PART II

SATAN

A Romance of the Bahamas

_By_

H: DE VERE STACPOOLE

AUTHOR OF “THE BLUE LAGOON,” “THE BEACH

OF DREAMS,” ETC.

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY

1921

Copyright, 1920, by

ROBERT M. McBRIDE & CO.

_Printed in the

United States of America_

Published, · 1921

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER PAGE

I PALM ISLAND 1

II A FLOATING CARAVAN 6

III BREAKFAST 16

IV PAP’S SUIT 23

V THE PORTMANTEAU 34

VI SKELTON SAILS 58

VII CARQUINEZ 68

VIII JUDE OVERDOES IT 79

IX THE “JUAN” SAILS 96

X CUSS WORDS 107

XI THE COMING OF CLEARY 116

XII AN HONEST MAN 123

XIII PROBLEMS 130

XIV HANTS AND OTHER THINGS 136

XV UNDER WAY 144

XVI THE STEERSMAN 150

PART II

XVII LONE REEF 157

XVIII THE WRECK 169

XIX MUTINY 174

XX THE SANDSPIT 183

XXI DISHED 193

XXII THE CRABS 199

XXIII THE RETURN 206

XXIV A BOTTLE OF RUM 215

XXV THEY FIRE THE FUSE 220

XXVI THE CARGO 226

XXVII CROCKERY WARE 232

XXVIII TIDE AND CURRENT 238

XXIX SATAN IN PARADISE 243

XXX A SECRET OF THE SAND 253

XXXI THE GO-ASHORE HAT 259

XXXII CLEARY! 267

XXXIII THE FIGHT 272

XXXIV “I’LL TAK!” 280

PART III

XXXV THE VANISHED LIGHT 285

XXXVI THE WEDDING PRESENT 295

PART I

SATAN

CHAPTER I

PALM ISLAND

The sky from sea-line to sea-line was crusted with stars, a triumphant,

cloudless, tropic night-sky beneath which the _Dryad_ rode at her

anchor, lifting lazily to the swell flowing up from beyond the great

Bahama bank.

She was Skelton’s boat, a six-hundred-tonner, turbine engined, rigged

with everything new in the way of sea valves and patent gadgets, and

she had anchored at sundown off Palm Island, a tiny spot, gull haunted,

and due west of Andros.

Skelton was a Christchurch man, Bobby Ratcliffe a Brazenose, and Bobby,

tonight, as he leaned on the starboard rail smoking and listening to

the wash of the waves on the island beach, was thinking of Skelton,

who was down below writing up his diary. Before coming on this “winter

cruise to the West Indies in my yacht” Bobby did not know that Skelton

kept a diary, that Skelton was so awfully Anglican, so precise, so

stuffed with the convenances, that he dined in dress clothes even in

a hurricane, that he had a very nasty, naggling temper, that he had

prayers every Sunday morning in the cabin which the chief steward,

the under stewards, and the officers off watch were expected to

attend—also Bobby. Two other men were booked for the cruise, but they

cried off at the last moment. If they had come, things might have been

different. As it was, Bobby, to use his own language, was pretty much

fed up.

Skelton was a right good sort, but he was not the man with whom to

share loneliness, and Bobby, who had plenty of money of his own, was

thinking how jolly this winter cruise would have been if he had only

taken it on board a passenger liner, with girls and deck quoits and

cards in the evening, instead of Skelton.

Bobby was only twenty-two, a good-looking clean youth, well-balanced

enough, but desirous of fun. Oxford had not spoiled him a bit. He had

no “manner,”—just his own naturalness,—and he had shocked Skelton at

Barbados by getting a great negro washing woman on board (she had come

alongside in a blue boat) and giving her rum, for the fun of the thing.

“Debauching a native woman with alcohol!” Skelton had called it.

Skelton vetoed shark fishing. It messed his decks. He was like an old

woman about his decks. “I tell you what you ought to do, Skelly,” Bobby

had said. “You ought to start a blessed laundry!” They had nearly

quarreled at Guadeloupe over sharks.

And again at St. Pierre, where, lying off the ruins of the town,

Skelton had likened it to Gomorrah, declaring it had been destroyed

because of the wickedness of its inhabitants.

“And how about the ships in the bay?” had asked Bobby. “What had they

to do with the business? Why weren’t they given notice to quit?”

“We won’t argue on the matter,” replied Skelton.

And there was still two months of this blessed cruise to be worked out!

He was thinking of this when Skelton came on deck, his white

shirt-front shining in the starlight. He was in an amiable mood tonight

and, ranging up beside Bobby, he spoke about the beauty of the stars.

It was chiefly on Bobby’s initiative that they had dropped the anchor

so that they might prospect the island on the morrow, and as they

smoked and talked the conversation passed from stars to desert islands,

and from desert islands to the old Spaniards of the West Indies,

bucaneers, filibusters, pirates, and Brethren of the Coast.

Perhaps it was the starlight, or the tepid wind blowing up from the

straits of Florida, or the distant starlit palms of Palm Island that

set Skelton off and touched a vein in his nature hitherto unsuspected:

whatever it was, he warmed to his subject and for the first time on the

voyage became interesting. He could talk! Nombre de Dios, Carthagena,

and Porto Bello,—he touched them alive again, set the old plate-ships

sailing and the pirates overhauling them, sacked cathedrals of gold and

jewels, showed Bobby Tortuga, the great rendezvous of the bucaneers and

the Spaniards attacking it, men marooned on desolate places like Palm

Island, treasure buried—and then all of a sudden closed up and became

uninteresting again. The remnants of the boy in him had spoken, the

old pirate that lives in most men’s hearts had shown his head. Perhaps

he was ashamed of his warmth and enthusiasm over these old romantic

things—who knows? At all events, he retired into himself and then went

below to find a book he was reading, leaving the deck to Bobby and the

anchor watch.

Then the moon began to rise from beyond the Bahamas, a vast, full moon,

with the sea seeming to cling to her lower limb as she freed herself.

Dusky, at first, she paled as she rose, and now, in her light, the

palms of the island and the coral beach showed clear.

Palm Island is a scrub of cactus and bay cedar bushes, half a mile long

and quarter of a mile broad, with not more than forty trees. Crabs and

turtles and gulls are its only visitors, and desolation sits there

visible and naked. But in the moonlight, on a night like this and seen

from the sea, it is fairyland—storyland.

Ratcliffe, his mind full of pirates and bucaneers, Spaniards and

plate-ships, found himself wondering if men had ever been marooned

here, if Morgan and Van Horn and all that crowd had ever had dealings

on that beach, and what the moon could tell about it all if she could

remember and speak. He was thinking this when the creak of block and

cordage struck his ear, and past the stern of the _Dryad_ came gliding

the fore canvas of a small vessel, a thing that seemed no larger than a

fishing boat.

She had been creeping in from the sea unnoticed by them as they talked.

Skelton had gone below without sighting her, and she was so close that

the slap of her bow-wash came clearly as she passed.

He watched her gliding shoreward like a phantom, and then across the

water came a voice, shrill as the voice of a bird:

“Seven fathom!”

And on top of that another voice:

“Let go!”

The rumble—tumble—tumble—of an anchor chain followed, and then the

silence of the night closed in, broken only by the far-off wash of the

waves on the beach.

This ghost of the sea fascinated Ratcliffe. He could see her now riding

at anchor against the palms and bay cedars of the island.

She was shedding her canvas; and now a glow-worm spark, golden in the

silver of the moonlight, climbed up and became stationary but for the

lift and fall of the swell as she rode at her moorings. It was her

anchor light.

He listened for voices. None came. Then he saw a lantern being carried

along her deck. It vanished, probably through a hatch.

Then he went below, and, dropping asleep the instant he turned in,

dreamt that he was marooned on Palm Island with Skelton, and Skelton

was trying to hang him on a palm tree for a pirate, and the gulls

were shouting “Seven fathom!—seven fathom—seven fathom!” Then came

oblivion and the sleep of youth that defies dreams.

CHAPTER II

A FLOATING CARAVAN

Next morning, an hour after sunrise, Ratcliffe came on deck in his

pajamas,—gorgeous blue and crimson striped pajamas,—a sight for the

gods.

The sky was cloudless. The wind of the night before had fallen to a

tepid breathing scarcely sufficient to stir the flag at the jackstaff,

and from all that world of new-born blue and mirror-calm sea there came

not a sound but the sound of the gulls crying and quarreling about the

reef spurs of the island.

Amid the glory of light and color and against the palms and white beach

lay the ghost of the night before, a frowzy-looking yawl-rigged boat of

fifty feet or so, a true hobo of the sea, with wear and weather written

all over her and an indescribable something that marked her down even

to Ratcliffe as disreputable.

Simmons, the second officer, was on deck.

“She must have come in last night,” said Simmons. “Some sea scraper or

another working between the islands—Spanish most likely.”

“No, she’s not Spanish,” said Ratcliffe. “I saw her come in and I heard

them shouting the soundings in English—look! there’s a chap fishing

from her.”

The flash of a fish being hauled on board had caught his eye and fired

his passion for sport. They had done no fishing from the _Dryad_.

He borrowed the dinghy from Simmons and, just as he was, put off.

“Ask them to sell some of their fish, if they’ve any to spare,” cried

Simmons as the dinghy got away.

“Ay, ay!” replied Ratcliffe.

The sea blaze almost blinded him as he rowed with the gulls flying

round and shouting at him. As he drew up to the yawl the fisherman

lugged another fish on board. The fisherman was a boy, a dirty-faced

boy, in a guernsey, and as the dinghy came alongside he stared at the

pajama-clad one as at an apparition.

“Hullo, there!” cried Ratcliffe, clawing on with the boathook.

“Hullo, yourself!” replied the other.

“Any fish for sale?”

“Any what?”

“Fish.”

The boy disappeared. Then came his voice, evidently shouting down a

hatch.

“Satan, below there!”

“Hullo!”

“Here’s the funniest guy come alongside wants to know if we’ve got fish

to sell him. Show a leg!”

“One minute,” replied the second voice.

The boy reappeared at the rail in the burning sunlight. “The cap will

be up in a minute,” said he. “What in the nation are you got up like

that for?”

“What?”

“Them things.”

Ratcliffe laughed.

“I forgot I was in my pajamas. I must apologize.”

“What’s pajamas?”

“My sleeping suit.”

“You sleep in them things?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’m damned!” said the boy. Then he gave a sudden yell of

laughter and vanished, sitting down on the deck evidently, while

another form appeared at the rail, a lantern-jawed, long-haired,

youthful figure, rubbing the sleep out of its eyes. It stared at the

occupant of the dinghy, then it opened its mouth and uttered one word:

“Moses!”

“He sleeps in them things!” came a half-strangled voice from the deck.

“Satan, hold me up, I’m dyin’!”

“Shut your beastly head!” said Satan. Then to Ratcliffe, “Don’t be

minding Jude,—Jude’s cracked,—but you sure are gotten up—Say, you

from that hooker over there?”

“Yes.”

“What are you?”

“Nothing.”

Another explosion from the deck, stifled by a kick from Satan.

“But what are you doing here, anyway?”

Ratcliffe explained, Satan leaning comfortably on the rail and

listening.

“A yacht—well, we’re the _Sarah Tyler_. Pap and me and Jude used to

run the boat. He died last fall. Tyler was his name, and Satan Tyler’s

mine. He said I yelled like Satan when a pup and he put the name on

me—Say, that’s a dandy boat. I’m wanting a boat like that. Will you

trade?”

“She’s not mine.”

“That don’t matter,” said Tyler with a laugh. “But I forgot: you aren’t

in our way of business.”

“What’s your way of business?”

“Lord! Shut up, Satan!” came the voice from the deck.

“Well, Pap was one thing or another; but we’re respectable, ain’t we,

Jude?”

“Passons to what Pap was,” agreed the voice in a quieter tone, and it

came to Ratcliffe that the figure of Jude remained invisible, being

ashamed to show itself after having guyed him.

“We’re out of Havana, and we scratch round and make a living,” went on

Tyler, “and the boat being ours we make out. There’s lots to be had on

these seas for the looking.”

“Do you work the boat alone?”

“Well, we had a nigger to help since Pap died. He skipped at Pine

Island a fortnight ago. Since then we’ve made out. Jude’s worth a man

and don’t drink—”

“Who says I don’t drink?” Two grimy hands seized the rail and the body

and face of Jude raised themselves. Then the whole apparition hung,

resting midriff high across the rail, just balanced, so that a tip

from behind would have sent it over.

“Who says I don’t drink? How about Havana Harbor last trip?”

“They gave her rum,” said Satan gloomily, “gave her rum in a doggery

down by the waterside—curse the swabs! I laid two of them flat and

then got her aboard.”

“Her!” said Ratcliffe.

“Blind, wasn’t I?” cut in Jude hurriedly.

“Blind you were,” said Tyler.

Jude grinned. Ratcliffe thought he had never met with a stranger couple

than these two, especially Jude. Hanging on with the boathook, he

contemplated the dirty, daring face whose fine, gray, long-lashed eyes

were the best features.

“How old are you?” asked he, addressing it.

“Hundred an’ one,” said Jude. “Ask me another.”

“She’s fifteen and a bit,” said Tyler, “and as strong as a grown man.”

“I thought she was a boy,” said Ratcliffe.

“So I am,” said Jude. “Girls is trash. I’m not never goin’ to be a

girl. Girls is snots!”

As if to prove her boyhood, she hung over the rail so that he feared

any moment she might tumble.

“She’s a girl, right enough,” said Tyler as if they were discussing an

animal, “but God help the skirts she ever gets into!”

“I’d pull them over me head and run down the street if anyone ever

stuck skirts on me,” said Jude. “I’d as soon go about in them pajamas

of yours.”

Ratcliffe was silent for a moment. It amazed him the familiarity that

had suddenly sprung up between himself and these two.

“Won’t you come aboard and have a look around?” asked Tyler, as though

suddenly stricken with the sense of his own inhospitality.

“But the boat?”

“Stream her on a line—over with a line, Jude!”

A line came smack into the dinghy, and Ratcliffe tied it to the painter

ring. Next moment he was on board, and the dinghy, taking the current,

drifted astern.

No sooner had his feet touched the deck of the _Sarah Tyler_ than he

felt himself encircled by a charm. It seemed to him that he had never

been on board a real ship before this. The _Dryad_ was a structure

of steel and iron, safe and sure as a railway train, a conveyance, a

mechanism made to pound along against wind and sea; as different from

this as an aëroplane from a bird.

This little deck, these high bulwarks, spars, and weather-worn

canvas,—all them collectively were the real thing. Daring and distance

and freedom and the power to wander at will, the inconsequence of the

gulls,—all these were hinted at here. Old man Tyler had built the

boat, but the sea had worked on her and made her what she was, a thing

part of the sea as a puffin.

Frowzy looking at a distance, on deck the _Sarah Tyler_ showed no sign

of disorder. The old planking was scrubbed clean and the brass of the

little wheel shone. There was no raffle about, nothing to cumber the

deck but a boat,—the funniest-looking boat in the world.

“Canvas built,” said Tyler, laying his hand on her; “Pap’s invention;

no more weight than an umbrella. No, she ain’t a collapsible: just

canvas and hickory and cane. That’s another of Pap’s dodges over

there, that sea anchor, and there’s ’nother, that jigger for raising

the mudhook. Takes a bit of time, but half a man could work it, and I

reckon it would raise a battleship. There’s the spare, same as the one

that’s in the mud—ever see an anchor like that before? Pap’s. It’s a

patent, but he was done over the patentin’ of it by a shark in Boston.”

“He must have been a clever man,” said Ratcliffe.

“He was,” said Tyler. “Come below.”

The cabin of the _Sarah Tyler_ showed a table in the middle, a hanging

bunch of bananas, seats upholstered in some sort of leather, a telltale

compass fixed in the ceiling, racks for guns and nautical instruments,

and a bookcase holding a couple of dozen books. A sleeping cabin

guarded by a curtain opened aft. Nailed to the bulkhead by the bookcase

was an old photograph in a frame, the photograph of a man with a

goatee beard, shaggy eyebrows, and a face that seemed stamped out of

determination—or obstinacy.

“That’s him,” said Jude.

“Your father?”

“Yep.”

“It was took after Mother bolted,” said Tyler.

“She took off with a long-shore Baptis’ minister,” said Jude. “Said

she couldn’t stand Pap’s unbelievin’ ways.”

“He made her work for him in a laundry,” said Tyler.

“It was at Pensacola, up the gulf, and a year after, when we fetched up

there again, she came aboard and died. Pap went for the Baptis’ man.”

“He wasn’t any more use for a Baptis’ minister when Pap had done with

him,” said Jude. “That’s his books—Pap’s. There’s dead loads more in

the spare bunk in there.”

Ratcliffe looked at the books. Old man Tyler’s mentality interested him

almost as much as the history of the Tyler family,—“Ben Hur,” Paine’s

“Age of Reason” and “Rights of Man,” Browne’s “Popular Mechanics,”

“The Mechanism of the Watch,” “Martin Chuzzlewit,” and some moderns,

including an American edition of “Jude the Obscure.”

“Some of those came off a wreck he had the pickin’s of,” said Tyler, “a

thousand-tonner that went ashore off Cat Island.”

“That was before Jude was born,” said Ratcliffe.

“Lord! how do you know that?” said Jude.

Ratcliffe laughed and pointed to the book. “It’s the name on that

book,” said he. “I didn’t know: I just guessed.”

“I reckon you’re right,” said Tyler, opening a locker and fetching out

cups and saucers and plates and dumping them on the table. “Not that

it matters much where it come from, but you’ve got eyes in your head,

that’s sure. Say, you’ll stay to breakfast, now you’re aboard?”

“I’d like to,” said Ratcliffe, “but I ought to be getting back: they

won’t know what’s become of me. And besides I’m in these.”

“That’s easy fixed,” said Tyler. “Jude, tumble up and take the boat

over to the hooker and say the gentleman is stayin’ to breakfast an’ll

be back directly after. I’ll fix him for clothes.”

Jude vanished, and Tyler, going into the after-cabin, rousted out an

old white drill suit of “Pap’s” and a pair of No. 9 canvas shoes.

