"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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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