He succeeded, but the effort checked the slide of Harrigan's great body, and the next instant the Irishman was on his feet. He drove at the elusive figure with his balled fist, but the other ducked beneath the blow and fled down the ladder. Harrigan stopped only long enough to sweep up the fallen knife before he followed, but when he reached the edge of the deck, the waist of the ship extending back to the main cabin was empty. The man, whoever he was, must have fled into the forecastle.
Harrigan knew that if one of the sailors had dared to attack him, he must be suspected, and if he was suspected by one, that one would poison the minds of a dozen others in a short time. It was even possible that someone in authority had given orders for his death. With this in mind he climbed down the ladder and opened the door of the forecastle. He found the sailors sitting in a loose circle on the floor rolling battered dice out of a time-blackened leather box.
Harrigan sat down on the edge of his bunk, produced the captured knife, and commenced to sharpen it slowly, without ostentation, on the sole of his shoe. It was already of a razor keenness. It was a carving knife evidently stolen from the galley of the ship; it had been ground so often that the steel which remained was thin and narrow. A sharp blow with that knife would drive it to the handle through human flesh. As he passed it slowly back and forth across his shoe, Harrigan watched the faces of the others with a side glance.
One or two looked up frankly and nodded approval when they saw his occupation. The others, however, kept at their game, and of these the only one to pay no attention to his presence was Jerry Hovey. It convinced Harrigan at once that the bos'n had given orders for his death. It might have been the bos'n himself who had made the attempt just a moment before and had retreated to the forecastle.
On the other hand, the bos'n seemed to be breathing regularly, and the man with whom he had fought would not be able to keep his chest from heaving a little after that violent effort. It was more probable that one of the men who lay in their bunks had made the attempt, but it would be useless to examine them. Then his glance fell on Kamasura, the cabin boy.
The little, flat-faced Jap was a favorite with Jerry Hovey, and he was permitted to come forward whenever he pleased to the forecastle. He now sat on a box against a wall, watching the dice game with his slant eyes. Once or twice he met the searching scrutiny of Harrigan with a calm glance, and when it was repeated for the third time, nodded and grinned in the most friendly manner.
Harrigan was about to dismiss his suspicion from his mind, when he noticed that the Jap's arms were folded and the hands thrust up the opposite sleeves, concealing both wrists. Harrigan considered a moment, and then stooped over and commenced to unlace his boots. When the first one was unloosened, he kicked it off, but with such careless vigor that it skidded far across the floor and smashed against the box on which Kamasura sat. The little Oriental leaped to his feet and caught up the shoe. As he did so, Harrigan's watchful eye saw a bright-red spot on the Jap's wrist. That was where the grip of his fingers had lain when they struggled on the deck above.
"'Scuse me, Kamasura," he called cheerily, and raised his hand to betoken that the boot had come from him.
There was a flash of teeth and a glint of almond eyes as the Jap grinned in answer and the boot was tossed back. Harrigan caught it, but his eye was not on the shoe. He was staring covertly at Jerry Hovey, and now he saw the gray-blue eyes of the bos'n flash up and glance with a singular meaning at Kamasura. If he had heard every detail of the plot, Harrigan could not have understood more fully. Thereafter, every moment he spent on the Heron would be full of danger, but apparently Hovey had confided his hatred of the Irishman to Kamasura alone. If Hovey had spoken to the rest of the forecastle, those blunt sailors would have showed their feelings by some scowling side glance at Harrigan. It flashed across his mind that the reason Hovey wished him out of the way was because he feared him.