“They’re new washed since he wore them,” said Tyler. “Slip ’em on

over your what’s his names and come along and lend me a hand in the

galley—can you cook?”

“You bet!” said Ratcliffe.

Eased in his mind as to the _Dryad_, the boy in him rose to this little

adventure, delightful after weeks of routine and twenty years of

ordered life and high respectability. He had caravaned, yachted in a

small way, fancied that he had at all events touched the fringe of the

Free Life—he had never been near it. These sea gipsies in their grubby

old boat were It! A grim suspicion that these remains of the Tyler

family sailed sometimes pretty close to the law and that their sea

pickings were, to put it mildly, various did not detract in the least

from their charm. He guessed instinctively they were not rogues of a

bad sort. The lantern-jawed Satan had not the face of a saint. There

were indications in it indeed of the possibility of a devilish temper

no less than a desperate daring, but not a trace of meanness. Jude was

astonishingly and patently honest, while old man Tyler, whose presence

seemed still to linger on in this floating caravan, had evident titles,

of a sort, to respect.

He was helping to fry fish over the oil-stove in the little galley when

Jude returned with the information, delivered through the shouting of

the frying pan, that everything was all right, and the message had been

delivered to a “guy” in a white coat who was hanging his fat head over

the starboard rail of the _Dryad_; that he had told her to mind his

paint; that she had told him not to drop his teeth overboard, and he

had “sassed” her back; that the _Dryad_ was a dandy ship, but would be

a lot dandier if she were hove up on some beach convenient for pickin’

her.

Then she started to make the coffee over an auxiliary stove, mixing her

industry with criticisms of the cookery and instructions as to how fish

should be fried.

“Jude does the cookin’ mostly,” said Tyler, “and we’d have hot rolls

only we were under sail last night and she hadn’t time to set the

dough. We’ll have to make out with ship’s bread.”

Considering the condition of Jude’s grubby hands, Ratcliffe wasn’t

sorry.

CHAPTER III

BREAKFAST

The amount of food those two put away was a revelation to Ratcliffe,

and from start to finish of the meal they never stopped talking.

One being silent, the other took up the ball. They had cottoned to

Ratcliffe, evidently from the very first moment, for, at the very first

moment, Tyler had been communicative about himself and his ship and his

way of life. An ordinary ship’s officer coming alongside would have got

fish at a price if he had been civil or a fish flung at his head if he

had given “sass”: Ratcliffe got friendship.

It was maybe his youth and the fact that all young people are

Freemasons that did the business; the humor of the gorgeous pajamas may

have helped. Anyhow, the fact remained. He had secured something that

knowledge or position or fortune could not have bought,—the good will

and conversation of this pair, the history of the Tylers, and more than

a hint of their life on these seas. They had four thousand dollars in

the bank at Havana left by Pap, not to be touched unless the _Sarah

Tyler_ came to smash. They had no house rent or rates; no expenses but

harbor dues, food, oil, and tobacco, and not much expense for food—at

least just at present.

Tyler winked across the table at Jude and Jude grinned.

“Shut your head,” said Jude, “and don’t be givin’ shows away!” then

suddenly to Ratcliffe, “We’ve got a cache.”

“Who’s giving shows away now?” asked Tyler.

“Oh, he won’t split,” said Jude.

“It’s on the island here,” said Tyler, “near a ton of stuff, canned. A

brig went ashore south of Mariguana. We picked up the crew and heard

their yarn and got the location. Then a big freighter came along and

took the men off us. The wreck was only a hundred and fifty miles from

our position, and we reckoned the salvage men wouldn’t be on the spot

for a fortnight or more and something was due to us for savin’ that

crew; so we lit out for the wreck. We had four days’ work on her. She

was straddled on a reef with twenty fathoms under her counter and a

flat calm, all but a breathin’ of wind. We made fast to her, same as if

she’d been a wharf. We had the nigger then to help, and we took enough

grub to last us two years an’ fourteen boxes of Havana cigars and a

live cat that was most a skeleton.”

“She croaked,” put in Jude. “Satan fed her half a can of beef cut

small, and then she scoffed half a bucket of water—that bust her.”

“We wouldn’t have been so free in taking the things but for the lie

of the hooker on the reef and the weather that was sure coming,” said

Tyler. “We knew all about the weather and the chances. And we didn’t

cast off from that hooker an hour too soon! We were ridin’ out that

gale three days, and when we passed the reef again making west the brig

was gone.”

“And you cached the stuff here?”

“Yep.”

“But we hadn’t to make no cache hole,” put in Jude. “Pap had one here.

It’s among the bushes—and he didn’t make it, neither.”

“It’s all coral rock a foot under the bushes,” said Tyler, “and there’s

a hole you drop down six foot, that leads to a cave as cool as a

refrigerator; so the goods would keep to the last trumpet. The old

Spaniards must have cut it to hide their stuff in. Pap dropped on it

by chance. Said they’d used it for hidin’ gold and such. Not that he

believed in the buried treasure business—sunk ships is different.”

Jude, who was hacking open a can of peaches, suddenly made an awful

face at Satan. It had the effect of cutting him short. Ratcliffe

refused the peaches. He sat watching this pair of cormorants and

thinking that the cache must be pretty big if it held two years’

provisions for them.

Then suddenly he said so, laughing and without giving the least

offense. Tyler explained that the cache was not their only larder:

there were fish and turtle and turtle eggs, birds sometimes, fruit to

be had for next to nothing, often for nothing. The only expense was

for tobacco, and he had not paid ten cents for tobacco since last fall

and wouldn’t want to for a year to come; clothes, and they didn’t want

much clothes, Jude did the mending and patching; paint, and the _Sarah

Tyler_ had ways and means of getting paint and all such, spars and so

on. He gave a wonderful instance:

Before Christmas last they had chummed up with a big yacht on the

Florida coast near Cedar Cays. Thelusson was the owner, a man from New

York. He took a fancy to the _Sarah_ and her way of life, and he and

his crew helped to careen her in a lagoon back of the reefs, cleaned

her copper (she was dead foul with barnacles and weeds), gave her a

new main boom and foresail and some spare canvas, and all for nix. He

had no paint, or he would have painted her. He drank champagne by the

bucket, and he wanted to quit the yacht and go for a cruise with them,

only his missus who was on board wouldn’t let him.

Ratcliffe thought he could visualize Thelusson.

“She was a mutt,” put in Jude, “with a voice like a muskeeter.”

“She wanted to ’dopt Jude and stick a skirt on her,” said Tyler.

“Handed me out a lot of sick stuff about sayin’ prayers and such,”

hurriedly cut in Jude.

“And put the nightcap on it by kissin’ her,” finished Tyler.

Jude’s face blazed red like a peony.

“If you chaps have had enough, I’m goin’ to clear,” said Jude.

“Right!” said Satan, rising, and she cleared, vanishing with the

swiftness of a rabbit up the companionway.

Tyler fetched out a box of cigars. They were Ramon Alones.

“She won’t speak to me now for half a day,” said Tyler. “If you want

to guy Jude, tell her she’s a girl. I wouldn’t a told you, only you’re

not in our way of life and so can’t make trouble. No one knows. There’s

not a man in any of the ports knows: she goes as me brother. But the

Thelusson woman spotted her on sight—Come on deck.”

Jude was emptying a bucket of refuse overboard, then she vanished into

the galley, and Ratcliffe, well fed, lazy, and smoking his cigar,

leaned for a moment over the rail before taking his departure, talking

to Tyler.

To starboard lay Palm Island, with the sea quietly creaming on the

coral beach and the palms stirring to the morning wind, to port the

white _Dryad_ riding to her anchor on the near-shore blue, and beyond

the _Dryad_ the violet of the great depths spreading to the far

horizon, beyond which lay Andros, and the islands, reefs, and banks

from Great Abeco to Rum Cay. Not a sail on all that sea, nor a stain on

all that splendor: nothing but the gulls wheeling and crying over the

reefs to southward.

But Satan’s mind as he leaned beside Ratcliffe was not engaged by the

beauty of the morning or the charm of the view. Satan was a dealer with

the sea and the things that came out of the sea or were even to be met

with floating on the waves. Ratcliffe was one of these things.

“You’ve never had no call to work?” said Satan tentatively. “You’ve

lots of money, I s’pect, and can take things easy.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Like fishin’?”

“You bet!”

“Well, if you ever wants to see good fishin’ and more than ordinary

folk see of the islands here, drop me a word to Havana. Kellerman,

marine store dealer, Havana, will get me. He’s a pal of mine. I fetch

up in Havana every six months or so—and there’s more than fishin’—”

Tyler stopped short, then he spat overboard and began to fill his pipe.

He had no use for cigars—much.

“How do you mean more than fishing?”

“Well, I don’t know. We’re underhanded a bit for any big job and I

wouldn’t trust most men. They don’t grow trustable parties in Havana,

nor the coast towns—not much. I’ve taken a likin’ to you somehow

or ’nother, and if ever we come together again I’ll tell you maybe

somethin’ that’s in my mind. You see, between Pap and me and the old

_Sarah_, we’ve seen close on thirty years of these waters right from

Caicos to N’y’Orleans and down to Trinidad. Turtle egg huntin’ and

fishin’ and tradin’, there’s not a reef or cay we don’t know. The old

_Sarah_ could find her way round blind. Put her before the wind with

the wheel half a spoke weather helm and leave her, and she’d sniff the

reefs on her own.”

“You were saying about something more than fishing,” persisted

Ratcliffe, whose curiosity had been, somehow, aroused.

“I was,” said Tyler; “but I’m not free to speak about private affairs

without Jude, and there’s no use in tacklin’ her when she’s snorty.

Listen to that!”

Sounds were coming from the galley as of a person banging pots and pans

about.

Tyler chuckled.

“It’s always the same when her dander is up,—she starts cleanin’ and

dustin’ and makin’ hell of the place. Mother was the same. I reckon

a woman can’t help bein’ a woman, not if she had a hundred pair of

breeches on.”

“Well,” said Ratcliffe, “I’d like to come for a cruise, and I will some

day, I hope. Maybe I’ll see you on the island later. I was intending

going ashore today to have a look round: that’s why we anchored here.”

“Maybe I’ll see you ashore then,” said Tyler, “but if I’m not there,

mind and say nothin’ of the cache.”

“Right!”

CHAPTER IV

PAP’S SUIT

Jude, having been fetched out of the galley, the canvas boat was got

overboard.

Ratcliffe had offered to shed Pap’s suit and return in his pajamas as

he had come, but Tyler vetoed the idea. The far-seeing Satan, who had

snaffled a careen and clean up, not to speak of a main boom and spare

canvas, out of Thelusson, had an object in view.

“It’s no trouble,” said he. “You take the dinghy, and we’ll take the

boat and fetch the duds back. It’s late in the mornin’ for you to be

boarding your ship in them colored things.”

One of the big fish caught that morning was dropped into the boat as a

“present for the yacht,” and they started.

The accommodation ladder was down and Simmons and a quartermaster

received Ratcliffe. As he went up the side he heard Tyler shouting to

Simmons something about the fish. There was no sign of Skelton on deck,

for which he was thankful, then he dived below to change.

Now “Pap’s” suit had been constructed for a man of over six feet and

broad in proportion and a man, moreover, who liked his clothes loose

and easy. On Ratcliffe they recalled the vesture of Dr. Jekyll on Mr.

Hyde. The saloon door was closed. He opened it, and found himself face

to face with Skelton, who was sitting at one end of the saloon table

reading from a book, while Strangways the captain, Norton the first

officer, Prosser the steward, and sundry others ranged according to

their degree sat at attention.

It was Sunday morning. He had forgotten that fact, and there was no

drawing back. He reached his cabin, mumbling apologies to the dead

silence which seemed crystallized round Skelton, closed the door, and

stuffed his head among the pillows of his bunk to stifle his laughter,

then he undressed and dressed.

As he dressed he could hear through the open port the voice of Tyler

from alongside. The voice was pitched in a conversational key; it was

saying something about a lick of white paint. He was talking evidently

to Simmons.

Then, fully dressed, with the bundle of clothes and the canvas shoes

under his arm, Ratcliffe peeped into the saloon. The service was over

and the saloon was empty. He reached the deck. It was deserted save for

a few hands forward and Simmons.

Then he came down the accommodation ladder to the stage, and handed the

clothes over to Satan.

A drum of white paint and a coil of spare rope were in the boat close

to Jude, and Satan was saying to Simmons something about a spare ax.

“Well, if you haven’t got one, there’s no more to be said,” finished

Satan; then to Ratcliffe, “See you ashore, maybe.”

Jude grinned kindly, and they pushed off, the boat a strake lower in

the water with their loot.

The fat-faced Simmons watched them with the appearance of a man just

released from mesmerism.

“That chap would talk the hat off one’s head,” said he. “I’ll have h—l

to pay with Norton over that paint; most likely I’ll have to put my

hand in my own pocket for it. But he’s a decent chap, that fellow, but

sharp—the way he landed me with that fish for a bait!”

“He’s all there,” said Ratcliffe.

“So’s the boy,” said Simmons. “Come alongside after you’d gone, to

say you were staying to breakfast with them. Told him to mind and not

damage the paint. Let out like a bargee at me—and Sir William Skelton

listening!”

“Where’s Sir William now, Simmons? He wasn’t in the saloon when I’d

finished dressing.”

“I expect he’s in his cabin,” said Simmons.

Ratcliffe got a book and, taking his seat under the double awning

sheltering the quarterdeck, tried to read. He had chosen a History

of the West Indies, the same book most likely from which Skelton had

“cadged” his information of the night before. The printed page was

dull, however, compared to the spoken word, and he found himself

wondering how it was that Skelly could have warmed him up so to all

this stuff and yet be such an angular stick-in-the-mud in ordinary

life. What made him such a superior person? What made him at thirty

look forty, sometimes fifty, and what made him, Ratcliffe, fear Skelly

sometimes, just as a schoolboy fears a master?

He guessed he was in for a wigging now for cutting breakfast and

appearing like a guy before the officers, and he knew instinctively the

form the wigging would take,—a chilly manner and studious avoidance

of the subject, that would be all,—Christchurch on a wet Sunday

for forty-eight hours, with the Oxford voice and the Oxford manner

accentuated and thrown in.

At this moment Sir William Skelton, Bart., came on deck,—a tall, thin

man, clean shaved, like a serious-minded butler in a yachting suit of

immaculate white drill. His breeding lay chiefly in his eyes: they

were half-veiled by heavy lids. He had an open mother-of-pearl-handled

penknife in his hand.

Free of the saloon hatch and not seeing Ratcliffe, he stopped dead like

a pointer before game and called out “Quartermaster!”

A quartermaster came running aft.

Some raffle had been left on the scupper by the companionway, a fathom

or so of old rope rejected by Tyler as not being the quality he was

“wantin’.”

He ordered it to be taken forward, then he saw Ratcliffe and nodded.

“’Morning,” said Skelton.

He walked to the rail and stood with his hand on it for a moment,

looking at the island and the _Sarah Tyler_.

Jude and Satan were at work on something aft. In a minute it became

apparent what they were doing. They were rigging an awning in imitation

of the _Dryad’s_, an impudent affair made out of old canvas brown with

weather and patched from wear.

It was like seeing a beggar woman raising a parasol.

Skelton sniffed; then he turned and, leaning with his back against

the bulwarks, began attending to his left little fingernail with the

penknife.

“Ratcliffe,” said Skelton suddenly and apparently addressing his little

finger, “I _wish_ you wouldn’t!” He spoke mildly, in a vaguely pained

voice. It was as though Ratcliffe had acted in some way like a bounder;

more, and, wonderfully, he actually made Ratcliffe feel as though he

had acted in some way like a bounder. He was Ratcliffe’s host; that

gave an extra weight to the words. The whole thing was horrible.

“Wouldn’t what?” said Ratcliffe.

Skelton had been rather hit in his proprieties by a man going off his

boat in pajamas and remaining away to breakfast on board a thing like

the _Sarah Tyler_ in his pajamas; but the real cause of offense was

“Pap’s” suit suddenly appearing at Sunday morning prayers. The chief

steward had grinned.

Skelton, though a good sailor, an excellent shipmaster, and as brave as

a man need be, was a highly nervous individual. A general service on

deck for the whole crew was beyond him: he compromised by conducting a

short service in the saloon. Even that was a tax on him. The entrance

of Ratcliffe in that extraordinary get-up had joggled his nervous

system.

“If you can’t understand, I can’t explain,” said Skelton. “If our

cases had been reversed, I should have apologized. However, it doesn’t

matter.”

“Look here, Skelly!” said Ratcliffe. “I’m most awfully sorry if I have

jumped on your corns, and I’ll apologize as much as you want, but the

fact of the matter is we don’t seem to hit it off exactly, do we? You

are the best of good people, but we have different temperaments. If

those other fellows had come along on the cruise, it would have mixed

matters more. We want to be mixed up in a big party more, you and I, if

we want to get on together.”

“I told you before we started I disliked crowds,” said Skelton, “and

that only Satherthwaite and Magnus were coming. Then, when they failed,

you said it didn’t matter, that we should be freer and more comfortable

alone.”

“I know,” said Ratcliffe. “It was my mistake, and besides I didn’t want

to put you off the cruise.”

“Oh, you would not have put me off. I should have started alone. I am

dependent on no one for society.”

“I believe you would have been happier alone.”

“Perhaps,” said Skelton with tight lips.

“Well then, shove me ashore, somewhere.”

“That is talking nonsense!” said Skelton.

Ratcliffe had risen and was leaning over the rail beside the other. His

eyes were fixed on the _Sarah Tyler_, the disreputable _Sarah_, and as

he looked at her Jude and Satan suddenly seemed to him real live free

human beings and Skelton as being not entirely alive nor, for all his

wealth, free.

It was Skelton who gave the Tylers a nimbus, extra color, fascination,

especially Jude. There was a lot of fascination about Jude, even

without the background of Skelton.

“It’s not talking nonsense a bit,” said he, “and, if you can trundle

along the rest of the cruise alone, I’ll drop you here.”

“Drop you on this island?”

“No—I’d like to go for a cruise with those chaps—I mean that chap in

the mud barge over there. He asked me, any time I wanted to.”

“Are you in earnest?”

