“I’ve an engagement. I’m afther
havin’ some important business on hand, Kate,
colleen, so I’ll be steppin’ out.”
And he turned to go.
“Wait,” she called. “I know
what your engagements are when the Irish comes so
thick on your tongue, Dan. You were about to have
an engagement also, Angus?”
McTee glowered on Harrigan for having so clumsily
betrayed them.
“You are like children,” she said softly,
“and you let me read your minds.”
She bowed her head in long thought.
Then: “Didn’t we pass the sign of
the British consul down the street over that little
building?”
“Yes,” said McTee, wondering, and again
she was lost in thought.
Then she raised her head and stepped close to them
with that smile, half whimsical and half sad.
“I’m going to ask you to let me be alone
for a time—for a long time. It will
be sunset in five hours. Will you let me have
that long to do some hard thinking? And will
you promise me during that time that you will not
fly at each other’s throats the moment you are
out of my sight? For what I will have to say
at sunset I know will make a great deal of difference
in your attitude to each other.”
“I’ll promise,” said Harrigan suddenly.
“I’ve waited so long—I can
stand five hours more.”
“I’ll promise,” said McTee; but
he scowled upon the floor.
They left her and walked from the hotel. At the
door Harrigan turned fiercely upon the Scotchman.
“Do what ye please for the five hours, McTee,
but give me the room I need for breathin’.
D’ye hear? Otherwise I’ll be forgettin’
me promises.”
“Do I hear ye?” answered McTee, snarling.
“Aye, growl while you may. I’ll stop
that throat of yours for good—tonight.”
He turned on his heel, and the two men separated.
Harrigan struck with a long swing out over a road
which led into the rolling fields near the little
town. He walked rapidly, and his thoughts kept
pace, for he was counting his chances to win Kate
as a miser counts his hoard of gold. Two pictures
weighed large in his mind. One was of Kate at
ease in the home of the Spaniard. Such ease would
never be his; she came from another social world—a
higher sphere. The second picture was of McTee
climbing down from the wireless house and calmly assuming
command of the mutineers in the crisis. Such
a maneuver would never have occurred to the Irishman,
and it was only through that maneuver that the ship
had been brought to shore, for nothing save the iron
will of McTee could have directed the mutineers.
When the sun hung low, he turned and strode back toward
the village, and despair trailed him like his shadow.
He began to see clearly now what he had always feared.
She loved McTee—McTee, who spoke clear,
pure English, when he chose, and who could talk of
many things. She loved McTee, but she dared not
avow that love for fear of infuriating Harrigan and
thereby risking the life of the Scotchman. It
grew plainer and plainer. With the thought of
Kate came another, far different, and yet blending
one with another. When he reached the village,
it was still a short time before sunset. He went
straight to the British consulate and entered, for
he had reached the solution of his puzzle.
