Costigan

“ Mr. Costigan’s career has been a very able one. He is a clear-headed, firm-handed administrator, and has his department thoroughly under control. His admirers a few years ago presented him with a splendid residence in Ottawa. Mr. Costigan in politics is a Conservative, and in religion a Roman Catholic. He married, in 1855, Harriet, daughter of John Ryan, of Grand Falls, New Brunswick.
Barnard, Edmund, Advocate, Montreal, Quebec, was born at Three Rivers, on 23rd January, 1831. ”

“ The change had been so sudden and the crowd just recovering from its surprise at Costigan's flaying attack that it looked like magic. One instant a red-shirted Irishman, his clothing torn into shreds, lovingly balancing his favorite weapon; the next, a calm, cold-faced, blue-shirted, leather-chapped gunman, bending eagerly forward behind the pair of out-thrust Colts, his thumbs holding back swift death in each hand.
"The devil!" growled a miner.
"Aye!" snapped Tex. "An' I'll find work for idle hands to do! Why do you stop and turn away? Here lies th' road to Rome!" ”

“ Twice has Costigan implored the lieutenant to come down anyhow, so long as his crippled condition prevents his firing a gun, but Drummond pokes his bandaged head one instant over the edge to shout something to the effect that he is "on deck" until he has seen the last man down, and Costigan knows it is useless to argue. At last the barricade is ready. Walsh, peering grimly around, just the top of his head showing over the parapet, begs for one shot and shouts his Hibernian challenge to the Apache nation to come forth and show itself. ”

“ He's a good pilot, too. Another good thing about Costigan is that he's loyal, and a man who knows how to keep his tongue resting in the back of his mouth.
"Besides Costigan, there are three quartermasters and seven men in the crew. We have also a cook and helper, a cabin steward and a men's steward. That's the whole outfit. We have no one, at present, in the engine-room department. You have men with you to fill out those positions, haven't you, Captain?"
"Yes, sir." ”

“ Through the aperture thus made Costigan could plainly see the pirate in the space-armor of the chief engineer—an armor which was proof against rifle fire and which could reflect and neutralize for some little time even the terrific beam Costigan was employing. Nor was the pirate unarmed—a vicious flare of incandescence leaped from his Lewiston, to spend its force in spitting, crackling pyrotechnics against the ether-wall of the squat and monstrous Standish. ”

“ But powerful as were the propellant forces of the lifeboat and fiercely though Costigan applied them, the denizens of the deep clamped a tractor beam upon the flying vessel before it had gained a mile of altitude. Costigan aligned his every driving projector as his vessel came to an abrupt halt in the invisible grip of the beam, then experimented with various dials. ”

“ One fine morning in August, farmer Costigan sallied forth at the head of a regiment of reapers armed for the destruction of a large field of wheat, but scarcely had he got outside his yard when he missed two of his most efficient men—his two sons.
“Where can those gorsoons ov mine be, boys?” inquired he of the reapers. “In the arms ov Murphy, to be sure,” answered a little shrill-piped fellow, the crack orator of the country, which, and the circumstance of his name being alike, procured him the cognomen of “Counsellor Shiel.” ”

“ If we meet anybody it'll mean a battle. Hold it!" Peering through walls with his spy-ray, Costigan had seen two men approaching, blocking an intersecting corridor into which they must turn. "Two of 'em, a man and a robot--the robot's on your side. We'll wait here, right at the corner--when they round it, take 'em!" And Costigan put away his goggles in readiness for strife. ”

“ Costigan. “Divil a toe you’ll put into the house, good nor bad. Be off wid ye; give ye’r rags a gallop, or, be this book, I’ll charge ye on the watch.”
The loud tone in which the indignant butler repudiated the real Simon Pure had reached his father’s ears, and brought the tête-à-tête to a close. The window opened; and Mr. Pryme demanded, “What caused the noise beneath?”
“Nothing,” returned Mr. Costigan; “only here’s a rambler on the street, that, right or wrong, wants me to let him in, and swares he’s a son of yours into the bargain.”
“Who art thou, friend? demanded the elder quaker.” ”