“Of course I am. It would be no end of a picnic, and I want to shove

round these seas. I can get a boat back from Havana.”

Skelton felt that this was the washerwoman of Barbados over

again,—irresponsibility—bad form. He was, under his courteousness as

a host, heartily sick of Ratcliffe and his ways and outlook. A solitary

by inclination, he would not at all have objected to finishing this

cruise by himself. All the same, he strongly objected to the idea just

put before him.

What made him object? Was he insulted that the _Dryad_ should be turned

down in favor of the frowzy, disreputable-looking _Sarah Tyler_, that

the companionship of the Tylerites should be preferred to his? Did

some vague instinct tell him they were the better people to be with

if one wanted to have a good time? Was high conventionality outraged

as though, walking down Piccadilly with Ratcliffe, the latter were to

seize the arm of a dustman?

Who knows? But he bitterly and strongly objected. And how and in what

words did he show his objection and anger?

“Then go, my dear fellow, go!” said he as though with all the good will

in the world.

“Right!” said Ratcliffe. “But are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Mind! Why should I mind?”

“One portmanteau full of stuff will do me,” said Ratcliffe, “and I have

nearly a hundred and fifty in ready money and a letter of credit on

the Lyonnaise at Havana for five hundred. I’ll trundle my stuff over

if you’ll lend me a boat, and be back for luncheon. You’ll be off this

evening, I suppose, and I can stay aboard here till you get the anchor

up. It’s possible I might pick you up at Havana on the way back; but

don’t worry about that. Of course all this depends on whether that

fellow will take me. I’ll take the portmanteau with me and ask.”

He did not in the least see what was going on in Skelton’s mind.

“You will take your things with you in a boat, and if this—gentleman

refuses to take you, what then?”

“I’ll come back.”

“Now I want to be quite clear with you, Ratcliffe,” said Skelton.

“If you leave my ship like that—for nothing—at a whim and for

disreputable chance acquaintances—absolute scowbankers—the worst

sort—I want to be clear with you—quite, absolutely definite—I must

ask you not to come back!”

“Well, I’m hanged!” said Ratcliffe, suddenly blazing out. “First

you say go and then you say don’t! Of course that’s enough: you’ve

practically fired me off your boat.”

“Do not twist my words,” said the other. “That is a subtle form of

prevarication I can’t stand.”

“I think we had better stop this,” said Ratcliffe. “I’m going! If I

don’t see you again. I’ll say goodby.”

“And please understand,” said the other, who was rather white about the

mouth, “please understand—”

“Oh, I know,” said Ratcliffe. “Goodby!”

He dived below to the saloon and rang for his bedroom steward.

Burning with anger and irritation and a feeling that he had been sat

upon by Skelton, snubbed, sneered at, and altogether outrageously

used, he could not trust himself to do his own packing. He sat on his

bunkside while the steward stuffed a portmanteau with necessaries, and

as he sat the thought came to him of what would happen were Tyler to

refuse to take him. He would have to take refuge on Palm Island. It was

a comic opera sort of idea; yet, such was the state of his mind, he

actually entertained it.

Skelton was no longer “Skelly,” but “that beast Skelton.” Then he

tipped the steward and the chief steward, telling them that he was

going for a cruise in that “yawl over there.” On deck he met Norton

and Simmons and told them the same tale. Skelton had vanished to his

cabin. He told the first and second officers that he had said goodby to

his host and asked for a boat to be lowered.

“I’ll pick you up most likely at Havana,” said he to gloze the matter

over. “I expect I’ll have a good time, but rather rough. I want to do

some fishing.”

The whole thing seemed like a dream and not a particularly pleasant

one. Embarked on this business now, he almost wished himself done with

it. The yacht was comfortable, the cooking splendid; to satisfy any

want, one had only to touch a bell. There were no bells on board the

_Sarah Tyler_. A lavatory and a sort of bathroom invented by “Pap” were

the only conveniences, and the bath was impracticable. It was “Pap’s”

only failure, for the sea-cock connecting it with the outer ocean was

so arranged or constituted that as likely as not it would let in the

Caribbean before you could “stop it off.”

If Skelton now, at the last moment, had asked Ratcliffe to come down

and have an interview, things might have been smoothed over, but

Skelton was not the sort of man to make advances; neither, in his way,

was Ratcliffe.

Meanwhile, Simmons was directing the lowering of a boat. The

companionway was still down. The luggage was put in, and Simmons,

seated by Ratcliffe in the stern seats, took the yoke lines. Not a sign

of Skelton, not even a face at a porthole!

“Give way!” shouted Simmons.

As they drew up to the _Sarah Tyler_, Ratcliffe saw Satan leaning over

the rail and watching them. Jude was nowhere visible.

“Hullo!” said Ratcliffe as they came alongside. “I’ve come back.”

“I was half-expectin’ you,” said Satan with a grin.

“Will you take me for that cruise right off?”

“Sure! That your dunnage?”

“Yes.”

Satan stepped to the cabin companionway and shouted down it.

“Jude!”

“Hullo!” came Jude’s voice.

“He’s come back!”

CHAPTER V

THE PORTMANTEAU

As Jude came on deck the portmanteau was being hoisted on board.

Ratcliffe passed down a five-pound note to the boat’s crew, and then

stood, waving to Simmons as the boat put away. Then, turning to

Satan, he tried to discuss terms, but was instantly silenced by Jude

and Satan. They would hear nothing of money. Used to sea changes and

strange happenings, they seemed to think nothing of the business, and

after the first words fell to talking together.

The trend of their talk induced in Ratcliffe a vaguely uncanny feeling.

It was as though they had already discussed his coming on board and

the storage of himself and his baggage, as though they had known by

instinct that he would return. The size of the portmanteau affected

Jude.

“You can’t keep that,” said Jude, giving the portmanteau a slight kick.

“It’s a long sight too big. Say, what have you got in it?”

“Clothes.”

“Pajamas?”

“Yes, and lots of other things.”

Jude tilted back the old panama she was wearing and took her seat

on the portmanteau. Her feet were bare, and she twisted her toes in

thought as she sat for a moment turning matters over in her mind.

“You can stick the things in the spare locker,” said she at last. “You

gonna have a gay old time if you keep this in the cabin, tumblin’ over

it. Better empty her here an’ cart the stuff below.”

“Right!” said Ratcliffe. “But what shall I do with the portmanteau when

it’s empty?”

“Heave her overboard,” said Jude.

“Shut your head!” said Tyler, suddenly cutting in. “What you talkin’

about? Heave yourself overboard!” Then to Ratcliffe, “She’s right, all

the same; there’s no room for luggage. If you’ll help Jude to get the

things below, I’ll look after the trunk. When you’ve done with the

cruise you can get a bag to hold your things.”

Ratcliffe opened the portmanteau. The steward of the _Dryad_ was an

expert: in a past existence he had probably been a pack rat. In any

given space he could have tucked away half as much again as any other

ordinary mortal. But he certainly had no imagination, or perhaps he had

been too busy to cast his eye overboard and see the manner of craft

Ratcliffe was joining, and Ratcliffe had been far too much exercised in

his mind about Skelton to notice what was being packed.

Jude on her knees helped.

“What’s this?” asked Jude, coming on a black satin lining.

“Confound the fool!” said Ratcliffe. “He needn’t have packed that: it’s

a dinner jacket.”

“Mean to say you sit down to your dinner in a jacket?” Jade choked

and snorted while Ratcliffe hurriedly, on his knees, hauled out the

trousers and waistcoats that went with the garments.

“That’s the lining—it’s worn the other way about—I know it’s

tomfoolery. Stick ’em all in one bundle—Lord! look at the shirts he’s

packed!”

“They’ve got tucks in them,” said Jude, looking at the pleated fronts.

“I know. They go with that tomfool dinner suit. You can’t knock sense

into the head of a bedroom steward. Come along and let’s get them down

below.”

While they were carting the stuff down, Satan on the hatch cover

cut himself a chew of tobacco (he sometimes chewed) and, with his

lantern jaws working regularly like the jaws of a cow chewing the cud,

contemplated the steadily emptying portmanteau.

He had a plan about that portmanteau, a plan to turn it to profit.

Satan’s plans generally had profit for their object. He had taken

a genuine liking for Ratcliffe; but it was a curious thing with

Satan that even his likings generally helped him along toward

profit,—perhaps because they were the outcome of a keen intelligence

that had been sharpened by knocking about among rascals, beachcombers,

wharf rats, as well as honest folk.

When Ratcliffe had fetched down the last load and come up again, he

found Satan and the portmanteau gone.

The canvas boat had not been brought on board, but streamed astern

on a line. He looked over the side. Satan was in the boat with the

portmanteau and in the act of pushing off.

“I’m takin’ her back to the yacht,” said Satan.

Ratcliffe nodded.

At that moment Jude came on deck blinking and hitching up her trousers.

She had washed her face and made herself a bit more tidy,—perhaps

because she had remembered it was Sunday or perhaps because company had

come on board. She had evidently put her whole head into the water.

It was dripping, and as she stood with the old panama in her hand

and her cropped hair drying in the sun Ratcliffe observed her anew

and thought that he had never seen a more likable figure. Jude would

never be pretty, but she was better than pretty,—healthy, honest

and capable, trusting and fearless, easily reflecting laughter, and

with a trace of the irresponsibility of youth. It was a face entirely

original and distinctive. Dirty, it was the face of a larrikin;

washed, a face such as I have attempted to describe; and the eyes were

extraordinary,—liquid-gray, with a look of distance, when she was

serious, a look acquired perhaps from life among vast sea spaces.

“Where’s Satan?” asked Jude.

Ratcliffe pointed.

Jude, shading her eyes, looked. Then she laughed.

“Thought he was up to somethin’,” said she. “He’s gone to kid that

officer man out of some more truck.”

In a flash Ratcliffe saw the reason of Satan’s activities, and in

another flash he saw again, or seemed to see, in Satan and Jude a

pair of gipsies of the sea. A gipsies’ caravan camped close to a

neat villa,—that was the relationship between the _Sarah Tyler_ and

the _Dryad_,—and Satan was the caravan man gone round to the villa’s

back door to return an empty portmanteau and blarney the servants out

of scraps and old odds and ends not wanted, maybe to commandeer a

chicken or nick a doormat—heaven only knew! He remembered the fancy

Satan had taken to the dinghy. And he, Ratcliffe, had thrown in his

lot with these people! Fishing cruise! Rubbish! Gipsy patter, sea

thimblerigging, wreck-picking, and maybe petty larceny from Guadaloupe

to dry Tortugas,—that was what he had signed on for. Why, the _Sarah

Tyler_, could she have been hauled into any law court, would have

stood convicted on her very appearance! Jude was honest enough in her

way; but her way was Satan’s way, and she had owned up with steadfast,

honest eyes to the plundering of a brig and the caching of the plunder.

They were “passons to what Pap had been,” but they were his offspring,

and the law to them was no doubt what it had been to him,—a something

to be avoided or outwitted, like a dangerous animal.

All these thoughts running through his head did not disturb him in the

least. Far from that! The reckless in him had expanded since he had cut

the cable connecting him with the _Dryad_, and not for worlds would

he have changed the _Sarah_ into a vessel of more conventional form,

or altered Satan from whatever he might be into a figure of definite

respectability.

He reckoned that if Satan broke the law he would be clever enough to

avoid the consequences. His tongue alone would get him out of most

fixes, and just this touch of gipsiness in the business gave a new

flavor to life,—the flavor boys seek when they raid orchards and

hen-roosts and go pirating with corked faces and lath swords.

“He’s goin’ aboard her,” said Jude.

The portmanteau had been taken up by one of the crew, and now Satan,

evidently at the invitation of one of the white-clad figures leaning

over the rail of the _Dryad_, was going up the accommodation ladder,

leaving the boat to wash about in the blue water by the stage.

Ratcliffe guessed that one of the white-clad figures was Skelton and

that it was on Skelton’s invitation he had gone on board. He felt

vaguely uneasy. What did Skelton mean by that? Was he up to any dodge

to “crab” the cruise?

However, he had no time to bother over this, for Jude, who had him now

to herself without fear of interruption, had opened her batteries.

“Say,” said Jude, hanging over the rail where the awning cast its

shadow, speaking without looking at him and spitting into the water,

“what are you when you’re ashore, anyway?”

“I’m one of the idle rich,” said Ratcliffe, lighting his pipe.

“Well, you won’t be idle aboard here,” said Jude definitely. “What was

your dad? Was your dad an idle rich?”

“No, he was a ship owner.”

“How many ships did he own?”

“About forty.”

“What sort?”

“Steamers.”

“What sizes?”

“Oh, anything from two to five thousand tons.”

She turned to see if he were guying her.

“There was another man in the business,” said Ratcliffe, “a partner;

Ratcliffe & Holt was the same of the firm. The governor died intestate.”

“Somethin’ wrong with his inside?”

“No, he died of a stroke; he was found in his office chair dead; he

died at his work.”

“Did they get the chap that did him in?” asked Jude.

“No, it wasn’t a man that struck him; it was apoplexy, a disease, and

dying without a will, all his money was divided up between my two

brothers and me.”

“How much did you get?”

“Over a hundred thousand.”

“Dollars?”

“No, pounds—four hundred thousand dollars.”

“Got ’em still?”

“Yes.”

“In the bank?”

“Some; the rest is invested.”

She seemed to lose interest in the money business and hung for a moment

over the rail, whistling almost noiselessly between her teeth and

kicking up a bare heel. Then she said:

“Who’s the chap you were sailin’ with?”

“Skelton is his name.”

“He owns that hooker?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” said Jude suddenly, as if waking from a reverie, “this won’t

boil potatoes—I’ve got to get dinner ready. Come ’long and help if

you’re willin’.”

There was half a sack of potatoes in the galley. She set the stove

going, and then, on her knees before the open sack, she sent him to

fetch half a bucket of water from overboard. He found the bucket with a

rope attached, brought the water, and filled the potato kettle, then he

brought more water for the washing of the potatoes.

She did the washing squatting on her heels before the bucket.

“Where did you get them from?” asked Ratcliffe.

“Get which?”

“The potatoes.”

“Bought them,” said Jude; then, as though suddenly smitten by

rectitude, “No, we didn’t, nuther: we kidooled them out of a fruiter.”

“What’s a fruiter?”

“Fruit steamer. Satan fixed her.”

“How did he fix her?”

“Well,” said Jude, “it’s no harm to hold up a packet if you don’t throw

her off her course—much. It’s the owners pays, and they can stand the

racket. The crew likes it, and if there’s passengers aboard they just

love it.”

“Do you mean to say you hold up steamers?” asked Ratcliffe.

“Yep.”

“But how do you do it?”

“Oh, it’s only now and then. What’s easier than to lay in her course

with the flag half-mast? Then she heaves to.”

“And you board her and ask for potatoes, or whatever you want?”

“Not much!” said Jude. “They’d boot you off the ship. Water’s what you

ask for, pretendin’ you’re dying of thirst; then you drink till you’re

near bustin’ and fill the breaker you’ve brought with you. It’s all

on the square. Satan would never hold a ship unless he had some fish

to offer them for whatever he wants,—potatoes or fruit or tobacco.

He’s got the fish in the boat and hands it up. They’re always glad of

fresh fish and they offer to buy it; but he won’t take money, but says,

‘If you’ve got a few potatoes handy, I don’t mind takin’ them for the

fish.’ Sometimes it’s fruit he wants, or other things. Then you push

off—and if it’s a passenger packet the passengers, thinkin’ they’ve

saved you from dyin’ of thirst, line up and cheer. It’s no end of fun.”

“What flag do you sail under?”

“’Murrican, what else? You see,” went on Jude as she put the potatoes

into the kettle, “fish costs nothing to us and they’re mighty glad of

it, but I reckon they’d bat our heads off if they knew about the dyin’

of thirst business.”

“But suppose you struck the same ship twice?”

“It’s not a job one does every day,” said Jude, with a trace of

contempt in her tone, “and Satan don’t wear blinkers, and it’s not a

job you could do at all if you didn’t know the lie of the fishin’

banks by where the ship tracks run. I reckon you’ve got to learn

something about things.”

“I reckon I have,” said Ratcliffe, laughing, “and I bet you’ll teach

me!”

“Well, shy that over to begin with,” said Jude, giving him the pail of

dirty water.

He flung the water over the side, and as he did so he took a glance at

the _Dryad_. Satan was in the boat just pushing off. When he returned

to the galley with the news, Jude was preparing to fry fish: not the

early morning fish, but some caught just before Ratcliffe had come on

board.

Then he went to the rail again just as Satan was coming alongside.

Satan had a cargo of sorts. His insatiable appetite for canvas and rope

was evidenced by the bundle in the stern, and there were parcels. The

return of the empty portmanteau had not been waste labor.

“That’s coffee,” said he to Ratcliffe, handing up the goods. “We were

runnin’ short. And here’s biscuits—catch a holt—and here’s some

fancy muck in cans and c’ndensed milk—I told the chap our cow died

yesterday. ‘Take everything you want,’ says he. ‘Don’t mind me—I’m

only the owner.’ Offered me the mainsail as I was putting off an’

told me to come back for the dinghy. I’d told him I was sweet on

her—full of fun he was—and maybe I will. Claw hold of this bundle

of matches—they’re a livin’ Godsend—and here’s a case of canned

t’marters—and that’s all.”

Skelton’s irony was evidently quite lost on Satan, or put down to his

“fun,” but Ratcliffe could appreciate it, and the fact that its real

target was himself.

The canned t’marters appeared with the food at dinner, and during the

meal more of Skelton came out. He had offered Satan vinous liquors,

hoping, so Ratcliffe dimly suspected, to send him back a trouble to

the _Sarah Tyler_ and an object lesson on the keeping of disreputable

company; but the wily Satan had no use for liquor. He was on the water

wagon.

“I leave all them sorts of things to Jude,” said he, with a grin. He

was referring to Jude’s boasted drunk at Havana, and Ratcliffe, who was

placed opposite to the pair of them, across the table, saw Jude’s chin

project. Why she should boast of a thing one moment and fire up at the

mention of it at another was beyond him.

For a moment it seemed as if she were going to empty the dish of

tomatoes over Satan, but she held herself in, all but her tongue.

