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.
"I thought he was in here," said a voice at the door.
"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!"
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."
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.
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.
"Down the ladder! Run for it!" cried Harrigan to Campbell, and as the
engineer clambered down, he stood guard above.
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.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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