“I’ll get even with you without needing to dirty my hands,” saidhis enemy. “You’ll wish you had never set foot in this house beforeI am through with you!”
“No time like the present,” cried McMurdo.
“I’ll choose my own time, mister. You can leave the time to me.
See here!” He suddenly rolled up his sleeve and showed upon hisforearm a peculiar sign which appeared to have been brandedthere. It was a circle with a triangle within it. “D’you know whatthat means?”
“I neither know nor care!”
“Well, you will know, I’ll promise you that. You won’t be mucholder, either. Perhaps Miss Ettie can tell you something about it.
As to you, Ettie, you’ll come back to me on your knees—d’ye hear,girl? —on your knees—and then I’ll tell you what your punishmentmay be. You’ve sowed—and by the Lord, I’ll see that you reap!” Heglanced at them both in fury. Then he turned upon his heel, andan instant later the outer door had banged behind him.
For a few moments McMurdo and the girl stood in silence.
Then she threw her arms around him.
“Oh, Jack, how brave you were! But it is no use, you must fly!
To-night—Jack—to-night! It’s your only hope. He will have yourlife. I read it in his horrible eyes. What chance have you against adozen of them, with Boss McGinty and all the power of the lodgebehind them?”
McMurdo disengaged her hands, kissed her, and gently pushedher back into a chair. “There, acushla, there! Don’t be disturbedor fear for me. I’m a Freeman myself. I’m after telling your fatherabout it. Maybe I am no better than the others; so don’t make asaint of me. Perhaps you hate me too, now that I’ve told you asmuch?”
“Hate you, Jack? While life lasts I could never do that! I’veheard that there is no harm in being a Freeman anywhere but here;so why should I think the worse of you for that? But if you are aFreeman, Jack, why should you not go down and make a friend ofBoss McGinty? Oh, hurry, Jack, hurry! Get your word in first, orthe hounds will be on your trail.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said McMurdo. “I’ll go rightnow and fix it. You can tell your father that I’ll sleep here to-nightand find some other quarters in the morning.”
The bar of McGinty’s saloon was crowded as usual; for it wasthe favourite loafing place of all the rougher elements of the town.
The man was popular; for he had a rough, jovial disposition whichformed a mask, covering a great deal which lay behind it. But apartfrom this popularity, the fear in which he was held throughout thetownship, and indeed down the whole thirty miles of the valleyand past the mountains on each side of it, was enough in itself tofill his bar; for none could afford to neglect his good will.
Besides those secret powers which it was universally believedthat he exercised in so pitiless a fashion, he was a high publicofficial, a municipal councillor, and a commissioner of roads,elected to the office through the votes of the ruffians who in turnexpected to receive favours at his hands. Assessments and taxeswere enormous; the public works were notoriously neglected, theaccounts were slurred over by bribed auditors, and the decentcitizen was terrorized into paying public blackmail, and holdinghis tongue lest some worse thing befall him.
Thus it was that, year by year, Boss McGinty’s diamond pinsbecame more obtrusive, his gold chains more weighty across amore gorgeous vest, and his saloon stretched farther and farther,until it threatened to absorb one whole side of the Market Square.
McMurdo pushed open the swinging door of the saloonand made his way amid the crowd of men within, through anatmosphere blurred with tobacco smoke and heavy with the smellof spirits. The place was brilliantly lighted, and the huge, heavilygilt mirrors upon every wall reflected and multiplied the garishillumination. There were several bartenders in their shirt sleeves,hard at work mixing drinks for the loungers who fringed thebroad, brass-trimmed counter.
At the far end, with his body resting upon the bar and a cigarstuck at an acute angle from the corner of his mouth, stood atall, strong, heavily built man who could be none other than thefamous McGinty himself. He was a black-maned giant, bearded tothe cheek-bones, and with a shock of raven hair which fell to hiscollar. His complexion was as swarthy as that of an Italian, and hiseyes were of a strange dead black, which, combined with a slightsquint, gave them a particularly sinister appearance.
All else in the man—his noble proportions, his fine features,and his frank bearing—fitted in with that jovial, man-to-manmanner which he affected. Here, one would say, is a bluff, honestfellow, whose heart would be sound however rude his outspokenwords might seem. It was only when those dead, dark eyes, deepand remorseless, were turned upon a man that he shrank withinhimself, feeling that he was face to face with an infinite possibilityof latent evil, with a strength and courage and cunning behind itwhich made it a thousand times more deadly.
Having had a good look at his man, McMurdo elbowed hisway forward with his usual careless audacity, and pushed himselfthrough the little group of courtiers who were fawning upon thepowerful boss, laughing uproariously at the smallest of his jokes.
The young stranger’s bold gray eyes looked back fearlessly throughtheir glasses at the deadly black ones which turned sharply uponhim.
“Well, young man, I can’t call your face to mind.”
“I’m new here, Mr. McGinty.”
“You are not so new that you can’t give a gentleman his propertitle.”
“He’s Councillor McGinty, young man,” said a voice from thegroup.
“I’m sorry, Councillor. I’m strange to the ways of the place. ButI was advised to see you.”
“Well, you see me. This is all there is. What d’you think of me?”
“Well, it’s early days. If your heart is as big as your body, andyour soul as fine as your face, then I’d ask for nothing better,” saidMcMurdo.