"Look here," said the bos'n cautiously. "We hear there was once some trouble between you and Harrigan?"
"Well?"
"Would you waste much tune if somethin' was to happen to him—say in the middle of the night, silent and unexpected?"
"I would not! Take him by the foot and heave him into the sea. Very good idea, Hovey. Is he getting the eyes of the lads too much?"
Hovey fenced: "He's a landlubber, and he don't understand sea things.
He's better out of the way."
"How'll you do it?" asked McTee softly. "Speak out, Hovey. Would you try your own hand on Harrigan?"
"Not me! I know a better way. There's one that's in the mutiny who has a hand as strong as mine—almost—and a foot as silent as the paw of a cat. I'll give him the tip."
"And now for the details of the attack," said McTee, anxious not to lay too much stress upon the destruction of Harrigan.
"Here it is," answered Hovey, and entered into an elaborate description of all their plans. McTee listened with faraway eyes. He heard the words, but he was thinking of the death of Harrigan.
That invincible Irishman, after his talk with Hovey in front of the cabin of Kate, returned to the cool room of the chief engineer. The worthy Campbell, in wait for the ultimatum of White Henshaw, had been fortifying himself steadily with liquor, and by the middle of the afternoon he had reached a state in which he had no care for consequences; he would have defied all the powers upon earth and beyond it.