Harrigan

The cabin boy did duty for all the dozen passengers, and therefore he was slow in answering.  When he appeared, she asked him to carry the captain word that she wished to speak with him.  He returned in a short time to say that Captain McTee would talk with her now in his cabin.  She followed aft to the captain’s room.  He did not rise when she entered, but turned in his chair and relinquished a long, black, fragrant cigar.

“Don’t stop smoking,” she said.  “I want you in a pleasant mood to hear what I have to say.”

Without reply he placed the cigar in his mouth and the bright black eyes fastened upon her.  That suddenly intent regard was startling, as if he had leaned over and spoken a word in her ear.  She shrugged her shoulders as if trying to shake off a compelling hand and then settled into a chair.

“I’ve come to say something that’s disagreeable for you to hear and for me to speak.”

Still he would not talk.  He was as silent as Harrigan.  She clenched her hands and drove bravely ahead.  She told how she had called the red-headed sailor up to the after-cabin and dressed his hurts, and she described succinctly, but with rising anger the raw and swollen condition of his fingers.  The captain listened with apparent enjoyment; she could not tell whether he was relishing her story or his slowly puffed cigar.  In the end she waited for his answer, but evidently none was forthcoming.

“Now,” she said at last, “I know something about ships and sailors, and I know that if this fellow was to appeal against you after you touch port, a judge would weigh a single word of yours against a whole sentence of Harrigan’s.  It would be a different matter if a disinterested person pressed a charge of cruelty against you.  I am such a person; I would press such a charge; I have the money, the time, and the inclination to do it.”

She read the slight hesitation in his manner, not as if he were impressed by what she had to say, but as though he was questioning himself as to whether he should give her any answer at all.  It made her wish fervently that she were a man—­and a big one.  He spoke then, as if an illuminating thought had occurred to him.

“You know Harrigan’s record?”

“No,” she admitted grudgingly.

McTee sighed as if with deep relief and leaned back in his chair.  His smile was sympathetic and it altered his face so marvelously that she caught her breath.

“Of course that explains it, Miss Malone.  I don’t doubt that he was clever enough to make you think him abused.”

“He didn’t say a word of accusation against anyone.”

“Naturally not.  When a man is bad enough to seem honest—­”

He drew a long, slow puff on his cigar by way of finishing his sentence and his eyes smiled kindly upon her.

“I knew that he would do his worst to start mutiny among the crew; I didn’t think he could get as far as the passengers.”

Her confidence was shaken to the ground.  Then a new suspicion came to her.

“If he is such a terrible character, why did you let him come aboard your ship?”

Instead of answering, he pulled a cord.  The bos’n appeared in a moment.

“Tell this lady how Harrigan came aboard,” ordered the captain, and he fastened a keen eye upon the bos’n.

“Made it on the jump while we was pullin’ out of dock,” said the sailor.  “Just managed to get his feet on the gangplank—­came within an ace of falling into the sea.”

“That’s all.”

The bos’n retreated and McTee turned back to Kate Malone.

“He had asked me to sign him up for this trip,” he explained.  “If I’d set him ashore, he’d probably have been in the police court the next morning.  So I let him stay.  To be perfectly frank with you, I had a vague hope that gratitude might make a decent sailor out of him for a few days.  But the very first night he started his work he began to talk discontent among the men in the forecastle, and such fellows are always ready to listen.  Of course I could throw Harrigan in irons and feed him on bread and water; my authority is absolute at sea.  But I don’t want to do that if I can help it.  Instead, I have been trying to discipline him with hard work.  He knows that he can come to me at any time and speak three words which will release him from his troubles.  But he won’t say them—­yet!”

“Really?” she breathed.

She began to feel deeply honored that such a man as McTee would make so long an explanation to her.

“Shall I call him up here and ask him to say them now?”

“Would you do that?  Captain McTee, I’m afraid that I’ve been very foolish to bother you in this matter, but—­”

He silenced her with a wave of the hand, and pulled the cord.

“Bring up Harrigan,” he said, when the bos’n appeared again.

“I’ve considered myself a judge of human nature,” she apologized, “but I shall think a long time before I venture another decision.”

“You’re wrong to feel that way.  It would take a shrewd judge to see through Harrigan unless his record were known.”

The door opened and the bos’n entered with Harrigan.  He fixed his eyes upon the captain without a glance for Kate Malone.

“Harrigan,” said McTee, “I’ve been telling Miss Malone that you can be released from your trouble by saying half a dozen words to me.  And you know that you can.  You will be treated better than anyone in the crew if you will put your hand in mine and say:  ’Captain McTee, I give you my word of honor as a man to do my best to obey orders during the rest of this trip and to hold no malice against you for anything that has happened to me so far.’

“For you see,” he explained to the girl, “he probably thinks himself aggrieved by my discipline.  Will you say it, Harrigan?”

Instead of answering, the cold eye of Harrigan turned on Kate.

“I told you not to speak to the captain,” he said.

“Ah,” said McTee, “you were clever enough for that?”

“Do you say nothing, Harrigan?” she said incredulously.  “Do you really refuse to speak those words to the captain after he has been generous enough to give you a last chance to make a man of yourself?”

Harrigan turned pale as he glanced at the captain.  Her scorn and contempt gave a little metallic ring to her voice.

“You need not be afraid.  Captain McTee hasn’t told me anything about your record.”

Harrigan smiled, but in such a manner that she stepped back.  “Easy,” said McTee, “you don’t need to fear him in here.  He knows that I’m his master.”

“I’m glad you didn’t tell me his record,” she answered.

“I can read it in his eyes.”

“Lady,” said Harrigan, and his head tilted back till the cords stood strongly out at the base of his throat, “I’m afther askin’ your pardon for thinkin’ ye had ever a dr-rop av hot Irish blood in ye.”

“Take him below, bos’n,” broke in McTee, “and put him in on the night shift in the fireroom.”

No hours of Harrigan’s life were bitterer than that night shift.  The bandages saved his hands from much of the torture of the shovel handle, but there was deep night in his heart.  Early in the morning one of the firemen ran to the chief engineer’s room and forced open the door.

“The red-headed man, sir,” he stammered breathlessly.

The chief engineer awoke with a snarl.  He had drunk much good Scotch whisky that evening, and the smoke of it was still dry in his throat and cloudy in his brain.

“And what the hell is wrong with the red-headed man now?” he roared.  “Ain’t he doin’ two men’s work still?”

“Two?  He’s doin’ ten men’s work with his hands rolled in cloth and the blood soakin’ through, an’ he sings like a devil while he works.  He’s gone crazy, sir.”

“Naw, he ain’t,” growled the chief; “that’ll come later.  Black McTee is breakin’ him an’ he’ll be broke before he goes off his nut.  Now get to hell out of here.  I ain’t slept a wink for ten days.”

The fireman went back to his work muttering, and Harrigan sang the rest of the night.