But Michael Joseph Murphy was out of the fight. He lay prone on the deck, conscious but helpless, and because his broken rib was tickling his lung the froth on his lips bore a little tinge of pink. Only his eyes moved—and they smiled at Terence Reardon as the triumphant exiles of Erin faced each other.
Terence Reardon turned and shook his battered fists full into the rays of the searchlight. He was magnificent for one brief instant; then the war-madness left him, and again he was plain, faithful, whimsical, capable, honest Terence P. Reardon, chief engineer of the S.S. Narcissus, who considered it a pleasure to discourse on the fairies when he had nothing more important to do. Now that the fight was over and the German fleet had overhauled them at last, he had time to think of Mrs. Reardon and the children and his best job gone for ever—tossed into the discard with his honor as a faithful servant.
He sat down very suddenly on the hatch-coaming and covered his terrible face with his terrible hands.
“Ah, Norah! Norah!” he cried—and sobbed as if his heart must break.
CHAPTER XX
When Captain the Hon. Desmond O'Hara, of H.M.S. Panther, boarded the steamer Narcissus via the Jacob's ladder Mr. Reardon hove overside at his command, he paused a moment, balanced on the ship's rail, and stared.
“My word!” he said, and leaped to the deck, to make room for a pink-and-white middy. The pink-and-white one stared and said “My aunt!” Then he, too, leaped to the deck, and a stocky cockney blue-jacket poked his nose over the rail.
“Damn my eyes!” said this individual. “'Ere's a bloomin' mess!”