Black Dennis Nolan lost his temper then.  He gripped Nick by the shoulder, swore at him, shook him about, and threatened to knock his head off.  Had Nick been one of the mutineers, the chances are ten to one that he would have been floored and beaten half to death.  But even in the full fury of his rage the skipper did not lose sight of the fact that this fellow was a loyal slave.  He did not love Nick, but he loved his dog-like devotion.  So he kept his right hand down at his side, and it cost him a mighty effort of restraint, and contented himself with cursing and shaking.  The boy stared at the two wide-eyed, and the old woman smoked and nodded without so much as a glance at them.  At last the skipper unhooked his fingers from Nick’s shoulder, laughed harshly and returned to his seat.

“Luck?” he said, derisively.  “The luck o’ Father McQueen bes the protection o’ the holy saints above.  An’ my luck bes the strength o’ my heart an’ my wits, Nick Leary.  I saves a woman from a wrack an’ brings her into my own house—­an’ ye names her for a mermaid an’ a she-divil!  Maybe ye holds wid Dick Lynch ’twas herself kilt the t’ree lads in the cabin—­an’ her in this house all the time, innocent as a babe.”

Leary made the sign of the cross quickly and furtively.

“Nay, skipper; but the divil was in that wrack,” he said.  “The lads got to fightin’ over the gold, skipper, an’ Dick Lynch slipped his knife into Pat Brennen.  Sure, the divil come ashore from that wrack.  Never afore did them two pull their knives on each other; an’ now Pat Brennen lays bleedin’ his life out.  The divil bes got into the lads o’ Chance Along, nary a doubt, an’ the black luck has come to the harbor.”

“The divil an’ the black luck bes in their own stinkin’ hearts!” exclaimed Nolan, violently.

“Aye, skipper; but they says it bes her ye brought ashore put the curse on to us—­an’ now they bes comin’ this way, skipper, to tell ye to run her out o’ yer house.”

“What d’ye say?” cried the skipper, springing from his chair.  “Run her out, ye say?”

He trembled with fury, burned the air with oaths, and called down all the curses known to tradition upon the heads of the men of Chance Along.  He snatched up a stout billet of birch, green and heavy, wrenched open the door, and sprang into the outer gloom.

Nick Leary’s story was true.  The mutineers had consumed the brandy, come to hot words over the sharing of the gold, dropped their dead and wounded, and commenced to curse, kick and hit at one another with clubs.  Then Dick Lynch had put his knife into a young man named Pat Brennen, a nephew of the loyal Bill.  Panic had brought the fight to a drunken, slobbering finish.

“There bes four strong lads kilt in one day!” some one had cried.  “The black curse bes on us!  The divil bes in it!”