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 pa.s.sed it to the Scotchman.
The latter gripped the gla.s.s 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 the King of the South Seas!"
At the thought of his glories his face altered, as soldiers change when they receive the order to charge.
"You"re a rare man and a bold man, McTee, but you"ll never be what White Henshaw has been--the Shark of the Sea! Ha! Yet think of it! Ten years ago, after all my harvesting of the sea, I had not a dollar to show for it! Why? Because I was working for no woman. But here I am sailing home from my last voyage--rich! And why? Because for ten years I"ve been working for a woman. For ourselves we make and we spend. But for a woman we make and we save. Aye!"
"For a woman?" repeated McTee, wondering. "Do you mean to say--"
"Tut, man, it"s my granddaughter. Look!"
Perhaps the whisky had loosened the old man"s tongue; perhaps these confidences were merely a tribute to the name and fame of McTee; but whatever was the reason, McTee knew he was hearing things which had never been spoken before. Now Henshaw produced a leather wallet from which he selected two pictures, and handed one to the Scotchman. It showed a little girl of some ten years with her hair braided down her back. McTee looked his question.
"That picture was sent to me by my son ten years ago."
It showed the effect of time and rough usage. The edges of the cheap portrait were yellow and cracked.
"He was worthless, that son of mine. So I shut him out of my mind until I got a letter saying he was about to die and giving his daughter into my hands. That picture was in the letter. Ah, McTee, how I pored over it! For, you see, I saw the face of my wife in the face of the little girl, Beatrice. She had come back to life in the second generation. I suppose that happens sometimes.
"I made up my mind that night to make a fortune for little Beatrice.
First I sold my name and honor to get a half share and captaincy of a small tramp freighter. Then I went to the Solomon Islands. You know what I did there? Yes, the South Seas rang with it. It was brutal, but it brought me money.
"I sent enough of that money to the States to keep the girl in luxury.
The rest of it I put back into my trading ventures. I got a larger boat. I did unheard-of things; and everything I touched turned into gold. All into gold!
"From time to time I got letters from Beatrice. First they were careful scrawls which said nothing. Then the handwriting grew more fluent. It alarmed me to notice the growth of her mind; I was afraid that when I finally saw her, she would see in me only a barbarian. So I educated myself in odd hours. I"ve read a book while a hurricane was standing my ship on her beam ends."
McTee, leaning forward with a frown of almost painful interest, understood. He saw it in the wild light of the old man"s eyes; a species of insanity, this love of the old man for the child he had never seen.
"Notice my language now? Never a taint of the beach lingo in it. I rubbed all that out. Aye, McTee, it took me ten years to educate myself for that girl"s sake. In the meantime, I made money, as I"ve said. Ten years of that!
"Beatrice was in college, and six months ago I got the word that she had graduated. A month later I heard that she was going into a decline.
It was nothing very serious, but the doctors feared for the strength of her lungs. It made me glad. Now I knew that she would need me. An old man is like a woman, McTee; he needs to have things dependent on him.
"I turned everything I had into cash. I did it so hurriedly that I must have lost close to twenty per cent on the forced sales. What did I care? I had enough, and I made myself into a grandfather who could meet Beatrice"s educated friends on their own level.
"I kept this old ship, the _Heron_, out of the list of my boats. I am going back to Beatrice with gold in my hands and gold in my brain! All for her. But is she not worth it? Look!"
He thrust the second portrait into McTee"s hands. It showed a rather thin-faced girl with abnormally large eyes and a rather pathetic smile.
It was an appealing face rather than a pretty one.
"Beautiful!" said McTee with forced enthusiasm.
"Yes, beautiful! A little pinched, perhaps, but she"ll fill out as she grows older. And those are her grandmother"s eyes! Aye!"
He took the photograph and touched it lightly.
His voice grew lower, and the roughness was plainly a tremolo now: "The doctors say she"s sick, a little sick, quite sick, in fact. Twice every day I make them send me wireless reports of her condition. One day it"s better--one day it"s worse."
He began to walk the cabin, his step marvelously elastic and nervous for so aged a man.
"Is it not well, McTee? Let her be at death"s door! I shall come to her bedside with gold in either hand and raise her up to life! She shall owe everything to me! Will that not make her love me? Will it?"
He grasped McTee"s shoulder tightly.
"I"m not a pretty lad to look at, eh, lad?"
McTee poured himself a drink hastily, and drained the gla.s.s before he answered.
"A pretty man? Nonsense, Henshaw! A little weather-beaten, but a tight craft at that; she"ll worship the ground you walk! Character, Henshaw, that"s what these new American girls want to see in a man!"
Henshaw sighed with deep relief.
"Ah-h, McTee, you comfort me more than a drink on a stormy night! For reward, you shall see what I"m bringing back to her. Come!"
He rose and led McTee into his bedroom, for two cabins were retained for the captain"s use. Filling one corner of the room was a huge safe almost as tall as a man.
He squatted before the safe and commenced to work the combination with a swift sureness which told McTee at once that the old buccaneer came here many times a day to gloat over his treasure. At length the door of the safe fell open. Inside was a great ma.s.s of little canvas bags.
McTee was panting as if he had run a great distance at full speed.