“Black McTee shipwrecked! By God, if we get to port with our old tramp, I’ll get a farm and stick to dry land.”
“Your ship?”
“The Heron, four thousand tons, White Henshaw, skipper.”
“White Henshaw?” cried McTee in almost reverent tones.
“The same. Old White still sticks to his wheel. He’s as hard a man as you, McTee, in his own way.”
They were pulling close to the freighter by this time, and Salvain gave quick orders to lay the boat alongside. In another moment they stood on the deck, where a tall man in white clothes advanced to meet them.
“Good fishing, sir,” said Salvain. “We’ve picked up three shipwrecked people, with Angus McTee among them.”
“Black McTee!” cried the other, and even in the dim light he picked out the towering form of the Scotchman.
“It took a wreck to bring us together, Captain Henshaw,” said McTee, “but here we are, I’ve combed the South Seas for ten years for the sake of meeting you.”
“H-m!” grunted Henshaw. “We’ll drink on the strength of that. Come into the cabin.”
They trooped after him, Salvain and the three rescued, and stood in the roomy cabin, the captain and the first mate dapper and cool in their white uniforms, the other three marvelously ragged. Barefooted, their hair falling in jags across their foreheads, their muscles bulging through the rents in their shirts, McTee and Harrigan looked battered but triumphant. Kate Malone might have been the prize which they had safely carried away. She was even more ragged than her companions, and now she withdrew into a shadowy corner of the cabin and shook the long, loose masses of her hair about her shoulders.
CHAPTER 16
The dark eye of Pietro Salvain was quick to note her condition. He was a rather small, lean-faced man with the skin drawn so tightly across his high cheekbones that it glistened. He was emaciated; his energy consumed him as hunger consumes other men.
“There is a berth for me below,” he said to Kate. “You must take my room. And I have a cap, some silk shirts, a loose coat which you might wear—so?”
“This is Miss Malone, Salvain,” said McTee before she could answer.
“You are very kind, Mr. Salvain,” she said.
He smiled and bowed very low, and then opened the door for her; but all the while his glance was upon McTee, who stared at him so significantly that before following Kate through the door, Salvain shrugged his shoulders and made a gesture of resignation.
The captain turned to Harrigan. Henshaw was very old. He was always so erect and carried his chin so high that the loose skin of his throat hung in two sharp ridges. In spite of the tight-lipped mouth, the beaklike nose, and the small, gleaming eyes, there was something about his face which intensified his age. Perhaps it was the yellow skin, dry as the parchment from an Egyptian tomb and criss-crossed by a myriad little wrinkles.
“And you, sir?” he said to the Irishman.
“One of my crew,” broke in McTee carelessly. “He’ll be quite contented in the forecastle. Eh, Harrigan?”
“Quite,” said Harrigan, and his glance acknowledged the state of war.
“Then if you’ll go forward, Harrigan,” said the captain, and his voice was dry and dead as his skin—“if you’ll go forward and report to the bos’n, he’ll see that you have a bunk.”
“Thank you, sir,” murmured Harrigan, and slipped from the room on his bare feet.
“That man,” stated Henshaw, “is as strong as you are, McTee, and yet they call you the huskiest sailor of the South Seas.”
“He is almost as strong,” answered McTee with a certain emphasis.
Something like a smile appeared in the eyes of Henshaw, but did not disturb the fixed lines of his mouth. For a moment Henshaw and McTee measured each other.
The Scotchman spoke first: “Captain, you’re as keen as the stories they tell of you.”
“And you’re as hard, McTee.”
The latter waved the somewhat dubious compliment away.
“I was breaking that fellow, and he held out longer than any man I’ve ever handled. The shipwreck interrupted me, or I would have finished what I started.”
“You’d like to have me finish what you began?”
“You read my mind.”
“Discipline is a great thing.”
“Absolutely necessary at sea.”
Henshaw answered coldly: “There’s no need for us to act the hypocrite, eh?”
McTee hesitated, and then grinned: “Not a bit. I know what you did twenty years ago in the Solomons.”
“And I know the story of you and the pearl divers.”
“That’s enough.”
“Quite.”
“And Harrigan?”
“As a favor to you, McTee, I’ll break him. Maybe you’ll be interested in my methods.”
“Try mine first. I made him scrub down the bridge with suds every morning, and while his hands were puffed and soft, I sent him down to the fireroom to pass coal.”
“He’ll kill you someday.”
“If he can.”
They smiled strangely at each other.
A knock came at the door, and Salvain entered, radiant.
“She is divine!” he cried. “Her hair is old copper with golden lights. McTee, if she is yours, you have found another Venus!”
“If she is not mine,” answered McTee, “at least she belongs to no other man.”
Salvain studied him, first with eagerness, then with doubt, and last of all with despair.
“If any other man said that I would question it—so!—with my life. But McTee? No, I love life too well!”
“Now,” Henshaw said to Salvain, “Captain McTee and I have business to talk.”
“Aye, sir,” said Salvain.
“One minute, Salvain,” broke in McTee. “I haven’t thanked you in the girl’s name for taking care of Miss Malone.”
The first mate paused at the door.
“I begin to wonder, captain,” he answered, “whether or not you have the right to thank me in her name!”
He disappeared through the door without waiting for an answer.
“Salvain has forgotten me,” muttered McTee, balling his fist, “but I’ll freshen his memory.”
He flushed as he became aware of the cold eye of Henshaw upon him.
“Even Samson fell,” said the old man. “But she hasn’t cut your hair yet, McTee?”
“What the devil do you mean?”
Henshaw silently poured another drink and passed it to the Scotchman. The latter gripped the glass hard and tossed off the drink with a single gesture. At once his eyes came back to Henshaw’s face with the fierce question. He was astonished to note kindliness in the answering gaze.
Old Henshaw said gently: “Tut, tut! You’re a proper man, McTee, and a proper man has always the thought of some woman tucked away in his heart. Look at me! For almost sixty years I’ve been