“Where you goin’?” asked Hall ominously.
“Going to finish him.”
Hall caught the fellow’s arm.
“Listen!” he whispered, and such was the
silence that the hoarse whisper was audible all over
the deck. “Don’t you hear?”
And with one hand he kept beat for the quick breaths
of the tortured man. At that moment there was
a long sigh, and the breathing stopped. Hall
strode angrily forward to his victim, but when he reached
the hatch, Van Roos was dead. A blood vessel
must have burst in his brain, and death was as instantaneous
as though a bullet had struck him. So they cut
him free, and his body followed that of Borgson over
the rail. Then the eyes of the mutineers turned
aft toward the wireless house, and then back upon
Campbell. Six victims remained. One of the
firemen slipped close to Hovey on naked feet.
He did not speak, but his long, thin arm pointed toward
the engineer.
“Not yet,” said Hovey, “not yet!
Tomorrow if he doesn’t give in, we’ll
turn you loose on him.”
The fireman grinned and went back on noiseless feet
to his companions to spread the good tidings.
Hovey approached the wireless house.
“We’ve got one show left to offer, but
we’re savin’ it till tomorrow,”
he said. “So brace up, hearties, and keep
cheer. You’ll see Campbell go a way worse
than either of these tomorrow.”
“Wait,” called Harrigan, suddenly roused.
“D’you mean to say that you’d try
your hellwork on a kind man like Campbell?”
“A kind man like Campbell?” echoed Hovey,
and then laughed. “A kind man?”
And he retreated with no other answer, and left the
fugitives aft to the merciless, sweltering heat of
the sun. By the time the sun went down, they
were so fevered by the need of water that they had
not the strength to bless the cool falling of the
dark; they still carried the fire of the sunlight
in their blood.
“This man Campbell,” said Harrigan, “he’s
a true man, McTee, and he stood up to White Henshaw
for my sake—for the sake of me and his
Bobbie Burns. They plan to take him to hell tomorrow,
Angus, and I’ve an idea that there’s one
chance in the thousand that I could steal in on the
dogs tonight and bring him back with me.”
“Can they do anything worse to him than they’re
doing to us?”
“Maybe not, but my heart would lie easier, McTee.
I’ll wait for the fever o’ the sun to
go out of me head an’ for the crew to get drunk
an’ a little drunker.”
So they waited while the noise of the nightly carousal
waxed high and higher, and then died away by slow
degrees. At length Harrigan stood up, gripped
the hand of McTee in silent farewell, heard a whispered
“Good luck!” and slipped noiselessly down
the ladder and started across the deck in the shadow
of the rail. From any portion of the main cabin
eyes might be watching him; there was only the one
chance in ten that the lookout whom Hovey had certainly
stationed would not perceive him as he crept along
under the shadow. Accordingly he went blindly
forward.
