Harrigan. Our time hasn't come.”
”I'll hold onto myself all right,” said Harrigan, ”but look at the crew.”
In fact, there was something more deadly than any snarling of a crowd in this unnatural silence of many men. Also they were not looking at Kamasura; they were staring, every man, at the bos'n, who stood with his whistle hanging from a cord around his neck.
”Begin!” said Henshaw.
The blacksnake whistled around the head of the third mate and there was a long scream from Kamasura--but the blacksnake only cracked loudly in the air. Borgson laughed with a hideous delight. Harrigan, sickly white, bowed his head. Again the blacksnake whirled and again it cracked, but this time on naked flesh, and the scream of Kamasura was like the cut of a knife.
Again, again, and again the blacksnake fell, and now Kamasura twisted his head toward the captain and cried in a voice made thin by pain and rage at once: ”I confess! Captain, let me speak!”
At a gesture from Henshaw, the third mate reluctantly stepped back, drawing the lash of the blacksnake slowly through his hands with a caressing touch. Van Roos, the color completely gone from his usually blooming cheeks, cut the ropes, and Kamasura rose, facing the captain.
He extended a naked, trembling arm toward Hovey.
”Mutiny!” he yelled. ”The whole crew--the whole forecastle--mutiny, Cap'n Henshaw! I know--”
The piercing whistle of the bos'n cut into his speech, and the crew rolled forward over the hatch with a single shout that might have come from one throat except for its shrill volume.
CHAPTER 32
”It's come!” cried Harrigan to McTee. ”Kate!”
But even as he whirled, two sailors leaped on him from behind and bore him to the deck. At the same time a gun flashed in the hand of Henshaw, and he fired twice into the onrus.h.i.+ng host. Two men crumpled up on deck and the others gave back a little--they were glad to turn to the easier prey of Van Roos and Borgson, who were instantly overpowered, while Henshaw, with brandished revolver, made his way toward the main cabin.
The second and smaller rush of the mutineers had been toward Harrigan and McTee, where the two men stood together. Harrigan, taken from behind, went down at once and then grappled with his a.s.sailants before they could use their knives. McTee stood over the struggling three and smote right and left among the mutineers. A knife caught his s.h.i.+rt at the shoulder and ripped it to the waist; a club whizzed past his head, but his great fists smashed home on face and head and sent men staggering and sprawling back. The confusion gave him an instant of freedom in a small circle, and he leaned and caught one of Harrigan's a.s.sailants by the heels. It was a little man, a withered fellow scarcely five feet tall and literally dried up by the tropic heat. He was wrenched from his hold, heaved into the air, and then whirled about the head of McTee like a mighty bludgeon. As the sailors rushed again, that living club smashed against them and flung them back. Even to the herculean strength of McTee it was a prodigious feat, but the danger gave him for the moment the power of a madman. Twice he swung the shrieking little sailor, and twice that body smashed back the attack, while Harrigan leaped to his feet in time to knock down a man who sprang at McTee from behind with a brandished knife.
All this had occurred in the s.p.a.ce of half a dozen seconds; the first rush of the mutineers was spent; before they could lunge forward again, McTee flung the half-lifeless body of his human weapon into the midst of the crowd and, turning with Harrigan at his shoulder, they sprang up the ladder to the main cabin door.
Hovey was screaming commands over the din; the crowd rushed after the fugitives.
Harrigan shouted at McTee: ”Get Kate! Take her aft to the wireless house! I'll hold 'em here a minute and then join you!”
McTee nodded and tore down the deck toward Kate's cabin, while Harrigan pulled the knife of Kamasura from his trousers and thrust it in the face of the first man up the ladder. The blade slashed him from nose to cheekbone, and he toppled back with a yell, bearing with him in the fall the two men immediately below. Harrigan glanced across to the other ladder on the farther side of the deck, and saw Kate and McTee running aft. He turned and raced after them.
The wireless house was their one hope. There the sea would be at their backs, and the only approach for the mutineers in their rush would be up the ladders reaching from the deck below; the main cabin, on the other hand, had half a dozen places from which it could be a.s.sailed.
This had been instantly seen by the other officers, and when Harrigan reached the ladder to the deck at the other end of the cabin, he saw Salvain standing in front of the wireless house, Kate and McTee in the act of climbing the steps from the waist, and White Henshaw, with his hair blowing, following hard in their tracks.
Harrigan reached the waist at a leap, and in another moment joined the survivors in the shelter of the wireless house--Kate, McTee, Henshaw, Salvain, and Sloan, a party of six. They were safe for the moment, for the mutineers would certainly never venture an attack against the wheelhouse, where they could be beaten from the ladders by the defendants, but they were safe without food, without water.
Then, as they stared hopelessly across the waist, they saw three men led across the rear promenade of the main cabin. Their hands were tied behind them, and they were kicked forward by the mutineers, first Jacob Van Roos--they could note his pallor even at that distance--then Eric Borgson, scowling and defiant, and dragged along by the men of the forecastle; and last came Douglas Campbell, surrounded by the firemen.
Finally, Jerry Hovey shouted across the waist:
”Black McTee! Oh, Black McTee!”
The Scotchman raised his hand as a token that he heard.