<h2 id="id02020" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER 36</h2>
<p id="id02021" style="margin-top: 2em">"This man Campbell," said Harrigan, "he's a true man, McTee, and he
stood up to White Henshaw for my sake—for the sake of me and his
Bobbie Burns. They plan to take him to hell tomorrow, Angus, and I've
an idea that there's one chance in the thousand that I could steal in
on the dogs tonight and bring him back with me."</p>
<p id="id02022">"Can they do anything worse to him than they're doing to us?"</p>
<p id="id02023">"Maybe not, but my heart would lie easier, McTee. I'll wait for the
fever o' the sun to go out of me head an' for the crew to get drunk an'
a little drunker."</p>
<p id="id02024">So they waited while the noise of the nightly carousal waxed high and
higher, and then died away by slow degrees. At length Harrigan stood
up, gripped the hand of McTee in silent farewell, heard a whispered
"Good luck!" and slipped noiselessly down the ladder and started across
the deck in the shadow of the rail. From any portion of the main cabin
eyes might be watching him; there was only the one chance in ten that
the lookout whom Hovey had certainly stationed would not perceive him
as he crept along under the shadow. Accordingly he went blindly
forward.</p>
<p id="id02025">If the lookout saw him, at least there was no outcry, no general alarm.
He stood flat against the wall of the main cabin at length and
rehearsed a plan, listening the while to the lapping of the waves
against the side of the ship. Then he stole step by step up the ladder
to the upper deck. His head was already above the ladder when he heard
the light padding of a bare foot and saw a figure around the corner of
the cabin.</p>
<p id="id02026">Harrigan ducked out of sight and clung to the iron rounds ready to leap
up and strike if the sailor should descend the ladder, though in that
case the alarm would be given and his errand spoiled; but the sailor
was apparently the lookout set there by Hovey. He stayed at the head of
the ladder a moment, humming to himself, and then turned and walked on
his beat to the other side of the ship. Harrigan slipped onto the deck
and ran noiselessly to the side of the cabin. Here he flattened himself
against the wall until the sentinel had again made the turn of his
beat, and as the latter moved dimly out of sight through the darkness,
the Irishman stole down the deck toward the forward cabins.</p>
<p id="id02027">The first two windows showed dark and empty; if there were anyone
inside, he must be asleep in the drunken torpor into which most of the
crew seemed to have fallen. The door of the third room, formerly
occupied by the second mate, stood ajar, and here by the dull light of
an oil lantern, he saw Campbell tied hand and foot to a chair. He was
placed close to a little table whereon sat a bottle of whisky, a siphon
of seltzer, a tall glass, meat, bread, water—everything, in fact, with
which the senses of the starving man could be tormented. And near him,
sitting with elbows spread out on the edge of the table, was one of the
firemen, grinning continually as if he had just heard some monstrous
joke. The expression of Campbell was just as fixed, for his small eyes
shifted eagerly, swiftly, from the food to the water, and back again.</p>
<p id="id02028">The fireman—the same tall, gaunt fellow who had demanded that Hovey
turn over Campbell to him and his companions that day—now leaned
forward and raised a dipper of water from a bucket which sat on the
floor, and allowed it to trickle back, splashing with what seemed to
Harrigan the sweetest music in the world. Hovey must have taught him
that trick, and its effect upon Campbell was worse than the beating of
the whips. The fireman let his head roll loosely back as he laughed,
and while his head was still back and his eyes squinting shut in the
ecstasy of his delight, Harrigan leaped from the shadow of the door and
struck at the throat—at the great Adam's apple which shook with the
laughter. The blow must have nearly broken the man's neck. His head
jerked forward with a whistling gasp of breath, and as he reached for
the knife on the table, Harrigan struck again, this time just behind
the ear. The man slid from his chair to the floor and lay in a queer
heap—as if all the bones in his body were broken.</p>