“ Mr Costigan actually stamped on the floor with passion when he heard the name of Kate Kavanagh; and as the tailor’s mother perceived unusual anger in his countenance, she flattered herself that it was all sympathy for her “darlint Jemmy,” and she hastened to give him the particulars “ov the murdher” foul and unnatural. “So now, my darlint Misther Costigan,” she concluded, “his poor eyes is black an’ blue, and closed up into the bargain, an’ he couldn’t handle a needle if it was for Misther Grogan Morgan himself—God bless him for the fine lan’lord that he is.” ”

“ Silence infolded them as they meditated upon the depravity of the referee who had forced them to fight the full ten rounds. Butch broke the gloomy silence.
“We got to git a fight, 'sall there is to it. S'pose we see Costigan?”
“He's crooked,” said Chuck.
“Straight guys like us ain't got no chance, anyway,” said Butch. “He may be able to frame something for us.”
Mr. Costigan, sometimes referred to as “Honest John,” dwelt in an unpretentious hotel frequented by “sports” of various kinds. Be it said for Mr. Costigan, he did not seek the spotlight. ”

“ Chuck pointed out. “You get money up and wise us, and either me or Butch will drop dead any round you say.”
“That's crooked,” said Mr. Costigan severely.
“Well?” said Chuck.
“And you couldn't get away with it,” Mr. Costigan added, more convincingly.
“We'd do it right,” Butch assured him. “We know how.”
“I guess you do,” Mr. Costigan admitted. “I'll think it over, but I don't see it now. The fighting game ain't what it used to be.”
“It's our business,” Butch lamented, “an' they've went an' ruined it on us. How are we goin' to eat? Tap some guy on the bean, or what?” ”

“ For opportunity knocks vainly upon the door of him who is flat broke. In fact, Mr. Costigan was seriously considering the advisability of letting financial bygones be bygones by the simple method of putting a thousand or so miles between him and Falls City. He was ready to take a chance on making money, but the announcement of Butch and Chuck that they desired to exchange blows for currency left him cold. ”

“ Costigan replied grimly, eyes fast upon the flashing plate, whose point of projection was now deep in the bowels of the vessel. "The penalty for using it or having it is death on sight. Gangsters and pirates use it, since they have nothing to lose, being on the death list already. As for your life, I haven't saved it yet--you may wish I'd let it ride before we get done. The others are too far gone for oxygen--couldn't have brought even you around a few seconds later, quick as I got to you. ”

“ The extra hands were bedded at the toolshed and at Murphy's box car, and took their meals at Costigan's, whose thrifty wife was glad of the extra work for the little money it would bring her. Well knowing the feeling of the Middle West of that time against his race, the section-boss cautioned his crew to avoid the town as much as they could; but rough men are rough men, and wild blades are wild. ”

“ Costigan went on. "I know a lot more about things than they think I do. They never did catch me using my spy-ray--it's on an awfully narrow beam, you know, and uses almost no power at all--so I've been able to dope out quite a lot of stuff. I can open most of their locks, and I know how to run their small boats. This battle, fantastic as it is, is deadly stuff, and it isn't one-sided, by any means, either, so that every one of them, from Nerado down, seems to be on emergency duty. There are no guards watching us, or stationed where we want to go--our way out is open. ”

“ In fact, the less looks he has the better.”
“You mean the human being knocks out the link,” Mr. Costigan deduced sagely.
“Virtue and good looks always triumph—in plays,” said O'Hara.
“The public's a funny proposition,” said Mr. Costigan, who knew something of the animal himself. “How good do the boys have to be?”
“In the scenario the fight is for a championship,” O'Hara explained, “so you can see I can't use dubs. They've got to put over about six rounds of real fast, rough milling—the real thing short of a knock-out. ”

