"You've seen her, and she's told you this," exclaimed the captain.
Harrigan chuckled his triumph and went on with the scrubbing of the bridge.
"No, Angus, me dear, I've not seen her, but when two souls are as close as hers and mine—well, cap'n, I leave it to you!"
McTee ground his teeth with rage and turned his back on the worker for a moment until he could master the contorted muscles of his face.
"Tut, McTee," went on the Irishman, "you've but felt the tickle of the spur; when I drive it in, you'll yell like a whipped kid. Always you play into me hands, McTee. Now when you see Kate, you'll feel me grin in the background mockin' ye, eh?"
The banter gave the captain a shrewd inspiration. He leaned, and catching one of Harrigan's hands with a quick movement, turned it palm up. It was as he suspected; the palm, though red from the effect of the strong suds and still scarcely healed after the torment of the Mary Rogers, was nevertheless manifestly unharmed by the labor which it was supposed Harrigan had performed the day before. The hand was wrenched away and a balled fist held under McTee's nose.
"If you're curious, Angus, look at me knuckles, not me palm. It's the knuckles you'll feel the most, cap'n."
CHAPTER 22
But McTee, deep in thought, was walking from the bridge. He went straight to the hole of the ship and questioned some of the firemen, and they told him that Harrigan had done no work passing coal the day before; Campbell, it appeared, had taken him for some special job. With this tidings the Scotchman hastened back to Henshaw.
"The game's slipping through our hands, captain," he said.