“You’d have been doin’ better work on board here, mendin’ the gooseneck

of that spare gaff, than wangling old canvas an’ rope out of that man,”

said she. “We’re full up of old truck that’s no more use to us than

Solomon’s aunt. It’s in the family, I suppose, seein’ what Granf’er

was—”

“Oh, put a potato in your mouth!” said Satan.

“He used to peddle truck on the Canada border,” said she to

Ratcliffe,—“hams—”

“Close up!” said Satan.

“—made out o’ birchwood, and wooden nutmegs—”

“That was Pap’s joke,” said Satan. “And another word out of you and

I’ll turn you over me knee and take down your—”

“Then what do you want flingin’ old things in my face?” cried Jude,

wabbling between anger and tears. “Some day I’ll take me hook, same as

mother did.”

“There’s not a Baptis’ minister would look at you,” said Satan, winking

at Ratcliffe.

“Damn Baptis’ ministers! You may work your old hooker yourself. I’ll

skip! Two thousand of them dollars is mine, and next time we touch

Havana I’ll skip!”

“And where’ll you skip to?”

“I’ll start a la’ndry.”

“Then you’ll have to black your face and wear a turban, same as the

others—and marry a nigger. I can see you comin’ off for the ship’s

washin’.”

Jude began to laugh in a crazy sort of way, then all at once she

sobered down and went on with her dinner. One could never tell how her

anger would end,—in tears, laughter of a wild sort, or just nothing.

Not another word was said about the family history of the Tylers, at

least at that meal, and after it was over Jude made Ratcliffe help to

wash up the plates and things in the galley.

“Satan’s Cap,” said Jude. “He never helps in the washin’ or swillin’.

Not cold water!—land’s sake! where did you learn washin’ up?—hot!

I’ve left some in that billy on the stove.”

She had taken off her old coat and rolled her guernsey sleeves up to

the shoulders nearly, and it came to Ratcliffe as he helped that,

without a word of remonstrance, naturally, and as a part adapts itself

to the economy of a whole, he had sunk into the position of kitchen

maid and general help to the Tyler family, taken the place of the

nigger that had skipped; furthermore that Satan was less a person

than a subtle influence. Satan seemed to obtain his ends more by

wishing than by willing. He wanted an extra hand, and he had somehow

put the spell of his wish on him, Ratcliffe. He had wished a drum of

paint out of Simmons—and look at Skelton, the cynical and superior

Skelton, sending off doles of coffee and “t’marters” to the dingy and

disreputable _Sarah Tyler_, offering his mainsail to the rapacious

Satan as a gibe! What had he been but a marionette dancing on the

string of Satan’s wish?

Only for Jude and the _Sarah_ and the queer new sense of freedom from

all the associations he had ever known, only for something likable

about Satan, the something that gave him power to wheedle things out

of people and bend them to his wishes, Ratcliffe might have reacted

against the Tyler hypnotism. As it was, the whole business seemed as

jolly as a pantomime, as exciting as a new form of novel in which the

folk were real and himself a character.

Leaving Satan and the old _Sarah_ aside, and the extraordinary

fascination of spars, sails, narrow deck, and close sea, catching one’s

own fish, cooking one’s own food, and dickering with winds, waves,

reefs, and lee shores for a living,—leaving all these aside, Jude

alone would have held him; for Jude gave him what he possessed when

he was nine,—the power of playing again, of seeing everything new and

fresh. Washing up dishes with Jude was a game. To the whole-souled

Jude all this business was a game,—hauling on the halyards, fishing,

cooking, hanging on to the beard of a storm by the sea anchor, wreck

picking and so on,—and she had infected him. Already they were good

companions and, when together, of the same age, about nine—though she

was fifteen and he over twenty.

“Stick them on that shelf,” said Jude. “Oh,

Lord!—butter-fingers!—lemme! That’s the gadget to keep them from

shiftin’ if the ship rolls. Now stick the knives in that locker. You

don’t mind my tellin’ you, do you?”

“Not a bit.”

“Well, that’s all.”

They found Satan under the awning, attending to the gooseneck of the

spare gaff.

Jude sat down on the deck clasping her knees, criticized Satan’s

handiwork, received instructions to hold her tongue, and then

collapsed, lying on her back with knees up and the back of her hand

across her eyes. She could sleep at any odd moment.

The horizon had vanished in haze, the crying of the gulls had died

down, and the washing of the lazy swell on the island beach sounded

like a lullaby.

A trace of smoke was rising from the yellow funnel of the _Dryad_ as

she lay like a white painted ship on a blue painted ocean. They were

firing up.

“How about getting ashore?” asked Ratcliffe. “I want to see that cache

of yours. Care to come?”

“I’d just as soon leave it till they’re away,” said Satan, jerking his

hand toward the _Dryad_. “There’s no tellin’, they might be spottin’ us

on the location with a glass, and they’ll be off tonight—so the chap

told me. You leave it to me and I’ll show you a cache better nor that

in a day or two.”

“Shut up, Satan!” came a drowsy voice from the deck.

“Shut up yourself!” said Satan. “I’m not talkin’ of what you mean: I’m

talkin’ of the abalone reef—lyin’ there like a lazy dog and lippin’

your betters!”

“Where’s me betters?” cried Jude, sitting bang-up suddenly, like the

corpse in “Thou art the man.”

“I’m your betters.”

“You!”

“Me!”

Jude broke into a cracked laugh.

“Listen to him talkin’!” cried she to the universe in general. “Ain’t

fit to bile potatoes!” She was on her feet, and he was after her with a

rope’s end, dodging her round the mast. “Touch me and I’ll tell him!” A

flick of the rope’s end caught her, and next moment she was clinging to

Ratcliffe and using him as her shield. “It’s an old ship sunk south o’

Rum Key!” cried Jude. “South o’ Rum Key! I told you I’d tell him if you

touched me.”

Satan dropped the rope and resumed the gooseneck business.

“Now you’ve done it!” said he.

“Told you I would,” said Jude. She sat down on the deck again as

though nothing had happened and nursed her knees.

“You needn’t mind me,” said Ratcliffe. “I won’t tell.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” said Satan, “but Pap was mighty particular about

keepin’ close. He located that hooker only three months before the

fever took him—and he didn’t come on it by chance nuther. And now

Jude’s given the show away!”

“I told you I’d tell him,” said Jude broodily.

“Told me you’d tell him! Why, ever since last fall you’ve been at me

to keep my tongue in my head about it, and then you bring it out bing,

first thing, yourself! That’s a woman all over.”

“Who are you callin’ a woman?”

“Me aunt. Shut your head and give over handlin’ that ball of yarn,

clutch hold of the gaff and keep it steady while I fix this ring on

her!”

He worked away in silence while Ratcliffe sat watching, vaguely

intrigued by what had just passed. It was less the words than the place

and circumstance,—the little deck of the _Sarah Tyler_, the blue lazy

sea, the voice of the surf on Palm Island, the figure of Jude and

Satan. He had seen Rum Cay: They had passed it in a pink and pearly

dawn. The steward had called him up to look at it. South of that lonely

and fascinating place old man Tyler had located a sunk ship. What sort

of ship he knew instinctively and that the Tylers were not the people

to halloo over nothing. The gulls did not know these seas better than

they. He said nothing, however. It was Satan who spoke next.

“Pap had reckoned to lay for it this spring,” said Satan, “but the

fever took him. Then we were underhanded. Jude and me can make out to

work the boat and get a livin’, but we’re too underhanded for a big

job. Why, takin’ that truck off the brig I told you about near laid us

out, and we had the nigger to help and she was hove up so that it was

like takin’ cargo off a wharfside.”

“Look here,” said Ratcliffe, “I’ll help if you care to go for it. I

don’t want any share: just the fun. What’s in her?”

“Well,” said Satan in a half-hearted way, “maybe we’ll have a look at

her; but it’s a job that wants more than three by rights. Pap was three

men in himself; he’d a done it. It’s a dynamite job. She’s got to be

blasted open.”

“I’ve heard stories about buried treasure in these seas—” began

Ratcliffe. Jude turned her head.

“That’s bilge,” said she.

“Yarns,” said Satan. “Pap used to turn any man down that talked of

stuff bein’ buried. First he said that chaps didn’t bury stuff, second

if they did you couldn’t find it, what with earthquakes and sand

siftin’ and such, and third that never an ounce of silver, or gold for

the matter of that, has ever been dug up by the tomfools huntin’ for

it. Havana is full of tall stories of buried treasure—chaps make a

livin’ sellin’ locations and faked charts and the like of that. It’s a

Spanish game, and it takes good American money every year. You see, Pap

was a book-readin’ man,—taught himself to read, too, and didn’t start

the job till he was near forty,—so he had a head on him, but somehow

or ’nother he never made the money he ought. If he’d stuck in towns and

places, he’d have been a Rock’feller; but he liked beatin’ about free,

said God’s good air was better than dollars. But it stuck in him that

he hadn’t made out, somehow. Then he turned into unbelievin’ ways, Said

he was a soci—what was it, Jude?”

“Somethin’ or ’nother,” said Jude.

“Socialist?” suggested Ratcliffe.

“That’s it! Said the time was coming when all the guys that were down

under would be on top of the chaps that were on top, and that there’d

be such a hell of a rough house money’d be no use anyway; said the

time was comin’ when eggs would be a dollar apiece and no dollars to

buy them with, and me and Jude would be safest without money gettin’

our livin’ out of the sea. He was a proper dirge when he got on that

tack. But all the same it stuck in him that he wasn’t on top, and one

night when he was in Diegos’ saloon he heard three Spanish chaps layin’

their heads together. He knew the lingo well enough to make out their

meanin’. They were in the bar. Pap wasn’t on the water wagon, but he

was no boozer. He was sittin’ there that night just dead beat, as any

man might be after the day’s work he’d done, runnin’ the customs—”

“Luff!” said Jude in a warning voice.

“Oh, close your head! Think I am talkin’ to a customs officer? He don’t

care.”

“Not a bit,” said Ratcliffe. “Heave ahead.”

“Well, he was sittin’ with his eyes shut, and he heard these guys

colludin’ together. He didn’t get more than half they said, but he

got enough to make him want to hear more. Then they quit the bar and

went into a back room with their lemon juice and cigarettes. Ten

minutes after hell broke loose in that back room, and when Pap and the

bartender got the door open there was the chaps, one on the floor shot

through the head and the other two near done in. Two of them had set

on the guy that was dead; but they hadn’t knocked him out before he

began to shoot, and he’d pretty well riddled them with a Colt automatic

pistol—”

“Them’s the things!” said Jude. “I’m savin’ up to buy one of them

things on my own—twenty-five dollars—”

“Shut your head! Then they must have knocked it out of his hand and

used the last shot on him.”

“His brains were all over the floor,” said Jude with relish. “Pap said

they looked like white of egg beat up and enough to fill a puddin’

basin.”

“Pap spotted somethin’ else on the floor,” went on Satan, “a piece of

paper folded double. He put it in his pocket while the fellers were

bein’ lifted to the hospital, where they died that same night. He was

on the square all right, takin’ that paper, and I’ll tell you why. Six

months before that we’d spotted a wreck comin’ up from Guadaloupe.

She’s so placed—as maybe you’ll see yourself one day—that a hundred

ships might have passed her without spottin’ her, and bein’ out of

trade tracks made her all the safer. These guys had been talkin’ about

a wreck before they left the bar for the back room, and he reckoned it

was our find they were onto. The piece of paper made him sure of that,

and, takin’ it with the talk he’d heard, he reckoned he had got the

biggest thing that ever humped itself in these waters. He said there

was a hundred thousand dollars aboard her.”

It was a fascinating story, yet it seemed to Ratcliffe that Satan

showed little enthusiasm over the business.

“You don’t seem very keen about it,” said he.

“Well,” said Satan, “it seems a bit too big, and that’s the truth. The

hooker’s there right enough, but I don’t seem to see all that stuff

aboard of her.”

“It’s there right enough,” said Jude.

“Then there’s the getting of it,” went on Satan. “That’s a tough job to

tackle. Months of work, no pay, and the chance of bein’ let down at the

end of it.”

“Satan’d sooner be grubbin’ round after abalones,” said Jude. “Bone

lazy, that’s what he is! I know the stuff’s there, and I’m goin’ to get

it if I have to dig it out myself.”

“Well, off with you then,” said the other, “and a good riddance you’d

be!” Then to Ratcliffe, “We’ll run you down there some day and you can

see for yourself. If you’ve any money to burn, you might like to put

it in the spec’. We’d want extra help. Jude’s talkin’ through her hat.

We can’t tackle that business alone, even Pap saw that—though he was

mighty set on doin’ it single-handed. And that’s where the bother

comes in, for the island where she’s lyin’ is Spanish, and the Dagoes

would claim what we got if they knew.”

“We’d have to get half a dozen men and give them a share,” said

Ratcliffe. “That would make them hold their tongues; but I see an awful

lot of difficulties. Suppose you got the stuff, how are you to get rid

of it?”

“We’d have to get it down to a Brazil port,” said Satan, “or run it

into Caracas. That’s handier. Them Venezuelans are the handiest chaps

when it comes to loose dealin’.”

“For the matter of that,” said Ratcliffe, “one could run it straight

to England. There are lots of places there where we could get it

ashore—but we’ve got to get it first.”

“That’s so,” said Satan. “Look! She’s puttin’ a boat off.” He pointed

to the _Dryad_.

A quarter-boat had been lowered and was pulling away from the yacht.

As she drew closer Ratcliffe saw that the man in the sternsheets,

steering, was Skelton,—Skelton coming either to make trouble or to

make friends.

The oars rose up and fell with a crash as the bow oar hooked on to the

dingy old _Sarah_.

“Hulloo!” said Ratcliffe.

“Hulloo!” said Skelton.

“Won’t you come on board?”

“No, thank you.” A sniff from Jude. “I just came over to say that we

are starting.”

Ratcliffe saw that he wanted to say a lot, but was tongue-tied before

the boat’s crew and the Tylers.

“Better come on board,” said he, “and have a chat in the cabin before

you’re off.”

Skelton hesitated a moment, then he came. He gave Satan a nod, utterly

ignored Jude, and, followed by Ratcliffe, passed below. Downstairs his

manner changed. Standing and refusing a seat, as though fearing to

contaminate his lily-white ducks, he began to speak as if addressing

the portrait of old man Tyler.

“I can’t believe you absolutely mean to do this,” said he. “I can

understand a moment’s temper, but—but—this is a joke carried too far.”

“My dear Skelton,” said the other, “what’s the good? I have the

greatest respect for you, but we are dead opposites in temperament and

we make each other unhappy. What’s the good of carrying it on? It’s not

as if you minded being alone. You like being alone, and I like this old

tub and her crew. Well, let’s each carry out our likings. I’m as happy

as anything here.”

“I’m not thinking of your happiness, but of the position. You were a

guest on my yacht, and you leave me like this—I need not embroider on

the bare fact.”

“Do you want me to go back?”

“Not in the least,” said Skelton. “You are a free agent, I hope.”

Ratcliffe’s blood was beginning to rise in temperature. He knew quite

well Skelton wanted him to go back, but was too proud to say so, and he

knew quite well that Skelton wanted him back, not for any love of him,

but simply because the _position_ was irregular and people, if they

heard of all this, might talk; also it might seem queer to the yacht’s

crew.

“Well, then, if you don’t specially want me back, I’ll stay,” said he.

“Very well,” said Skelton, “as you please. I wash my hands of the

affair, and if you come to grief it is your own lookout. I will have

the remainder of your baggage forwarded home to you when I reach

England.”

“I’ll maybe see you at Havana when this cruise is over,” said Ratcliffe

vaguely.

“I doubt it,” said Skelton. “It is quite possible I may not call

there.” He turned and began to climb the companionway. On deck he

nodded frigidly to Satan and got over the side.

Satan, leaning across the rail, looked down.

“How about that mains’l?” asked Satan jocularly.

“I’m afraid I have no more spare canvas available,” said Skelton, with

a veiled dig at the rapacity of the lantern-jawed one, “or provisions.

Anything else I shall be delighted to let you have.”

“Well, then,” said Satan, “you might send us a loan of the dinghy.

We’re short of boats.”

“You shall have her,” said Skelton with a glance at Ratcliffe, who was

also leaning over, as though to say, “This is the sort of man you have

thrown your lot in with!”

The boat pushed off.

“Goodby!” cried Ratcliffe, half laughing, half angry, with Satan, but

quite unable to veto the promised gift.

“’By,” replied the other, raising a hand.

Jude, who had said not one word, suddenly began to giggle.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Satan.

“I dunno,” replied Jude, “but there’s somethin’ about that guy that

makes me want to laugh.”

CHAPTER VI

SKELTON SAILS

The breeze had risen with the declining sun and the water round the

_Dryad_ looked like a spread of smashed sapphires.

They watched Skelton getting on board, and then they saw the dinghy

lowered and the quarter-boat taking her in tow. In five minutes, like

a white duckling behind a moor-hen, she was streaming on a line behind

the _Sarah_ and the quarter-boat was pulling back for the yacht.

Satan had got his wish, and Ratcliffe was feeling just as Skelton

wanted him to feel, under a compliment and rather a beast. Then they

saw the boat taken on board and the hands laying aloft and the canvas

shaking out to the favoring breeze.

“He’ll have the wind right aft, and that’ll save his coal,” said Satan.

“I reckon if his engines give out he wouldn’t bother much, with all

that canvas to carry him.”

“They’re handlin’ it smart,” said Jude. “There’s the anchor goin’ up.”

The flurried sound of the steam winch raising the anchor came across

the water, then it ceased, and Jude, running to the flag locker,

fetched out a dingy old American flag, bent it on, and ran it up,

dipping it as the _Dryad_ began to move.

She returned the compliment, gliding away with the bow-wash beginning

to show and the wake creaming behind her. As she passed the southern

reefs and shifted her helm, squaring her yards to the following wind,

a blast from her siren raised a blanket of shouting gulls. Then the

island cut her off and the sea lay desolate.