<p id="id02029">"Harrigan! Harrigan! Harrigan!" Campbell was whispering over and over,
but still his eyes held like those of a starved wolf on the food. The
moment his ropes were cut, he buried his teeth in the great chunk of
roasted meat.</p>
<p id="id02030">Harrigan jerked him away and held him by main force.</p>
<p id="id02031">"Be a man!" he whispered. "We've got to take this food and this water
back to the wireless house—if we can get there with it. Take hold of
yourself, Campbell!"</p>
<p id="id02032">The engineer nodded. Voices came close down the deck; instantly
Harrigan jerked up the glass globe which protected the lantern's flame
and blew out the light. They crouched shoulder to shoulder.</p>
<p id="id02033">"I thought he was in here," said a voice at the door.</p>
<p id="id02034">"He was," answered Hovey's voice, "but I guess they took him below—
they said it was too cool for him up there. Ha, ha, ha!"</p>
<p id="id02035">Their steps disappeared down the deck. After that Harrigan dared not
show a light in the cabin window. He and Campbell located the meat and
bread, which were given into the engineer's keeping, while Harrigan
took the bucket of water. They slipped out onto the deck and hurried
aft, keeping close to the side of the cabin, for the starlight would
show their figures to any watchful eyes. At the rear edge of the cabin
Harrigan halted Campbell and whispered: "There's a guard here. I got
past him in the dark, but two of us loaded down like this can never go
unseen down that ladder. We've got to get rid of him."</p>
<p id="id02036">And he pulled out the knife which he had kept with him ever since the
outbreak of the mutiny. They waited without daring to draw breath until
the sailor came padding by with his naked feet. Harrigan crept out
behind him, and when the sailor turned at the rail, the Irishman leaped
in and struck, not with the blade, but with the haft of the knife; he
could not kill from behind.</p>
<p id="id02037">If it had been a solid blow, the sailor would have crumpled silently as
the fireman had done a few moments before, but the impact glanced and
merely cut his scalp as it knocked him down. He fell with a shout which
was instantly answered from the front of the ship.</p>
<p id="id02038">"Down the ladder! Run for it!" cried Harrigan to Campbell, and as the
engineer clambered down, he stood guard above.</p>
<p id="id02039">The sailor leaped up from the deck and lunged with a knife gleaming in
his hand, but Harrigan slashed him across the arm, and he fled howling
into the dark. Before Hovey and his men could reach the spot, Harrigan
had climbed down the ladder with his precious bucket and was fleeing
aft to the wireless house.</p>
<p id="id02040">As he reached it, lights were showing from the main cabin, and there
were choruses of yells announcing the discovery that Campbell was
missed. But Harrigan and the rest of the fugitives scarcely heard the
sounds. The Irishman was busy measuring as carefully as he could in the
dark dippers of water which the others drank.</p>
<p id="id02041">There was no sleep that night, partly from fear lest the infuriated
mutineers should at last attempt to rush the wireless house, partly
because they ate sparingly but long of the meat which Harrigan carved
for them, and the bread, and partly also because of a singular odor
which they had not noticed when they were tortured by thirst and
hunger, and which now they observed for the first time. It was
peculiarly pungent and heavy with a sickening suggestion of sweetness
about it. None of them could describe it, saving Harrigan, who had been
much in the country and likened the odor to the smell of an old straw
stack which lay molding and rotting.</p>
<p id="id02042">It seemed to increase—that smell—during the night, probably because
their strength was returning and all their senses grew more acute. It
was a torrid night, without moon, so that the blanket of dark pressed
the heat down upon them and seemed to stifle the very breath.</p>
<p id="id02043">With the coming of the first light of the dawn they noticed a peculiar
phenomenon. Perhaps it was because of the evaporation of water under
the fire of the sun, but the <i>Heron</i> seemed to be surrounded with a
white vapor which rose shimmering in the slant rays of the morning. But
even when the sun had risen well up in the sky, the vapor was still
