The Max Brand Megapack. Max Brand
Читать онлайн книгу.
“You’re a rare man and a bold man, McTee, but you’ll never be what White Henshaw has been—the Shark of the Sea! Ha! Yet think of it! Ten years ago, after all my harvesting of the sea, I had not a dollar to show for it! Why? Because I was working for no woman. But here I am sailing home from my last voyage—rich! And why? Because for ten years I’ve been working for a woman. For ourselves we make and we spend. But for a woman we make and we save. Aye!”
“For a woman?” repeated McTee, wondering. “Do you mean to say—”
“Tut, man, it’s my granddaughter. Look!”
Perhaps the whisky had loosened the old man’s tongue; perhaps these confidences were merely a tribute to the name and fame of McTee; but whatever was the reason, McTee knew he was hearing things which had never been spoken before. Now Henshaw produced a leather wallet from which he selected two pictures, and handed one to the Scotchman. It showed a little girl of some ten years with her hair braided down her back. McTee looked his question.
“That picture was sent to me by my son ten years ago.”
It showed the effect of time and rough usage. The edges of the cheap portrait were yellow and cracked.
“He was worthless, that son of mine. So I shut him out of my mind until I got a letter saying he was about to die and giving his daughter into my hands. That picture was in the letter. Ah, McTee, how I pored over it! For, you see, I saw the face of my wife in the face of the little girl, Beatrice. She had come back to life in the second generation. I suppose that happens sometimes.
“I made up my mind that night to make a fortune for little Beatrice. First I sold my name and honor to get a half share and captaincy of a small tramp freighter. Then I went to the Solomon Islands. You know what I did there? Yes, the South Seas rang with it. It was brutal, but it brought me money.
“I sent enough of that money to the States to keep the girl in luxury. The rest of it I put back into my trading ventures. I got a larger boat. I did unheard-of things; and everything I touched turned into gold. All into gold!
“From time to time I got letters from Beatrice. First they were careful scrawls which said nothing. Then the handwriting grew more fluent. It alarmed me to notice the growth of her mind; I was afraid that when I finally saw her, she would see in me only a barbarian. So I educated myself in odd hours. I’ve read a book while a hurricane was standing my ship on her beam ends.”
McTee, leaning forward with a frown of almost painful interest, understood. He saw it in the wild light of the old man’s eyes; a species of insanity, this love of the old man for the child he had never seen.
“Notice my language now? Never a taint of the beach lingo in it. I rubbed all that out. Aye, McTee, it took me ten years to educate myself for that girl’s sake. In the meantime, I made money, as I’ve said. Ten years of that!
“Beatrice was in college, and six months ago I got the word that she had graduated. A month later I heard that she was going into a decline. It was nothing very serious, but the doctors feared for the strength of her lungs. It made me glad. Now I knew that she would need me. An old man is like a woman, McTee; he needs to have things dependent on him.
“I turned everything I had into cash. I did it so hurriedly that I must have lost close to twenty per cent on the forced sales. What did I care? I had enough, and I made myself into a grandfather who could meet Beatrice’s educated friends on their own level.
“I kept this old ship, the Heron, out of the list of my boats. I am going back to Beatrice with gold in my hands and gold in my brain! All for her. But is she not worth it? Look!”
He thrust the second portrait into McTee’s hands. It showed a rather thin-faced girl with abnormally large eyes and a rather pathetic smile. It was an appealing face rather than a pretty one.
“Beautiful!” said McTee with forced enthusiasm.
“Yes, beautiful! A little pinched, perhaps, but she’ll fill out as she grows older. And those are her grandmother’s eyes! Aye!”
He took the photograph and touched it lightly.
His voice grew lower, and the roughness was plainly a tremolo now: “The doctors say she’s sick, a little sick, quite sick, in fact. Twice every day I make them send me wireless reports of her condition. One day it’s better—one day it’s worse.”
He began to walk the cabin, his step marvelously elastic and nervous for so aged a man.
“Is it not well, McTee? Let her be at death’s door! I shall come to her bedside with gold in either hand and raise her up to life! She shall owe everything to me! Will that not make her love me? Will it?”
He grasped McTee’s shoulder tightly.
“I’m not a pretty lad to look at, eh, lad?”
McTee poured himself a drink hastily, and drained the glass before he answered.
“A pretty man? Nonsense, Henshaw! A little weather-beaten, but a tight craft at that; she’ll worship the ground you walk! Character, Henshaw, that’s what these new American girls want to see in a man!”
Henshaw sighed with deep relief.
“Ah-h, McTee, you comfort me more than a drink on a stormy night! For reward, you shall see what I’m bringing back to her. Come!”
He rose and led McTee into his bedroom, for two cabins were retained for the captain’s use. Filling one corner of the room was a huge safe almost as tall as a man.
He squatted before the safe and commenced to work the combination with a swift sureness which told McTee at once that the old buccaneer came here many times a day to gloat over his treasure. At length the door of the safe fell open. Inside was a great mass of little canvas bags. McTee was panting as if he had run a great distance at full speed.
“Take one.”
The Scotchman raised one of the bags and shook it. A musical clinking sounded.
“Forty pounds of gold coin,” said Henshaw, “and about ten thousand dollars in all. There are eighty-five of those bags, and every one holds the same amount. Also—”
He opened a little drawer at the top of the safe and took from it a chamois bag. When he untied it, McTee looked within and saw a quantity of pearls. He took out a small handful. They were chosen jewels, flawless, glowing. His hand seemed to overflow with white fire. He dropped them back in the bag, letting each pearl run over the end of his fingers. Henshaw restored the bag and locked the safe. Then the two men stared at each other. They had been opposite types the moment before, but now their lips parted in the same thirsty eagerness.
“If she were dead,” said McTee almost reverently, “the sight of that would bring her back to life.”
“McTee, you’re a worthy lad. They’ve told me lies about you. Indeed it would bring her back to life! It must be so! And yet—” Sudden melancholy fell on him as they returned to the other room and sat down. “Yet I think night and day of what an old devil of a black magician told me in the Solomon Islands. He said I and my gold should burn together. I laughed at him and told him I could not die on dry land. He said I would not, but that I should burn at sea! Think of that, McTee! Suppose I should be robbed of the sight of my girl and of my gold at the same time!”
McTee started to say something cheerful, but his voice died away to a mutter. Henshaw was staring at the wall with visionary eyes filled with horror and despair.
“Lad, do you think ghosts have power?”
“Henshaw, you’ve drunk a bit too much!”
“If they have no power, I’m safe. I fear no living man!” He added softly: “No man but myself!”
“I’m tired out,” said McTee suddenly. “Where shall I bunk, captain?”
“Here! Here in this room! Take that couch in the corner over there. It has a good set of springs. With gold in my