The sense of his loneliness came on Ratcliffe, sudden as the clap of a

door. He had cut the painter with civilization. The deck of the _Sarah

Tyler_ seemed smaller than ever, Jude and Satan more irresponsible and

unaccountable, and his own daring a new thing, somewhat dubious. He had

renounced services and delicacies and surety of passage and safety,

letters and newspapers, everything he had known! The shock scarcely

lasted a minute, and then, with the breeze across the pansy-blue

evening sea, came blowing the wind of Adventure and Freedom.

Then in a moment some spirit explained to him what life really

meant,—life as the Argonauts knew it, as the gulls know it, freedom

in the intense and living moment, without a thought of yesterday, with

scarcely a care for the morrow.

He took his seat in an old chair that Satan had placed under the rag of

awning and lit his pipe. That delightful smoke seemed the culmination

of everything in these first moments in this new world. As he smoked he

watched the Tylers, who were so busy with their own affairs that they

seemed to have forgotten him. They had hauled the dinghy alongside,

then they got into her and were lost to sight; but he could hear their

voices, Jude’s shrill with pleasure and excitement.

“My! Ain’t she a beauty? Ain’t she a dinky boat? My! look at

the _cus_hions!” A laugh. “For the love of Mike look at the

cushions—_cus_hions in a boat! Heave ’em on deck!” The cushions came

flying over the rail, together with the voice of Satan, evidently

bending.

“Leave them alone or I’ll bat y’ with the bailer! Well, let them lay

on deck if they’re there. She’s a duck, new built too,—teak, copper

fastenin’s, all the best that money could buy. Stop rockin’ her and

over you get after the cushions.”

Jude came clambering on board, beaming in the sunset, then she got

one of the boat’s cushions and took her seat on it on the deck beside

Ratcliffe.

“I reckon old Popplecock’s as soft as his cushions, to be wangled out

of a boat like that,” said Jude, examining the sole of her bare right

foot for a fancied splinter. “Satan said he was goin’ to try it on him

when you were down below with him. Didn’t believe he’d do it. That chap

looked as stiff as his own mainmast—but there’s no tellin’—Say, I

heard what you said to him when you were down below.”

“Oh, did you?”

“I wasn’t listenin’: I just heard through the skylight. I heard you

sayin’ you liked us and the old _Sarah_ better’n him and his boat—what

makes likin’s?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nuther do I; but we took to you right off, same as you to us. Ever

done abalone fishin’?”

“No.”

“Well, I reckon you won’t want to do it again, once you’ve tried.

There’ll be a big low tide tomorrow after sun-up, and you’ll have a

chance of seein’ what it is. Finished your pipe? Well, come along and

help us to get supper.”

For all the work Ratcliffe did, she might have got the supper herself.

He was mostly in the way; but it was the companionship that helped.

Brothers aren’t much good as companions. Ratcliffe was a new thing,

absolutely new, from his striped pajamas and dandy clothes to his

condition of mind, just as she was a new thing to Ratcliffe. Never did

two beings come together so well or create more rapidly a little world

of mutual interests out of the little things of life, or a weaker being

dominate more completely the stronger.

“Can you make bread?” asked Jude after he had filled the tin kettle

for her. “Well, you’ll have to learn. That’s the bakin’ powder in that

big tin, and the flour’s in the starboard locker—What’re you doin’

with the tin? Land’s sake! You don’t think I’m goin’ to make bread for

supper, same as you make tea? Where was you born?”

“Hampshire.”

“I thought it was somewhere like that,” said Jude.

She instructed him in the primitive method of bread making as conducted

on board the _Sarah Tyler_, finishing up with the information that

hardtack would be their portion at supper that night and breakfast

next morning, as she was “up to the gunnel” in other business. Among

the other things was having to put a patch on her trousers: not the

ones she was wearing, which were her next best, but her worst. The old

guernsey she was wearing was her second best. Coats! Oh, coats were

good enough on Sunday or for going ashore in, but no use much in a

ship, except an oilskin for dirty weather. Boots the same; stockings

the same. You had to wear boots, of course, over rocks and through

stuff like that over there on the island.

“Them pajamas” would be bully things to wear by day, only they’d

frighten the fish. As for sleeping in such things, she’d just as soon

seek the arms of Morpheus in a top hat. Why didn’t he wear a nighty

like her and Satan? Pap’s eyes would have bugged out had he seen those

things. He was “awful old fashioned,”—used to make her and Satan

put cotton between their teeth every night. They did it still. She

exhibited a set of dazzling white teeth to prove the fact. You just

pulled a cotton thread between them, and then they never went rotten.

Also he made them brush their teeth every morning. Folks that didn’t do

that got toothache.

“Kettle’s boilin’,” suddenly finished Jude. “Now start in an’ let’s

see you make the tea—said you could do it. There’s the can. Ain’t

you goin’ to heat the pot first? How’re you to heat it? Let me have a

hold. Now fling the water out. A spoonful a head and one for the pot

and another one for Satan,—he likes it strong,—and if you’ll take it

along to the cabin without spillin’ it I’ll be after you in a minute

with the plates and things.”

Satan, who never put his hand to menial work, maintaining, without

the least offense, his position as captain and owner, came down to

supper, flushed with the good qualities of the dinghy. He had taken

her for a row—and it was like hearing a man talking of a stroll with

a sweetheart—if men ever talk of such things. Before going on deck

to smoke he pointed out Ratcliffe’s quarters for the night. He was to

have Pap’s cabin, the space divided off with a curtain. Jude and he

always slept in hammocks swung in the “saloon.” Before going on deck he

fetched an old canister out of a locker and, emptying some dried herbs

into a saucer, set fire to them and left them smoldering on the table.

It was to keep the mosquitoes away. Pap had got the receipt from a

Seminole Indian up near Cedar Cays. It was patent stuff. Not a mosquito

would come when there was a sniff of it in the air.

Then, just as the moon was rising, and after the things were washed up,

they sat on deck, smoking, listening to the waves on the beach, and

watching fish jumping in the track of the moon. They talked of fish,

and to Ratcliffe’s mind two things became apparent,—Satan’s profound,

awful knowledge of the sea and all that lived therein, and his absolute

indifference to sport. Satan fished for food. Tarpon and tarpon

fishermen filled him with disgust and disdain. You can’t eat tarpon,

and the guys that came from New York and such places and spent their

days fighting tarpon with a ten-ounce rod and a twenty-one-thread line

seemed to him bereft of reason.

Jude, sitting on the deck and mending her pants by the light of the

moon, concurred.

“But it’s the fun of the thing,” said Ratcliffe; “it’s the matching of

one’s skill and strength against the fish.” He talked of the joys of

salmon fishing.

“What bait do you use for them?” asked Satan.

“Flies.”

Jude shrieked.

“Not live flies,” he explained: “imitation ones.” He tried to describe

artificial fly-making and finished with a sense of failure as of one

who had entered the lists in defense of a niggling form of business

that had yet a touch of humor in it.

Then, as they talked, suddenly through the night came a sound like the

boom of a big gun. Ratcliffe nearly dropped his pipe.

“That’s a fish,” said Satan.

“Sea bat,” said Jude indifferently.

“That noise?”

“Sea bat jumping. There they go again. Must be a circus of them playin’

about beyond the reefs,—big flat fish, weigh all of a ton.”

“Tails as long as themselves and eyes like dinner plates,” said Jude,

“mushy brutes. Tow a ship after them if they foul the anchor—won’t

they, Satan?”

“They’re loudenin’,” said Satan. “They’ll be comin’ this way with the

current. Come forward and have a look.”

Leaning over the rail, they watched the moon-shot water. The sounds had

ceased.

“They’ve stopped playin’,” said Satan, as though he knew exactly what

they were doing.

“It’s too shallow for them here,” said Jude.

“Shallow! It’s fifty foot of water and a sandy bottom. What are you

talkin’ about? Told you.”

The depths of the sea suddenly became lit. Down below vast forms came

drifting like the mainsails of ships ablaze with phosphorescent light,

drifting and turning over as they drifted like gargantuan leaves blown

by the wind. The whiplike tails could be seen as streaks of flame.

Glimpses of devilish faces and lambent eyes showed as they turned, the

fins waving like frills of fire.

Then they were gone.

The Tylers showed little concern over the marvelous sight; allowing,

however, that it was the biggest school of “bats” they had ever struck;

but to Ratcliffe it was as though the sea had disclosed a peep of its

true heart and real mystery.

Then they went to rest, and as he lay in Pap’s cabin, listening to the

occasional trickle of the water against the planking and the groan of

the rudder moved by the lilt of the swell, it seemed to him that daring

in its everyday and cold-blooded form could not have carried a man

much further than it had carried him. The sea bats had underscored the

business as far as the mystery of the ocean and danger of cruising in

such a small boat were concerned; the hardness of Pap’s bunk bedding

told of comforts renounced; while the morals of the Tylers, though

good enough no doubt, had, as disclosed in their conversation, a

touch of the free lance and a threat of port authority troubles and

differences of opinion with the customs. Absolute respect for the

rights of man, partial respect for the rights of shipping companies and

steamer lines, no respect at all for governments and customs,—that

was an outline of the Tyler morality. What had made him renounce

the _Dryad_ for the _Sarah?_ What, lying in his hard bunk, made him

contented with the exchange? The love of adventure and the craving for

something new contributed, no doubt, but the main reason he felt to be

the Tylers,—Satan with his strange mentality and queer methods; Jude,

unlike any other being he had ever met.

Then, as he lay considering all this, came muted voices from the

“saloon.” Satan’s voice:

“Have you put the cotton between your teeth?”

Then Jude’s, drowsily:

“Naw—leave a body alone!”

“Get out o’ your hammock, you lazy dog, an’ fix your teeth or I’ll let

you down by the head!”

Then Jude’s voice, dolorous and muffled, “Shut up or you’ll be wakin’

him! Cuss my teeth—cayn’t find the cotton! Wakin’ a body up like that!

Tell you I’m _lookin’_ for it—got it—”

A long silence, during which Ratcliffe dropped off, to be awakened an

hour later by the lamentations of Jude and the sounds of Satan prodding

her out of a nightmare,—a gastric nightmare, in which it appeared to

her troubled soul that she _had_ to fry a sea bat, _totum terres atque

rotundum_, in the small galley frying pan for breakfast.

CHAPTER VII

CARQUINEZ

The tide had begun to draw out with the setting stars, and the tune of

the waters on the beach had sunk to the merest thread of sound.

Then, through the silence from the far reefs to southward, came the

single, lamentable cry of a gull; then a chorus, and away against the

vague blue of the east, here and there, like leaves blown about a dimly

lit window showed the wings of the birds already putting out to sea for

the fishing.

Ratcliffe was awakened by Jude calling on him to “show a leg.”

“Satan’s on deck,” said Jude, “and if you believe in washin’ he’ll give

you a swill with a bucket. Hurry up and come down again, for I want a

swill myself. Swim? Not on your life! Sharks, that’s why.”

The voice came from a hammock which he had blundered against in the

semidarkness. Then on deck after his swill, drying himself with an old

towel provided by Satan, he stood for a moment watching the sun break

up through the water and the great sea flashing to life and the white

gulls flying.

The island was sending a faint breeze to them, a tepid breeze flavored

with earth and cactus and bay cedar scents, perfumes that mixed with

the tang of the ocean and the tar-oakum scents of the _Sarah Tyler_.

And all these scents and sounds and sights, from the sun flash on the

sea to the trembling palm fronds on the shore, seemed like a great

bouquet presented by youth and morning.

Oh, the splendor of being alive, free, happy, without a single care,

and the deck of the wandering _Sarah_ under foot!

From below through the skylight came a sleep-heavy voice.

“Ain’t you done yet?”

“Coming,” said Ratcliffe.

He dived into his pajamas and came below.

“Get into your cabin an’ shut the door,” commanded the yawning voice

from the hammock.

“There’s no door.”

“Well, draw the curtain. Oh, Lord! what’s the good o’ gettin’ up? I’m

near dead asleep!”

Then the voice of Satan descending the companion ladder.

“Ain’t you up? Well, you wait one minute!”

A thump on the floor, a scurry up the companion ladder, and then

shuddery lamentations and the sounds of swilling from the deck above,

mixed with the admonitions of Satan from below.

“Oh, my! ain’t it cold? Oh, my! ain’t it frizzin’?”

“Get on, you mad turkle! You ain’t washin’, you’re splashing the water

on the deck. Slush it over you.”

“I’m slushing it.”

“Think I don’t know? Why, you ain’t gasped yet! Give a gasp, or I’ll be

up to you with a rope-end! That’s more like it.”

It was!

The sun was high when Ratcliffe got on deck, and a light, steady breeze

was blowing up from the straits of Florida; the gulls looked like

snowflakes blowing round the far reefs and against the morning blue of

the sea.

Jude had put the kettle on. She had dressed on deck, having carried her

“togs” with her, and she was now preparing a line for fishing, and, as

she bent over it, appeared Satan,—Satan rising from the cabin hatch

with a toothbrush in his hand.

“You’ve forgot your teeth,” said Satan.

“No, I haven’t,” said Jude. “I’ve been fillin’ the kettle—I’ll fix

them when I’ve done with the fishin’.”

“Fishin’ will wait.” He fetched a pannikin of water. “You’re more

trouble than a dozen. What’d Pap say if he saw you?”

“I’ll fix them when I’ve done with the fishin’.”

“You’ll fix them now!”

“No. I won’t!”

Satan put down the pannikin and the brush. She evaded him like a flash

and skimmed up the mast to the crosstrees.

Scarcely had she got up than she came sliding down, seized the

toothbrush and pannikin, and began to brush her teeth over the scupper

with a fire speed and fury that seemed born of dementia.

“Sardines comin’,” explained Jude between mouthfuls. “Look alive and

get a bucket!”

Ratcliffe looked over the sea, where her birdlike sight had spotted

the sardine shoal being driven like a gray cloud under the water

by pursuing fish. A fringe of dancing silver showed the leaping

sardines, and the great fish driving the shoal broke up now and then in

sword-flashes.

They were coming from south to north, and the left wing of the shoal

would pass the island beach by a cable length.

While Satan stood by with a bucket at the end of a rope, Ratcliffe hung

over the side watching.

The driven sardines had no eyes for the _Sarah_. They struck her like

the blow of a great silvery hand, boiled around her, and passed. The

army of pursuit followed, passed and vanished, leaving the water clear

and Satan with a dipped up bucket full of quivering silver.

The Tylers, absolutely blind to the wonder of the business, fried the

sardines just as they were, tossed out of the blue sea into the frying

pan, and, breakfast over, Satan and Ratcliffe took the dinghy to hunt

for abalones on the uncovered reef.

The reefs to southward formed two spurs divided by a creek of blue

water, and having got the dinghy into this creek Ratcliffe tended the

boat while Satan hunted for the abalones.

Satan in search of pearls was a sight. Heart, soul, and mind bound

up in the business, like a dog hunting for truffles, every find was

announced by a yell or a whoop, like the whoop of a Red Indian.

Ratcliffe could see squiggly-wiggly cuttlefish tendrils running up

Satan’s arms as he delved in some of the rock-clefts, and Satan

disengaging them and flinging the “mushy brutes” away. The big abalones

were nearly always deep down under the rock ledges and had to be

chiseled off, wallowing in the water. At these times Ratcliffe might

have fancied the vanished one lost or drowned, but for the profane

language that rose and floated away on the breeze.

All the same, it was dull work for the boat tender. Having nothing else

to think of, he thought of Jude. Her figure chased away dullness.

A man in the bright and early morning is quite a different person

from the same man at noon, and coming across Jude after a long course

of Skelton was like stepping from a gray afternoon to dawn. Was it

possible that Skelton and Jude were vertebrates of the same species?

Then there was what women would have called the pity of it. Ratcliffe

did not deal much with the conventions as a rule; still, he could

not but perceive that all life has an aim and ending, and that the

end of an old sailor was not what life and the fitness of things had

destined for Jude. What would she grow up into? He thought of all the

girls he had ever known. There was not one so jolly as Jude; still,

it was terrible, somehow, monstrous. He remembered her threat to pull

her skirts over her head and run down the street if skirts were ever

imposed upon her. Her contempt for the feminine rose up before him, and

against all that her housewifely instincts and the fact that, despite

Satan’s rope-end and mock bluster, she ruled the _Sarah Tyler_ just as

a woman rules a house.

Still, it was deplorable. Looking away into distance, what would become

of her?

Vague and fatherly ideas of getting her away from this life and having

her brought up properly and educated came to him, only to be dispelled

by Jude. Imagine Jude in a girls’ school, at a tea party!

He was aroused from these meditations by Satan,—Satan with an armful

of abalones, Satan scratched and bleeding and soused in sea water, but

triumphant.

He reckoned they were the biggest “fish” ever got on these reefs. There

were a dozen and six all told, and when they were collected and put on

board the dinghy put back.

Coming round the western spur of the reef, they found that Jude had

left the _Sarah_—a high crime—and rowed herself ashore.

The canvas boat was on the beach, and away amid the bay cedars and

cactus toward the trees could be seen the head and shoulders of the

deserter moving about. She seemed in search of something.

“God love me!” cried Satan.

He beached the dinghy, helped Ratcliffe to run her up, and then

started, followed by the other, running and shouting as he ran.

“Hi! chucklehead! Whatcha leave the ship for? Didn’t I tell you to

stand by her? Whatcha huntin’ for—turkles’ eggs?”

“What you done with your eyes?” retorted the other. “Cayn’t you see?”

Instantly, and by her tone and by some sixth sense, Satan was appeased.

He seemed suddenly to scent danger. He saw the work she had been on,

camouflaging the cache more effectively. He cast his glance over the

island, the western sea, turned, and then stood stock-still, shading

his eyes.

Away beyond the _Sarah Tyler_ across the purple blue stood a sail. The

land wind had died off, and the stranger was bringing the sea wind with

her. A small topsail schooner she showed now, with all sail set, making

dead for the island.

“That’s him,” said Satan.

“Spotted him half an hour ago,” said Jude. “He was steering

nor’-nor’west and shifted his helm when he saw us.”

The bay cedar bushes sighed suddenly to the new-risen wind, and as

Ratcliffe glanced about him the feeling of the desolation of the place

where he stood came to him strong,—strong in the scent of cactus and

herbage, the tune of the water on the beach, and the rustle of the wind

in the bushes.