visible, clinging like a wraith about the ship. They wondered idly upon
it, and wondered still more at the heat, which was now intense. They
were interrupted in their conjectures by the call of Kate summoning
them to the wireless house where Henshaw lay apparently at the last
gasp.</p>
<p id="id02044">He had altered marvelously in the past two days. That resemblance which
he had always had to a mummy was now oddly intensified, for the cheeks
were fallen, the neck withered to scarcely half its former size, the
eyes sunk in purple hollows. He murmured without ceasing, his voice now
rising hardly above a low whisper. Kate sat beside him, passing her
hands slowly over his temples, for he complained of a fire rising
within his brain.</p>
<p id="id02045">His complaints died away under her touches, and he said at last, calmly
but very, very faintly: "Beatrice, there is one thing I have not yet
told you."</p>
<p id="id02046">"Yes?" she asked gently, though she averted her eyes, for all the long
hours he had filled with the stories of his crimes upon earth were
poured into the ear of the spirit of his Beatrice, as he thought. One
last and crowning atrocity was yet to be told.</p>
<p id="id02047">"I have left out the greatest thing of all."</p>
<p id="id02048">He paused to smile at the memory.</p>
<p id="id02049">"You remember Samson's death, Beatrice? And how he pulled the house
down on the shoulders of his enemies?"</p>
<p id="id02050">"Yes."</p>
<p id="id02051">"That was a wonderful way to die—wonderful! But I, Beatrice, look at
me, child!—I have surpassed Samson! Listen! You will wonder and you
will admire when you hear it! When I got the word that you were dead, I
knew two things: first, that the prophecy of my death at sea would come
true, and secondly that my gold must perish with me. You will never
guess how long I pondered over a way to destroy my gold before I died!
You will think I could have simply thrown it into the sea? Yes, but the
ship was filled with men ready to mutiny, and they were hungry for my
wealth. They would never have allowed me to destroy that gold! So I
thought of a way—ah, it was an inspiration!—by which I could destroy
my body, my wealth, and the lives of all the mutineers at once. Like
Samson, I would pull the house on the heads of my enemies. Ha, ha, ha!"</p>
<p id="id02052">His laughter was rather a grimace than a sound.</p>
<p id="id02053">He went on: "See how cunningly, how carefully I worked! First I blew up
the three lifeboats so that there would be no escape for the crew. Then
I tampered with the dynamo so that it burned out, and they could not
send out a wireless call for help. That touch was the best of all.
Well, well! Then I went down into the hold, deep down, and I started a
fire in the cargo. And then—"</p>
<p id="id02054">"Oh, my God!" stammered Sloan.</p>
<p id="id02055">The others were white, but they gestured at Sloan to silence him. The
whisper continued: "And then I knew that they were done for. The wheat
would not break into a sudden flame, but it would smolder and glow and
spread from hour to hour and from day to day. The crew would know
nothing of it for a long time. But when they guessed at what was
happening, they would open the hatches to fight the fire with water.
Then what would happen? Ah, my dear, there was the crowning touch; for
when they opened the hatches, the current of air would feed the fire
and the ship would be instantly in flames. And so they would burn like
dogs with water, water all around them, and no boats to put off in—no
boats. Ha, ha, ha!"</p>
<p id="id02056">He choked with his laughter and gasped for breath.</p>
<p id="id02057">"If it were possible for a bodiless spirit to perish, I should think
that I am dying twice, Beatrice. The air is thick—this air of hell!"</p>
<p id="id02058">He broke off short in his whispering and raised himself suddenly to an
elbow. With the coming of death his voice grew strong and rang clearly:
"They are in the corners—they are coming closer! Beatrice! Brush them
away with your fingers as cold as snow. Beatrice, oh, my dear!"</p>
<p id="id02059">And he was dead as he fell back on the bunk.</p>
<p id="id02060">Sloan was already on the deck outside the wireless house, shrieking
with all the power of his lungs: "Fire! Fire! The wheat in the hold!"</p>
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