“ Costigan commented, cheerfully. "A guy can't mix it very well when he can neither kick, strike, nor bite. I expected those lizards to rough me up, but they didn't."
"They don't want to hurt us. They want to take us home with them, wherever that is, as curiosities, like wild animals or something," decided the girl, shrewdly. "They're pretty bad, of course, but I like them a lot better than I do Roger and his robots, anyway."
"I think you have the right idea, Miss Marsden," Bradley rumbled. "That's it, exactly. I feel like a bear in a cage. I should think you'd feel worse than ever. ”

“ Turn about, man, an’ let us live in paice an’ good will while we’re on the earth together.”
Dennis Costigan stood, perpendicular as a poplar, with his back to Miles Kavanagh while he was speaking, and the latter thought, from the stiffness of the farmer’s air, that he had nerved himself up to break sooner than bend, and that he was determined to retain his sturdy pride to the last, and perhaps to cut with him altogether. ”

“ The other motor boat boys stood about the doorway, not offering to enter while the owner [Pg 42] was there. Mr. Baldwin dropped into one of the arm chairs.
"Now, Captain, I'll tell you what we have aboard," continued the owner. "Costigan is third officer. He's a good fellow, and a capable sailor, but he has his limitations, and—well, I don't believe he'll ever be much more than a third officer. You'd better keep him in that grade—unless you find he's better than some of your comrades. One good thing about Costigan is that he has a pilot's license for San Francisco Bay and the coast hereabouts. ”

“ As the lifeboat tore upward through the air at the highest permissible atmospheric velocity Bradley and Clio peered over Costigan's shoulders into the plate, watching in absorbed interest the scene which was being kept in focus upon it. The Nevian ship of space was plunging downward in a long, slanting dive, her terrific beams of force screaming out ahead of her. The rays of the little lifeboat had boiled the waters of the ocean; those of the parent craft seemed literally to blast them out of existence. ”

“ But Roger, while not exactly a ground-gripper, did not know how to handle himself without weight; whereas Costigan, given six walls against which to push, was even more efficient in weightless combat than when handicapped by the force of gravitation. Keeping his projector upon the pirate, he seized the first club to hand--a long, slender pedestal of metal--and launched himself past the pirate chief. With all the momentum of his mass and velocity and all the power of his mighty right arm he swung the bar at the pirate's head. ”

“ The little submarine shuddered in every plate and member as monstrous coils encircled her and tightened inexorably in terrific, rippling surges eloquent of mastodonic power; and a strident vibration smote sickeningly upon Terrestrial eardrums as the metal spikes of the monstrosity crunched and ground upon the outer plating of their small vessel. Costigan stood unmoved at the plate, watching intently; hands ready upon the controls. Due to the artificial gravity of the lifeboat it seemed perfectly stationary to its occupants. ”

“ Costigan asserted, confidently—but again he was wrong.
The door opened, and through it there waddled, rolled, or crawled a metal-clad monstrosity—a thing with wheels, legs and writhing tentacles of jointed bronze; a thing possessed of defensive screens sufficiently powerful to absorb the full blast of the Triplanetary projectors without effort. Three brazen tentacles reached out through the ravening beams of the Lewistons, smashed them to bits, and wrapped themselves in unbreakable shackles about the armored forms of the three human beings. ”

“ One half-naked wretch leaps high in air and falls, face downward, dead as a nail. Another whirls about, bounds a few yards along the brook-side, and then goes splashing into a shallow pool, where he lies writhing. The two farthest down the cañon have slipped back behind the rocky shoulder. The other two, close at hand, [227] have rolled behind the nearest shelter and thence send harmless bullets whizzing overhead. Costigan lets drive a wild Irish yell of triumph and delight.
"Now, then, run for it, boy. Well done, you two, if ye are blackguards," he calls to Moreno and his mate. ”

“ They made up packs of food, filled their capacious pockets with emergency rations, buckled on Lewistons and automatics, donned their armor, and clamped into their external holsters a full complement of additional weapons.
"Now comes the ticklish part of the business," Costigan informed the others. His helmet was slowly turning this way and that, and the others knew that through his spy-ray goggles he was studying their route. "There's only one boat we stand a chance of reaching, and somebody's mighty apt to see us. ”