“He’s been huntin’ for us,” said Satan, “curse him!”

“Who is he?” asked Ratcliffe.

“Friend of Pap’s, he was—”

“Pretended to be,” put in Jude.

“Spanish,” continued Satan, “and ever since Pap gave out he’s been

pretty much on our heels. Jude and me worked the thing out and we came

to conclude he’d scented, somehow, from Pap, about the hooker I spoke

of.”

“The wreck?’

“Yep. Pap was keen on gettin’ extra money into the business of salvin’

her, and I b’lieve he sounded Carquinez,—that’s his name,—and how

much he let out takin’ his soundin’s the Lord only knows! Cark’s in the

tobacco line. Does a bit of everythin’,—has a shop in the Calle Pedro

in Havana and a gamblin’ joint on the front, owns ships. That’s one of

them, and Matt Sellers runs her for him. He don’t trouble handlin’ her:

sits in the cabin all day smokin’ cigarettes.”

“He’s been after us ever since Pap died,” said Jude, “on and off.”

“It was one of his men got Jude in that doggery down by the wharf and

filled her up with rum,” said Satan, turning the brim of his panama

down. “Remember I told you—and what she let out the Lord only knows!”

“I didn’t let out nothin’,” said Jude; “only that we were goin’ east

this trip, I owns to that.”

“Well, there’s the result of your jaw,” said Satan. “East was good

enough for Cark: he’d hunt hell for a red cent. And don’t you be sayin’

you didn’t let out nothin’. Why, I heard you jawin’ about all the money

you had when I come in and collared you! Cark believes Pap found that

stuff and cached it—that’s what he believes, or my name’s not Tyler.”

“Well, let’s get aboard,” said Jude. “If they see us squatting about

here, they’ll maybe think the stuff’s hid here.”

“They’ve seen us by this, though it’s too far for them to make out who

we are,” said Satan, pushing his panama farther forward to hide his

face. He led the way to where the boats were on the sand, and they

reëmbarked.

The abalones were got on board, and then they stood watching the

approach of the stranger.

The white had gone out of her sails. Close in now, they showed dingy

and patched. She had a low freeboard. Then, as she dropped anchor and

swung to her moorings broadside on to the _Sarah_, the rake of her

masts became apparent, and her whole disreputableness spoke aloud.

Ratcliffe felt like a man who, having got into pleasant low company,

suddenly finds himself drawn into unpleasant low company.

The _Tylers_ and the old _Sarah_ were all right, but this new crowd

and that ratty old schooner he felt to be all wrong. And the newcomer

somehow did not add honesty or moral stability to the appearance of the

_Sarah_, nor did the half-disclosed character and activities of Cark

shed luster on old man Tyler or his present representatives.

However, he had gone into this business open-eyed, and it was not for

him to grumble at the friends or relationships of his hosts; besides he

had trust in Satan and the wit of Satan to preserve them from the law.

Satan had covered the heap of abalones with some sailcloth, and he was

standing now working his lantern jaws on a bit of chewing gum, his eyes

fixed on the stranger as though she were made of glass and he could

see Carquinez sitting smoking his cigarettes in the cabin.

“They haven’t shown a sign,” said Jude.

“They’re bluffin’ us to believe they haven’t spotted who we are,” said

Satan. “Cark doesn’t want us to twig he’s been lookin’ for us.”

“Well,” said Jude, “let’s get the mudhook up and put out right away.

They won’t have the face to chase us.”

“Yes,” said Satan, “and leave them to hunt the island and find the

cache! They’d lift the stuff to the last tin of beef. They’ve seen us

ashore among the bushes. You shouldn’t have gone ashore.”

“I went to see we hadn’t left no traces.”

“Traces be damned! Cark wants no traces. Once he starts to hunt, he’ll

turn the durned island upside down and shake it. He’ll say to himself,

‘What were they doin’ here, anyway; what were they pokin’ about them

bushes for?’ No, we’ve got to sit here till he goes, and that’ll be

this time next year, maybe.”

“What’s the name of his schooner?” asked Ratcliffe.

“The _Juan Bango_,” replied Satan, “named after the tobacco company

people. Look, they’re gettin’ a boat off. That’s Sellers, and he’s

comin’ aboard.”

Then he collapsed, squatting under the bulwarks. “Guy them,” said he to

Jude. “Tell them I’m down with smallpox: that’ll make them shove.”

“Leave ’em to me,” said Jude.

It was Matt Sellers right enough, a big wheezy man suggestive of

Tammany Hall, but a sure-enough sailor in practice. “The biggest

blackguard on the coast” was his subsidiary title. He was the henchman

of Carquinez. His career was not without interest and romance of a

sort. It was he who had bought, with the money of Carquinez, the bones

of the _Isidore_, wrecked against the sheer cliffs by the black strand

of Martinique. Ten thousand dollars in gold coin she had on board her,

and he salved them. That was a straight job, and a wonderful bit of

work, taking it all together. It was a curiosity, too, because it was

straight.

The crooked jobs of Matt Sellers would have filled a book.

Like old man Tyler, Sellers had no use for people who talked of buried

treasure, he knew the Caribbean and the gulf too well.

If he was keen on the wreck business, then it was because he had

excellent reasons for his keenness.

As the boat drew near, Ratcliffe noticed the villainous-looking crew,

Spaniards, some of them with red handkerchiefs tied round their heads.

CHAPTER VIII

JUDE OVERDOES IT

“Hullo, Kid!” cried Sellers as the boat came alongside the _Sarah_.

“Hullo, yourself,” replied Jude. “Where’ve you blown in from?”

“What’s become of Satan? Ain’t he aboard?” asked Sellers, ignoring the

question.

“Satan’s dead,” said Jude.

“Satan’s which?”

“Died of the smallpox.”

“Well, I’m d—d!” said Sellers, casting his eyes over the _Sarah_ and

then resting them on Ratcliffe. “When was it?”

“A week ago.”

Sellers gave a word to the bow oar and the boat pushed off a bit, the

fellows hanging on their oars.

“I thought I saw three of you on deck,” he shouted.

“The other chap’s gone below,” replied Jude.

The boat of the _Juan_ hung for a moment as if in meditation. She made

a striking picture, the blue water paling to green under her and the

sun-blaze on the red topknots of the oarsmen.

Then without a word more she turned back to the _Juan_.

Satan in the scupper seemed preparing to have a fit.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Jude.

“What’s the matter? What did you say I was dead for? Didn’t I tell you

to say I was down with smallpox?”

“Well, what’s the difference?”

“Why, you mutt, wouldn’t you have been snivelin’ and cryin’ if I was

dead? And you handed that yam out to him as ca’m as if you were talking

of a tomcat! I didn’t believe you myself.”

“Why, I told him you was dead a week,” cried Jude. “D’you think I’d be

snivelin’ and cryin’ a week if you was dead? Lord! what you do think of

yourself!”

Satan did not reply. He was thinking that he had made a false move and

that Jude had put the cap on the business. Cark would be certain now

that there was something hidden on the island.

Satan was on the horns of a dilemma. One horn was the cache of

provisions containing a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of stuff, the

other horn was the old wreck that might contain nothing.

To hang on here was useless, for Cark would hang on too. Even if Cark

went away, he would be sure to come back to hunt.

He sat with his back to the bulwarks, chewing and thinking. Then,

heedless whether he was seen or not from the _Juan Bango_, he rose

to his feet and leaned with his back against the rail He had come to

a decision. Jude, watching him, said nothing, and Ratcliffe waited

without a word. This little sea comedy interested him intensely, and

all the more for its setting of loneliness and its background of blue

sea and quarreling gulls.

It was to Ratcliffe that Satan spoke first “Look here!” said Satan.

“You’re standin’ out of this, aren’t you?”

“Which—the wreck business?”

“Yep. You’re not keen upon puttin’ money into it and havin’ a share?”

“Oh, no. If you wanted me to, I’d be glad enough; but if you’d rather I

stood out, I’ll do so. I’m not keen about money, anyway; only I’d like

to see the fun.”

“You’ll see fun enough,” said Satan. “I’m goin’ to drag Cark in. First

of all, if I don’t, he’ll keep hangin’ round here and sniff the cache;

second, he’ll work the job for us with his crew.”

“He’ll gobble every cent,” said Jude.

“Which way?” asked Satan. “We’ll give him half shares, and well split

on him if he doesn’t play fair. If we found stuff there, and once it

was known, d’you think we’d be let keep it? We’ve got to get help, and

isn’t he as good as another? If there’s no stuff there, he’ll have all

his work for nothing.”

“The thing I can’t make out,” said Ratcliffe, “is the way he started

out from Havana to find you. How did he ever expect to come across you?”

“Well, it’s this way,” said Satan. “Bein’ in with Pap, he knew the

lines we worked on; f’rinstance, he knew we worked this place for

abalones. If he hadn’t sighted us here; he’d have tried Little Pine

Island, which is lonesomer than this place. You see he’s got it in his

noddle, as far as I can make out, that Pap lifted the stuff and cached

it, and Pine Island or here would have been the likeliest places. He

reckoned when we put out of Havana this time we were out to lift it

for good. Well, he’ll do the liftin’ if it’s to be done. Come on, I’m

going over to see him right off. Jude, you stick here and clean up them

abalones.”

He got into the dinghy, followed by Ratcliffe, and they pushed off.

As they drew closer the _Juan Bango_ showed up more distinctly for what

she was.

One of the old schooners that used to run in the carrying trade between

Havana and the Gulf ports, she had fallen from commercial honesty;

anyhow in appearance, perhaps because Carquinez did not bother about

appearance. You could not have damaged his paint if you had tried,—it

was sun-blistered and gone green,—but his copper showed sharp and

clear through the amazing brilliance of the water, without trace of

weeds or barnacles.

Sellers was hanging over the rail as they came alongside.

If he felt surprise at this resurrection, he did not show it much.

“Hullo, Satan!” cried Sellers. “Thought you was dead.”

“Cark on board?” asked Satan without wasting time on explanations.

“He’s down below,” said Sellers, accepting the attitude of the other.

“Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, just a gentleman that’s come along for a cruise,” said Satan. “So

you’ve found me!”

“Seems so,” said Sellers; “but tie up and come aboard.”

Satan tied the painter to a channel plate and got over the side,

followed by Ratcliffe.

The deck of the _Juan_ sagged, and plank and dowel were

indistinguishable one from the other by reason of dirt. Forward some

of the crew were scraping a spare boom, and others collected round the

foc’sle head were smoking cigarettes. The wind had died out into a warm

breathing, setting aft and bringing with it a faint odor like the smell

of acetylene. It was garlic.

From the foc’sle came the muffled thrumming of a guitar.

It was Ratcliffe’s first experience with a Spaniard. He followed Satan,

who followed Sellers down a steep companionway and then into a cabin

where a great shaft of sunlight from the skylight above struck down

through a haze of cigarette smoke.

The place was paneled with bird’s-eye maple; the seats were upholstered

in thick ribbed silk, worn and stained; the carpet was of the best, but

threadbare in spots and burnt with cigar droppings; the metal fittings

far too good for a trading schooner of the _Juan_ type.

Everywhere lay evidence of splendor that had seen better days.

All these fittings had, in fact, been torn out of a yacht bought by

Carquinez for an old song, and at the end of the saloon table, going

over some papers with a cigarette in his mouth, sat Carquinez himself,

a figure to give one pause.

The whole of the left side of this gentleman’s face was covered by a

green patch. It was said that he had no left side to his face, that it

had been eaten away by disease, and that, were he to unveil himself,

the sight would frighten the beholder. However that may have been, what

remained visible was enough to frighten any honest man with eyes to

behold the nose of a vulture above the peaked chin of a money changer.

“Hullo, Cark!” said Satan.

“Come in,” said Cark.

“Bring yourselves to an anchor,” said Sellers, pointing out two of the

fixed seats on each side of the table and taking another close to the

owner of the _Juan_. “What’ll you have?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Satan. “Something soft will suit us, and long.”

Carquinez raised a bird-shrill voice:

“Antonio!”

“Si, Sigñor,” came a response from outside, and on the voice a dusky

form at the cabin door.

“Bring me two Zin and Zinzibeers for these two zentlemen, please.”

“No gin!” cried Satan, Ratcliffe concurring. “Ginger beer will do.”

“Zinzibeers,” said Carquinez.

It was nearly all that he said at this interview, the trusty Sellers

doing the talking.

Said Sellers to Satan, “Well, it’s funny us hittin’ on you like this,

durned funny! We’d been down to Acklin looking up a location Cark was

keen about, and comin’ back I shifted the helm, seein’ you lying here

and not recognizin’ the old _Sarah_. I thought it was Gundyman’s boat.”

Said Satan, taking up the drink just presented by Antonio, “Here’s our

respects to you both. Thought I was Gundyman, did you? Well, I spotted

you on sight. Didn’t want to see you neither. This gentleman will tell

you I was squattin’ in the scuppers while Jude was handing you that lie

about the smallpox.”

“Oh, was you?” said Sellers with an open and hearty laugh.

“I was so. Let’s cut pretendin’ and play on the square—are you

willin’?”

“None better.”

“Well, I’ll put my cards out. You and Cark here have been after me

pretty near since last fall; reason why, that wreck Pap told Cark of.”

“W’ich was that?”

“I said let’s cut pretendin’ and play fair,” said Satan sternly.

Cark wilted and raised his fingers in deprecation, and Sellers cut in.

“Yes, we’ll play fair. There was talk of a wreck between your dad and

us, and I’m not denying we had an eye after it. You see I’m open and

honest with you. Heave ahead.”

“I’m comin’ to the point,” said Satan, “and the point is you and Cark

between you have got it in your heads that you’ve only to follow me,

find out where she’s located, and claim shares for not tellin’.”

“Heave ahead,” said Sellers.

“Well, you’ve got it wrong,” went on Satan. “You may follow me till the

old _Juan_ rots to pieces and you’ll never know, not if I don’t want

you to know—got that clear?”

“Clear as day,” said Sellers.

“Well, then, here’s something else. If that wreck is what she’s taken

to be, it’s more than one man’s job to shift the boodle and bank it.

I’ve got to have help, and if we can arrange a deal I’d just as soon

have you two in the show as anyone else.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Sellers.

Carquinez said nothing, but his hand shook, and Ratcliffe, watching

him, received a shock. A wreath of cigarette smoke was stealing out

from beneath the patch on his cheek! He wished the conference over and

himself back on board the healthy _Sarah_. It came to him all at once

that he had been drawn into a web of which Carquinez was the spider.

Satan, too, and Jude had been drawn in. He could do nothing, however,

at least for the moment, but watch and wait, and Satan’s face was worth

watching as that wily diplomatist sat facing Sellers.

“Not that I don’t believe you’d kidoodle me over the business if you

had a chance,” continued Satan. “You would, sure; but you see I’ve got

the weather gauge of you, knowing what I do of you, and that’s more’n

I’d have with strangers.”

“Sure,” said Sellers.

“Well, then,” said Satan, “we’ve got that far, and it comes to terms.

What’s your share to be for helpin’ to collar the stuff and dispose of

it in Havana?”

“Two dollars out of every three that we make,” said Sellers promptly.

“There’s the salving, you can’t do that alone, or your dad would have

done it prompt; then there’s the cashing of it, you’re lost men if you

try that job on by yourselves. Why, there’s not another man in Havana

could do it only Cark, and even he couldn’t bring the stuff into Havana

Harbor! It’ll have to be landed back of the island, north of Santiago.

Lord knows what he’ll have to pay!”

Satan cogitated for a moment.

“I’ll meet you,” said he at last. “I’m not set on big money. Anything

more?”

“No, that’s all,” said Sellers.

Carquinez nodded approval, and lighting another cigarette leaned back

in his chair.

“And what’s this gentleman doing in the business?” asked Sellers,

referring to Ratcliffe.

“Oh, he’s standing out,” said Satan. “He’s just on a cruise with us.”

“Yes, I’m standing out,” said Ratcliffe. “I’m in it only for the fun of

the thing, though I’m willing to help.”

“Well, I reckon you’ll have fun enough,” said Sellers, “if we get foul

of the customs, or if some other hooker comes poking along while we’re

salving. You’re British, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“I thought so. Come out for a spree?”

“You may put it like that.”

“Did you by any chance come off a big white yacht that went west

yesterday?”

“Yes, I did. What made you guess that?”

“Well,” said Sellers, “it’s easy to be seen you aren’t one of us, and

your clothes give you away. It’s easy to be seen you haven’t been

dough-dishing long in the old _Sarah_. I didn’t get your name.”

“Ratcliffe.”

“No trade or business?”

“None. My father was Ratcliffe the shipowner, Holt & Ratcliffe.”

“Lord—love—a—duck!” said Sellers. “You’re not wanting for money,

I reckon. Well, this gets me, it do indeed! Holt & Ratcliffe—should

think I _did_ know them!”

“Antonio!” suddenly piped Carquinez.

“Si, Señor.” Antonio appeared.

“Pedro Murias,” said Carquinez.

Antonio vanished, and reappeared with a box of cigars, colossal cigars,

worth twenty-five guineas a hundred in the London market. They were

placed on the table and pushed toward Ratcliffe.

Satan grinned.

“Well,” said he, “we’ve fixed things so far,—two out of every three

dollars to you and no deductions.”

“That’s it,” said Sellers.

“And now we’ve fixed terms,” said Satan, “I want to know all about this

hooker.”

“Which was you meaning?” asked Sellers.

“The wreck.”

“Listen to him!” cried Sellers. “Mean to say you don’t know all about

her?”

“N’more than Adam. I’ve heard from Pap she was called the _Nombre de

Dios_, and was full of gold plate got from churches; but that’s not

much more than a name and a yarn. I’ve never banked much on the yarn.

Seems too much of the New Jerusalem touch about it for me.”

“Well, maybe you’re wrong,” said Sellers.

“Spit it out,” said Satan. “Tell us what you know about her. You’ve got

the contrac’; give us the news.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Sellers. “She weren’t no ship with gold

plates,—your dad got that wrong,—she was a big Spanish ship out of

Vera Cruz making for Spain. She had a cargo of timber, some of them

heavy foreign timbers that don’t float. She’d got aboard her, besides

the timber, more’n a million dollars’ worth of gold,—Mexican gold most

of it, Spanish coin some of it. Lopez was the name of the skipper, and

he laid to bank that gold for himself. He’d been forty years in these

seas and knew every key and sandbank same as the insides of his own

pockets.

