The Max Brand Megapack. Max Brand
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“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.
CHAPTER 39
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.
“My name’s Harrigan,” he said to the little man with the sideburns and the studious eyes, “and I’ve come to know if the old country has sent for volunteers. I want to go over.”
“The old country,” said the consul, “has called for volunteers, and I have discovered a means of sending our boys across the water; but”—and here he examined Harrigan shrewdly—“but it’s an easy thing to take an Irish name. How am I to know you’re not a German, my friend? I’ve never seen you before.”
Harrigan swelled.
“A German? Me?” he muttered, and then, his head tilted back: “Ye little wan-eyed, lantern-jawed, flat-headed block, is it me—is it Harrigan ye call a German? Shtep out from behind the desk an’ let me see av you’re a man!”
Strangely enough, the consul did not seem irritated by this outburst. He was, in fact, smiling. Then his hand went out to the Irishman.
“Mr. Harrigan,” he said, “I’m honored by knowing you.”
Harrigan stared and accepted the hand with caution; there was still battle in his eyes.
“And can you send me over?” he asked doubtfully.
“I can. As I said before, we’ve raised a small fund for just this purpose.”
He drew out a piece of paper and commenced taking down the particulars of Harrigan’s name and birth and other details. Then a short typewritten note signed by the consul ended the interview. He gave Harrigan directions about how he could reach a shipping agent on the eastern coast, handed over the note, and the Irishman stepped out of the little office already on his way to the world war. He took no pleasure in his resolution, but wandered slowly back toward the hotel with downward head. He would speak a curt farewell and step out of the lives of the two. It would be very simple unless McTee showed some exultation, but if he did—Here Harrigan refused to think further.
It was well after sunset when he crossed the veranda, and at the door he found McTee striding up and down.
“Harrigan,” said McTee.
“Well?”, growled Harrigan.
“Stand over here close to me, and keep your face shut while I’m speaking. It won’t take me long.”
The words were insulting enough, but the voice which spoke them was sadly subdued.
“Listen,” said McTee. “What I’ve got to say is harder for me to do than anything I’ve ever done in my life. So don’t make me repeat anything. Harrigan, I’ve tried to beat you by fair means or foul ever since we met—ever since you saved my hide in the Ivilei district of Honolulu. I’ve tried to get you down, and I’ve failed. I fought you”—here he ground his teeth in agony—“and you beat me.”
“It was the bucking of the deck that beat you,” put in Harrigan.
“Shut up till I’m through or I’ll wring your neck and break your back! I’ve failed to down you, Harrigan. You beat me on the Mary Rogers. You made a fool of me on the island. And on the Heron—”
He paused again, breathing hard.
“On the Heron, it was you who brought us food and water when we were dying. And afterward, when Henshaw died, I jumped out before the mutineers and took command of them because I thought I could win back in Kate’s mind any ground which I’d lost before. I paraded the deck before her eyes; I gave commands; I was the man of the hour; I was driving the Heron to the shore in spite of the fire.”
“You were,” admitted Harrigan sadly. “It was a great work you did, McTee. It was that which won her—”
“But even when I was in command, you proved yourself the better man, Harrigan.”
The Irishman leaned back against the wall, gasping, weak with astonishment.
McTee went on: “I paraded the deck; I made a play to make her admire me, and for a while I succeeded, until the time came when you were carried up to the deck too weak to keep the men at work in the fireroom. Ah, Harrigan, that was a great moment to me. I said to Kate: ‘Harrigan has done well, but of course he can’t control men—his mind is too simple.’”
“Did you say that?” murmured Harrigan, and hatred made his voice soft, almost reverent.
“I did, and I went on: ‘I suppose I’ll have to go down there and drive the lads back to their work.’ So down I went, but you know what happened. They wouldn’t work for me. They stood around looking stupid at me and left me alone in the fireroom, and I had to come back on deck, in the sight of Kate, and rouse you out of your sleep and beg you to go back and try to make the lads keep at their work. And you got up to your knees, struggling to get back your consciousness! And you staggered to your feet, and you called to