“Him and the mate were the only men in the know about that gold beside

a supercargo by name of Perez.

“Well, he colluded together with them two guys to sink the hooker in

six fathom water out of trade tracks, give out that she’d sunk in a

gale, and come back in a year or two and collar the boodle. They had

her bored and plugged for the game, and when they got her to the

location they pulled out the plugs, and she went down without a sneeze,

natural as a dyin’ Christian.

“They got the boats away in order, and the crew was got off to a man;

but that crew never got ashore. Maybe it was something wrong with the

grub or the water, there’s no saying, but they never got ashore to turn

witness. But the grub and water was all right in the dinghy. Them three

guys had taken the dinghy, and they were picked up and landed somewhere

on the gulf, fat and well.”

All through Sellers’ recitation Carquinez had sat nodding his head.

He glanced now at Satan and Ratcliffe as if measuring its effect upon

them, then he half closed his eyes again and retired into himself like

a tortoise.

“They slung their yarn,” went on Sellers, “and made all good, and it

was only left for them to wait awhile and hire or steal a likely boat

to pick up the stuff, when the yellow fever took the supercargo and the

mate, leaving Lopez to fish for himself.

“He got back to Havana, which was his natural home, and there he put

up with his son, who was a trader in tobacco, got a bit of a factory

not bigger than a henh’us, and turned out a brand of cigars made out of

leavin’s and brown paper mostly.

“He put the son wise about the wreck; but he wouldn’t give the location

away till it was time to go and pick up the stuff, which wouldn’t be

for a year yet.

“Then he up and died, and the son started to hunt for the chart and

couldn’t find it. The old guy had given him everything but the chart

with the location marked on it. It wasn’t a proper chart, neither: just

a piece of paper with the thing done rough, but giving the bearings.

And it was never found—not by the son. The grandson found it—and

where do you think? Pasted into the lining of an old hat. That wasn’t

so long ago, neither, and what do you think that fool of a grandson

did? Well, I’ll tell you what he did. First of all he comes to Cark

here, and tries to get him onto the job on a ten per cent basis, Cark

to risk his money and repitation for a lousy ten per cent on what might

be only the bones of an old ship. He let out her name and history and

everything but the location.

“Cark wasn’t having any on those terms,—was you, Cark?—and he told

the chap to go to Medicine Hat and pick bilberries. The chap goes off,

and what does he do but tries to get up a syndicate between himself and

two yeggmen without a keel to their names! Perrira was the name of one,

and da Silva was the name of the other, and they held a board meeting

in Diego’s saloon one night and shot holes in one another in the back

parlor.

“Silva and Perrira had fixed it to lay the grandson out and collar the

chart for themselves, and they’d have done it, only he wasn’t backward

with the shooting. Your dad was in the bar that night, and he twigged

something from what they let drop before they went to the back parlor

to hold their meeting. Then when the shooting began he was first into

the room, and collared the chart, which was lying on the floor. He was

always quick on the uptake, was your dad. Being a knowledgeable man,

he reckoned Cark was the only chap in Havana to help him take the stuff

and clear it. He knew the stuff was there by what he’d heard going on

in the bar before the three chaps had left it for the back room, but

before he could conclude business with Cark he up and died.”

Cark nodded.

“That was so,” said he.

“Well,” said Satan, “we’ve got the whole yarn now, and I’m wishing

to be done with the business. I’m pretty near sick of you two guys

trailing after me, and I’ll hand you out my belief for what it’s worth.

It don’t seem natural to me to find gold in a hooker like that, just

for the picking up, and I’d sell any man my chances for a thousand

dollars. I’ve no knowledge of what’s there. I’m just talkin’ out of

my head. You know what I am, I make my livin’, and I’m content to run

small. It’s maybe that that puts me against big ventures. Anyhow, we’ve

got to push this thing through, we’ve made the contrac’. I don’t want

it written down and signed, seein’ that the law couldn’t help me. I’m

only sayin’ that if you play me crooked I’ll split. Got that in your

heads?”

The high contracting parties on the other side nodded assent.

“That bein’ settled,” said Satan, “here’s the chart.”

He produced a metal tobacco box and took from it a folded piece of

paper, which he laid on the table before Sellers.

The effect was magical.

Carquinez sprang from his chair like a young man, came behind Sellers,

and, bending over his shoulder, looked. Ratcliffe, though out of the

business, was as excited as the others. Satan alone was calm.

He had been carrying the thing about so long that it had probably lost

its freshness of interest.

Sellers, without speaking, stared at the chart before him.

Rum Cay was shown, and then, southwest of Rum Cay, a line of reef

marked “Lone Reef,” and in red ink, connected to the reef by a red

line, the name “Nombre de Dios” could be made out, the “Dios” very

indistinct at the frayed edge of the paper. In the top right hand

corner the latitude and longitude were written, but so faintly that it

would have required close study in a strong light to make the figures

out.

Nobody bothered about them. Lone Reef was on all the charts, and the

name was enough.

“I’ve been by there,” said Sellers at last, “and I’ve never seen signs

of a wreck.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Satan. “She lies flush with the coral in a crik

between two arms of reef, not a stump of a mast on her. The hull of

that reef must have raised itself since she was sunk, for the water in

the crik doesn’t cover her at high tide and low tides it’s pretty near

empty. But she’s been under right enough, years ago, for the decks are

coraled over, hatches and all, and the stuff’s turned to iron cement

with the sun and weather. We’ve got to dynamite her open.”

“Sure,” said Sellers; then, after a moment’s pause, “It’ll be a big

job, if it’s what you say. I had it in my mind that she was a diving

job in shallow water—never thought of the blasted coral.”

Carquinez said nothing. He withdrew to his seat at the end of the

table and lit another cigarette. To Ratcliffe the silence of Carquinez

approached the weird. The way Sellers, without consulting him, did all

the talking seemed uncanny as though the pair were telepathic.

One thing certain was gradually being borne in upon him,—they were a

most atrocious pair of rogues, and the marvel to him was the simplicity

of Satan in having any dealings at all with them. They would surely

swindle him, take what precautions he might. They would never give

him a third share of any treasure. They would, most likely, murder

him before he could split on them, if treasure were found. Of this

Ratcliffe felt certain. He tried to telegraph a warning across the

table, but Satan seemed blind to winks and frowns.

“Well, it’s there,” said Satan, “near a foot thick. You’ve got to drill

it, and stick dynamite cartridges in the drill-holes and fire them. Got

any dynamite aboard?”

“Not an ounce.”

“We might make out with blasting powder.”

“Yes, if we’d got it,” said Sellers. “There ain’t no use worrying,

we’ve got to shin out of this back to Havana and get the explosives.

Question is who’ll go for them, us or you?”

“Not me,” said Satan, “not if she was to lie there till the last

trumpet. We’re underhanded, for one thing, and, f’r another, I’m

gettin’ little enough out of the job as it stands without fetchin’ and

carryin’ for you.”

“Then we’ll go,” said Sellers. “’Twon’t take us more than a week to get

there and back. Give us ten days, counting accidents, and we’ll pick

you up here.”

“Why not at the reef?” asked Satan.

“Don’t matter,” said Sellers. “Here or there, it’s all the same to us;

ain’t it, Cark?”

Cark nodded assent, and Satan, recapturing the chart, folded it up and

put it back into the tobacco box.

“Right!” said he, placing the box into his pocket. “Here you’ll find

us.”

CHAPTER IX

THE “JUAN” SAILS

They rose from the conference table, and Carquinez stood holding his

coat together with a veined and knotted hand while the visitors were

making their adieux.

“You haven’t a few feet of galvanized wire aboard?” asked Satan as he

passed out, following Sellers.

“Come on deck,” said Sellers.

On deck he stood listening, while the other passed from galvanized

wire to the question of spare ring-bolts and other trifles he stood

desperately in need of. Like a hypnotized fowl in the hands of Satan,

he made scarcely any resistance.

He had no ring-bolts, but the galvanized wire was forthcoming, also

a little barrel for use as a buoy, some Burgundy pitch, an old

paintbrush, a small can of turpentine, and a couple of pounds of twine.

A small boat-anchor that had raised Satan’s desires brought the séance

to a conclusion and broke the spell that seemed to lie on Sellers.

Blessed if Satan wouldn’t be asking for his back teeth yet! What did he

take the _Juan_ for, a marine store? What would he want next, Carquinez?

They rowed off with the spoil, Sellers leaning on the rail and

lovingly pressing on them the acceptance of other trifles, including a

guitar.

Alongside the _Sarah_ they found Jude waiting to receive them.

She had been cleaning up the abalones, was dissatisfied with the

result,—quarter of a matchbox full of seed pearls,—and said so.

When her eye lighted on the stuff in the boat that Satan had wangled

out of Sellers, she laughed in a dreary fashion.

“What you laughin’ at?” demanded Satan.

“Nothing,” said Jude.

She sat down on an upturned keg while they brought the truck on board.

Then, nursing her knee and wiggling her bare toes to the warmth of the

sun, she sat without a word, waiting for explanations.

It seemed to Ratcliffe all at once that a critic had come on the scene.

He had forgotten Jude in relation to the deal over the wreck, and he

was wondering now how she would take it. The female does not always

see eye to eye with the male, as many a business man has discovered on

revealing a transaction to the wife of his bosom.

Leaning against the rail, he filled his pipe and awaited the

revelation with interest; but Satan, the revealer, seemed in no hurry

for the business. He was bustling about disposing of the new-gotten

“stores,”—the turpentine and pitch forward in the hole where paints

were kept, the galvanized wire in a locker, and the little barrel

behind the canvas boat.

Then he came aft again and, lighting a pipe, stood beside Ratcliffe.

“Well, what you been doing, anyway?” asked Jude, suddenly opening her

batteries.

“Doing—which?” asked Satan. “Oh, you mean with Cark. Well, I’ve

settled things with him, fixed it up so’s he’s goin’ to help.”

“Which way?” asked Jude.

“Why, to get the stuff, if it’s there—what else? He’s our only chance

of doing the thing proper.”

“What’s he askin’?” said Jude.

“You mean terms?”

“Yep.”

“Well, it’s this way: He’ll have to do the wreckin’ business, and then

if the stuff’s got he’ll have to run it ashore, and after that he’ll

have to get rid of it. I’m givin’ him two dollars out of every three.”

“Oh, Lord!” said Jude.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Why didn’t you give him the lot?”

“Now look you here!” cried Satan. “I don’t want no sass! Who’s runnin’

this show, you or me? How do you know what I’ve got up my sleeve?

Have you ever known me done on a deal yet? Now you take my orders

where Cark’s concerned and take them smart, with no questions! If you

don’t—well, then, trade with him yourself, take charge of the _Sarah_

and run her yourself! Lippin’ your betters!”

Jude took off her old hat and looked into it as if for inspiration;

then she clapped it on her head again, drew up both feet, clasped her

arms round her knees, and sat on the keg-top speechless and brooding,

her eyes fixed on the _Juan_.

Satan turned and went below.

“Jude,” said Ratcliffe.

“What you want?” said Jude, without shifting her gaze.

“Suppose you had all the money off that old wreck, if the money is

there, what would you do with it?”

“What’s the good of askin’ me things like that?” said Jude. “I’d

precious soon do something with it!”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d put it in the bank, and then your trouble

would begin.”

“Which way?”

“Well, you’d have it in the bank or invested and it would bring you

in, say, twenty thousand dollars a year; well, you couldn’t spend that

on the dock-side, could you? You wouldn’t be able to spend it at all

unless you gave up the _Sarah_ and lived ashore in a fine house with a

carriage and horses and servants, and to do that you’d have to become

a lady—or gentleman,” hastily put in Ratcliffe, the figure on the keg

suddenly threatening to turn on him. “You’d have to do that, and you’d

have to do more than that: you’d have to learn all sorts of things.”

“Which sort?”

“Oh, lots. Can you write, Jude?”

“You bet!”

“Told me the other day you couldn’t.”

“Well, I’ve most forgot. Pap started to learn me, then he said he

reckoned I was more cut out for makin’ puddin’s, but he learned me to

write my name.”

“Well, if you ever grow rich, you’ll have to do a lot more than write

your name.”

“Which way?”

“You’ll have to write checks and letters, and, what’s more, you’ll have

to be able to read them.”

“Well, I reckon,” said the philosophical Jude, “it’ll be time enough

to bother about that when I’m rich—and seems to me I’ll never be rich

with them two diddling Satan same as they’ve done.”

“Oh, yes, you will; you are going to be rich some day, as rich as I am.

I’m a fortune teller. Show us your hand.”

Jude held out a hand, and Ratcliffe examined the palm where the lines

were few but straight and clear cut. It was a beautiful little hand,

despite the hard work it had done, full of character and vigor, and

expressing kindliness and honesty and capability.

Ratcliffe had an instinct for hands. A hand could attract or repulse

him just as powerfully as a face; more so, perhaps, for a hand never

lies.

“Oh, yes,” said he, “you are going to be rich, you can’t escape it, and

you are going to learn reading and writing and arithmetic, and you are

going to live to be a hundred.”

“Cut me throat first!” said Jude. “Heave ahead.”

“And you are going to England some day, and you’ll turn into a

Britisher.”

“Damned if I do! Satan!”

“Hullo!” came a faint voice from below.

“Rat says I’m goin’ to turn into a Britisher.”

“They wouldn’t own you. Quit foolin’ and get the dinner ready.”

Jude uncurled herself, came down from the keg with a thud, ran to the

open skylight, and was about to reply in kind, when her eye caught

sight of something that brought her to a halt.

They were handling the canvas on the _Juan_.

“Cark’s off!” cried she.

Satan came on deck. Across the blue blaze of the sea they could hear

now the clank of the windlass pawls,—the _Juan’s_ anchor was coming up.

“I thought Sellers would have come on board before they started,” said

Ratcliffe. “They’re in a big hurry, aren’t they?”

“You bet,” said Satan with a grin. “He’ll crack on everything to get to

Havana for that dynamite; won’t stop to eat their dinners till they’re

back,—that’s what they’d have us believe—swabs!”

“Why, don’t you think they are going to Havana?”

“Oh, they’re _goin’_ to Havana right enough,” said Satan. “You watch

and you’ll see them headin’ that way. Look! she’s fillin’ to the wind.”

The anchor was home now, and they watched the sails filling as she

headed on the same course the _Dryad_ had taken. She dipped her flag,

and they returned the compliment; then she drew past the southern

reefs, the hull vanished, and nothing remained but the topsails far

against the western blue.

Ten minutes later, down below at dinner, Jude, who had said no word

about the departure of the _Juan_, but seemed to have been thinking a

lot, suddenly spoke.

“You never told me that chap was going to Havana for dynamite,” said

Jude. “What for—to bust the wreck open?”

“That’s it,” replied Satan. “Did you think he wanted it to eat?”

“There’s no knowing what a feller may swallow, seeing you’ve swallowed

that yarn,” said Jude. “He’s gone to Havana to sell us, that’s my

’pinion.”

“Which way?”

“Lord! there’s many a way of sellin’ fools.”

Ratcliffe felt that the truth was with Jude, he felt an uneasy

conviction that they had been done. The hurried departure of Carquinez

seemed to put a seal on the business. He looked at Satan expecting an

explosion; but Satan was quite calm and helping himself to canned ox

tongue.

“Seein’ I have the chart,” said he, “where’s the sellin’ to come in?”

“But you’ve give him the location,” said Jude. “You said yourself that

the place was fixed on every chart and a chap had only to have Lone

Reef in his head to put his claws on the wreck.”

“That’s so,” said Satan; “but the location is no use without the chart.”

“What are you gettin’ at?”

“I’m tryin’ to get at your intellects. How often have you seen that

chart?”

“Dozens of times.”

“Ever noticed anything queer about it? Not you! Giving sass to your

betters is your lay in life instead of usin’ your eyes.” He pushed his

plate away, produced the tobacco box, and, taking the chart from it,

laid it on the table.

Jude got up and came behind him to look, while Ratcliffe leaned forward.

“There’s the chart,” said Satan. “There’s the reef, and there’s the

name of the hooker pointin’ at the reef, and there’s the latitude and

longitude wrote up in the corner. Plain, ain’t it?”

“That’s plain enough,” said Ratcliffe.

Jude, munching a biscuit, concurred.

“Plain enough, ain’t it?” went on Satan. “Give a man the name of Lone

Reef, and with any old Admiralty chart he’ll get there, and he has

only to land on the reef to find the hooker stuck there in that crik

between them two arms. Jude has seen her, and I’ve walked over her and

’xamined her, and she’d have been broke open maybe by this, only chaps

don’t land on reefs like that, not unless a storm lands them. We struck

it huntin’ for abalones. Plain enough, ain’t it? Well, I tell you the

whole business is no use to any man who hasn’t that chart in his hand

and who can’t read what’s written on it secret. Here you are! Take a

good long look, and I’ll give you ten dollars if you spot what I mean.

It’s as clear as simple.”

Ratcliffe spread the thing before him on the table.

“I can’t see anything in it,” said he at last, “except what’s written

plain enough. There’s Rum Cay, there’s the reef, the name of the wreck

with a pointer to the reef, and the latitude and longitude up in the

corner. No, I can’t see anything but that: it all seems plain as a

pikestaff. I take an interest in cryptograms, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Cryptograms? Hidden writing.”

“Well, that’s what’s before you,” said Satan. “Pap never twigged it,

nor any of the crowd that had the handlin’ of it. It’s only a month ago

I spotted it.”

“You never said a word to me,” cut in Jude.

“Get back to your place and don’t be chewin’ in my ear,” said Satan,

reaching for the chart and pocketing it again. “Tell you? Likely! Why,

if I had, you’d have let it out, same as you did the lie of the reef

to Rat here the other day. Get on with your dinner! Why haven’t we any

potatoes?”

“No time to boil them,” said Jude, “cleanin’ up your mushy abalones.”

“No time, and you yarnin’ and havin’ your future told! I heard you.”

“My fault,” said Ratcliffe. “I began the business.”

“Not you,” said Satan. “I heard her start in on it, sayin’ what she’d

do with a fortune if she had it and finishin’ up by mistrustin’ me.”

“Lord love you for a liar! I only said them two guys had done you in

over the wreck,” cried Jude. “Don’t be stickin’ words in my mouth.”

“How was it you came to spot the cryptogram?” asked Ratcliffe, eager to

cut the dissension short.

“The which?” asked Satan. “Oh, ay—well, it come natural for me to

say to myself, ‘Here’s a thing that’s been hid up and kept secret, yet

it’s all wrote out as plain as my palm.’ I said to myself, ‘It’s too

blame simple! A man who knows where money is hid doesn’t write the

location on a bit of paper, to be lost, maybe, and picked up by God

knows who. Why, drop that chart in the streets of Havana, and the first

chap with any knowledge in his head that picks it up will turn it into

dollars right off. It’s a sure bait for fools, anyhow, and a wreckin’

expedition would be out before the end of the week. They’d only have to

look up any chart that’s been printed the last hundred years to find

Lone Reef as easy as the Swimmer Rocks.’ Then I said to myself, ‘What

in the nation did the guy want makin’ a chart at all for? Why couldn’t

he have written on a piece of paper, “The Nombre de Dios lies on Lone

Reef, sou’west of Rum Cay”? That’s all the chart says, and yet he must

go and make drawin’s; must have taken him an hour’s pen scraping to

make that chart.’ Puttin’ the two things together, I says to myself,

‘The feller concerned must have been a fool in two ways if this thing’s

genuine,—a fool to leave the fac’s as plain as an ad for liver pills,

and a fool to waste his time drawin’ his advertisement instead of

writin’ it,’ but I reckoned he was no fool. Dad was always quotin’ some

damn ass who said the world was most made up of fools. Well, in my

’xperience that don’t hold. Maybe in Europe it does, but not in Havana

and the Gulf ports, anyway. So I says to myself, ‘Let’s try and see

what the guy was drivin’ at.’”

“And you won’t tell us how you did it?”

“I’d just as soon not.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Satan, “I may be wrong; though I’m pretty sure I’m

right—and I b’lieve in a shut head.”

“You opened your head to Cark, anyhow,” said Jude.

“I’ll tell you once and I won’t tell you twice, if I have any more

chat out of you, I’ll lay into you with a slipper! O’ course I opened

my head to him! Did you want him hanging round here and sniffin’ out

the cache? Haven’t we got rid of him? I don’t want any more talkin’.

I’ve my plan laid out and you’ve get to take my orders right from now

without questions!” He turned to Ratcliffe. “You don’t mind helpin’ to

work the boat, leavin’ sailing directions to me?”

“Not I,” said Ratcliffe. “I’m quite content to help and look on,

leaving things to you. What’s your first move?”

“I’m goin’ to clear out of this tomorrow.”

“Why, I thought you was going to wait for Cark to come back,” said Jude.

“Never you mind what you thought. I’m goin’ to clear out of this

tomorrow. Meantime, I want more stuff from the cache, and you’d better

take the dinghy and get it right off. I want provisions for a month for

the three of us.”

CHAPTER X

CUSS WORDS

When they had washed up and put the plates in their rack, Jude

commandeered Ratcliffe to help with the dinghy. Satan, having given

his orders, had retired into himself and the business of patching an

old sail. He was seated at the work under the awning, and he seemed

scarcely to notice the others as they got the boat away.

“Satan’s got something up his sleeve,” said Jude as they pulled for the

beach. “I reckon he’s laying low to get the better of Cark.”

“Well, if you ask me,” said Ratcliffe, “I think he has got the better

of him in some way or another. I don’t know how, and I don’t want to.

I’d sooner wait and see. It’s as interesting as a game of chess.”

“What’s that?”

“Chess—oh, it’s a game. I’ll show you some day. Don’t you ever play

games, Jude?”

“You bet! Why, I won five dollars day before we put out buckin’ against

the red at Chinese Charlie’s—y’know Havana? Well, it’s on the Calle

sin Pedro. They play faro, but mostly r’lette.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that sort of games.”

“Which sort did you mean?” asked Jude, as the nose of the boat beached

on the sand and they scrambled out. “Did you mean whisky drinkin’ and

cuttin’ and carryin’ on?”

“Oh, Lord, no! I meant games, just ordinary games.”

Jude, the boat well beached, sat down on the blazing sands. It was

two hours past noon, and the heat of the day had lifted under the

freshening wind from the east, the tide was on the turn, and the

far-off lamentations of the gulls around the southern reef-spurs came

mixed with the fall of the waves,—waves scarcely a foot high, crystal

clear, less waves than giant ripples.

Beyond the _Sarah Tyler_ and her reflection on the water lay the

violet-colored sea, infinity, and the blue of sky, broken only by a

gull, spar white in the dazzle.

Ratcliffe sat down beside his companion. Jude, like any old salt, had

her moments of dead laziness. Active as a kitten as a rule, she would

suddenly knock off, when the fancy took her, “let go all holts,” to use

Satan’s expression, and laze. You couldn’t kick her out of it, Satan

said.

She had brought an old pair of boots for going through the bay cedar

bushes. It wasn’t good to walk among the bushes unshod: there were

tarantulas there, and scorpions, to say nothing of stump cacti. The

boots were lying beside her on the sand, to be put on only at the last

moment.

“What you mean by ordinary games?” asked Jude suddenly, finishing the

inspection of a new variety of soft-shell crab she had just caught and

flinging it into the sea.

“Oh, the games people play,” said Ratcliffe, who had almost forgotten

what they had been talking about. He tried to explain, and found it

singularly hard, especially when cross-examined.

Jude did not seem able to understand grown men and women spending half

a day “knockin’ a ball about.”

“I used to play ma’bles with Dutch Mike’s kids when we were at

Pensacola,” said she. “Mike ran a whisky joint, and the kids were

pretty ornery. When we’d done playin’ marbles they’d have a cussin’

bee.”

“What on earth’s that?”

“Well, you’ve heard of a spellin’ bee—you get a prize for spellin’ the

best. Well, a cussin’ bee you start cussin’ each other, and the one

that cusses hardest gets the prize. Pap never knew till one day he let

into me with a strap for somethin’ or ’nother and I let fly at him.

Then he found it was Mike’s children who’d been learnin’ me, and he had

a dust-up with Mike on the wharf, and left him limpin’ for the rest of

his natural. Did you cuss when you was young?”

“No,” said Ratcliffe. “I learned that later.”

“’R you any good at it?”

“Upon my word, I don’t know.”

“Have a try,” said Jude, losing her languor. “Clench your fists to

it and have a go at me, and then I’ll have a go at you—there’s no

one listenin’. Pretend you’re the skipper and I’m a hand that’s been

haulin’ on the wrong rope.”

“No,” said Ratcliffe. “I’m no use at it, and it’s not a nice game,

anyway. I’d sooner play at something else.”

Jude sniffed. She evidently felt snubbed. “I’m not a baby to be playing

games,” said she. “You can go and play by yourself if you want to.”

She collapsed on her back with her knees up and her old hat covering

her face; then from under the hat:

“You’ll hear all the swearin’ you want to in a minute from the old

hooker.”

“You mean Satan?”

“Yep, the minute he turns his eye ashore and sees us lazin’ here

instead of workin’.”

“Then, come on.”

“Not me,” said Jude, “not till Satan begins. I’m too comfortable. I

been working hard all the morning while you two was aboard the _Juan_

clackin’ with Sellers and havin’ drinks, I bet. I’m going to rest

myself—what did you have?”

“Ginger beer and a cigar.”

“Did you take notice of Cark’s face?”

“Rather!”

“They say he hasn’t any one side to his face where the patch is. I’d

like to see him with the patch off, wouldn’t you?”

“Lord, no! I saw quite enough of him with it on. Come, get up, and

let’s get to work.”

“I’m not goin’ to work no more,” mumbled Jude drowsily. “I’m dead sick

of fetchin’ and carryin’. Let Satan go and fetch and carry for himself.

I’m going to stick here.”

“On the island?”

“Yep.”

“And give up Satan and the _Sarah_?”

“Yep.”

“But what will you do for a living?”

“Start a la’ndry.”

“But there’s no one here to give you any washing to do.”

“Then I’ll have all the easier time.”

“That’s true. It’s a bright idea, and I’ll stay with you and carry the

laundry basket.”

“No, you won’t! I’ll stick here alone.”

Suddenly, across the water from the _Sarah_ and shattering this

fantasy, came a voice. It was Satan’s voice, distant and borne on the

breeze. Ratcliffe thought he could make out the words “lazy dog.”

He got up. Jude with the old panama over her face had stiffened out as

if dead. He tried to turn her over with his foot. Then he felt half

frightened. Had the sun got to her head, and was all that nonsense talk

delirium?

He knelt down beside her and shook her.

“Jude, what’s the matter with you?”

No reply.

He took the panama from the face. The eyes were closed and the features

were in repose.

Now, really alarmed, he jumped up, ran down to the boat, seized the

baling tin, and filled it with sea water. He had never seen a case of

sunstroke, but he had heard cold water on the head was a remedy.

As he turned back with the tin the corpse was sitting up putting on its

boots.

“What’re you doing with that baling tin?” said Jude.

“I’ll jolly soon show you!” said he, making toward her. “Shamming dead!”

But before he could reach her she was gone among the bushes, one boot

on, the other off. Then, flinging the baling tin away, he joined her,

helped her on with the boot, and they started. Jude, as if to make up,

put her hand into his in a trusting and loving manner. She swung his

hand as they walked. Then, near their destination, she flung it away

and made off, hunting like a dog among the bushes till she found what

she was in search of,—a long, knotted rope.

“What’s that for?” asked he.

“You wait and see,” replied Jude. “Here’s the cache. Mind where you’re

walkin’ or you’ll be into it.”

The cache was well hidden among the bay cedars. The opening, eight feet

long by six broad, was covered over with short poles spread with cut

branches gone withered with the sun. When they had got the covering

off, Jude tied one end of the rope to a tree close by and dropped the

other end into the cache. She swung herself down by it, and Ratcliffe

followed.

From the floor of this place a step, two feet high, gave entrance to

the cave.

“You see,” said Jude. “It may rain till it’s black, but it never floods

the cave. The water drains off before it can rise the height of the

step.”

There were a candle and some matches inside the cave entrance. She lit

the candle and led the way.

Ratcliffe was astounded, less by the size of the place, than the stacks

of goods,—canned peaches, condensed milk, corned beef, tomatoes, ox

tongues, Heinz’s pickles, Nabisco wafers. The old brig, making for some

gulf port, must have been a floating Italian warehouse as far as cargo

was concerned.

“I don’t wonder at Satan not wanting Sellers and Carquinez to spot all

this,” said he. “Why, there must be five hundred pounds’ worth of stuff

here. Aren’t you afraid that nigger who skipped from you at Pine Island

may split?”

“Sakes, no! He was too much afeared of Satan. Satan was always

threatening to skin him. Besides, he doesn’t know. We told him this

place was Turtle Island, and that’s a hundred and fifty miles to

s’uth’ard. You trust Satan to keep a thing dark. Here, catch hold of

the candle while I collect.”

There were two sacks folded up on the floor. She started collecting

things, and when the sacks were half-filled Jude, clambering out of the

pit, hauled them up by the rope.

“Anything more?” asked he, from below.

“I reckon that will be enough,” said Jude, looking down at him. “It’ll

take us all our time to carry them to the boat, and if Satan ain’t

satisfied he can come and fetch some more himself.”

“Then drop the rope; I want to get out.”

Jude, kneeling at the cache edge, lowered the rope gingerly. He reached

up, and was just about to seize the loose end when it eluded him.

“Why don’t you catch hold?” asked Jude.

“I can’t. How could I when you pulled it up again. Go on, drop it and

don’t play the fool.”

“Who’s playin’ the fool?”

“You are.”

The rope, instead of descending again, was hauled right out of the

cache. Then a face appeared, looking down and framed against the sky.

He had forgotten the snub he had given her on the beach, but she hadn’t.

“D’y’r’member what you said down there on the beach?” asked Jude.

“No, what about?”

“Cussin’.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Said I wanted you to play games that wasn’t nice.”

“I never said any such thing.”

“Didn’t yer? Well, whether you did or you didn’t, you’ve got to swear

before I let you out.”

“Well, then I’ll stay in. Go on, Jude, don’t be silly. It’s cold down

here.”

The rope came down, and he was just seizing the end when it was whipped

out of his hand.

“Damn!” said Ratcliffe wholeheartedly.

“Now you’re talkin’,” said Jude.

Like a boy fishing for polliwogs, she lowered the rope again and

snatched it up suddenly, bringing with it another oath.

But the third time he was too quick for her. Then as he came swarming

up with skinned knuckles and rage in his heart, she bolted. He chased

her, dodging here and there among the bushes, then he chased her round

a tree, caught her, and, in his anger and irritation somehow, kissed

her.

The perfectly amazing smack on the face that followed was revelation;

it also knocked him off his balance so that he sat down as though cut

off at the knees.

CHAPTER XI

THE COMING OF CLEARY

She stood for a moment, frightened at her handiwork.

Then, as he pulled himself together, she drew away a step.

“What ails you?” asked she.

Ratcliffe, sitting up with his hand to the top of his head, groaned.

She drew a step closer. Then she saw that he was laughing, and drew a

step back.

“Get up, and don’t be fooling,” said she.

“Fooling! And who started it?” asked he.

Jude made no reply. She turned and went off to the cache, lugged the

sacks a bit more away from the opening, and started to put the poles

across. When he joined her on the work she wouldn’t speak. She was

evidently mortally offended.

He knew at once and by some fine instinct what was the matter with her.

He had trod on her dignity, like the Thelusson woman,—treated her like

a child, that is to say like a girl, for the two things were synonymous

with Jude, who seemed to have no more idea of the realities of sex than

a pumpkin.

When she did speak at last, it was to give jeering orders.

“Lord! Did you never have to use your hands? Which way is that to be

sticking the poles? Why, it’d take twenty dozen to cover it the way

you’re doing! Leave a foot and a half between them.”

“Right,” said Ratcliffe humbly.

“I didn’t say two foot.”

“Sorry.”

“Now the branches an’ stuff.”

She had reserved one of the poles, for what reason soon became apparent.

Each sack was too heavy to be carried by one person, so she slung one

to the middle of the pole, and they started for the beach, Caleb and

Joshua fashion, Ratcliffe in front.

It was horrible work. They had to keep step, which was difficult; owing

to the bushes, the going was bad. The sack kept slipping toward Jude,

owing to the inequality of their heights, and the pressure of the pole

on his shoulder was galling; also the wind had changed and was coming

from the direction of the gulf, warm and moist like the breath from a

great mouth.

When they reached the beach he sat down. Unused to hard work and

unused to the climate, he was sweating and exhausted. Jude looked

comparatively cool and fresh.

“Now then, Lazybones!” said Jude. Then she collapsed also, sitting down

with her knees up and her arms round them.

She seemed to have forgotten the sack, Ratcliffe, everything, as she

sat whistling dreamily between her teeth and staring across the water

toward the _Sarah_.

She had kicked off her boots, and her toes were playing with the sand.

Uncramped by boots, her feet were as expressive as her hands.

“You’ll hear Satan begin to holler in a minute,” said Jude.

“Let him,” said the other, “I’m not going to stir another foot till

I’ve rested myself.”

“Oh, he won’t holler at you. It’s me he’ll go for; you’re the

first-class passenger.”

“No, I’m not: I’m one of the crew.”

Jude laughed in a mirthless manner.

“Well, I reckon myself one, anyhow,” said he. “I wouldn’t have come on

board unless I was to help in working the boat.”

“Oh, Satan won’t mind you helpin’ to work her,” replied she; “but he

didn’t bring you aboard for that.”

“I know—and it was awfully decent of him. He just thought I’d like the

cruise.”

Jude sniffed.

“I reckon you don’t know Satan,” said she.

“How?”

“Satan never does nothing for nothing.”

“Well, what did he bring me aboard for?”

“Lord knows,” said Jude; “but he’s got something up his sleeve, sure.

Mind you, Satan’s as straight as they make them unless he’s dealin’

with law chaps and such, and you’d be safe with him if you was blind

and dumb and covered with diamonds only waitin’ to be picked off you.

You see, you’re straight, and anyone that’s straight with Satan he’s

straight with them. It’s different with lawyers, or guys like Cark and

Sellers, who’d beat their own gran’mothers out of their store teeth.

All the same, you look out with Satan. He’s got some plan about you,

sure.”

“What sort of plan is it, do you think, Jude?”

“Lord knows. Nothing to harm you, anyway; maybe it’s to go shares in

some deal—I dunno.”

“Well, I’m up for any deal he likes to propose that would benefit

him—as much money as he wants.”

“Satan’s not set on money,” said Jude, “not in a big way. I reckon

he’s something like Pap. Pap would take no end of trouble making a few

dollars, but he was never really set on bein’ rich. I reckon he took up

that old wreck business more for the fun of the thing than the dollars.

He used to say great riches was only trouble to a man, an’ that he only

wanted God’s good air and ’nough to live on.”

“Well, maybe he was right,” said Ratcliffe.

“I reckon Satan cottoned to you because he thought you was honest,”

said Jude.

“Well, I hope I am.”

“He said to me, right off, after you’d gone back to the yacht, ‘I

reckon that feller’s honest,’ he said.”

Ratcliffe laughed.

“You see,” went on Jude, “you don’t pick up honest parties round these

parts, not by the bushel. You might rake Havana with a fine-tooth comb

lookin’ for fellers that wouldn’t do you, but you wouldn’t find none.

It’s the same all round the gulf, from N’Orleans to Campêche; you can’t

stick your nose in anywhere without being stung—if you’re a softy.”

“So he liked me because he thought I was straight. What did you like me

for, Jude?”

“Lord! if you don’t fancy yourself! Who told you I liked you?”

“You did last night. You said you and Satan took to me right off.”

“Oh, did I? Well, maybe it was them pajamas—Hullo!” The shrill notes

of a bo’sn’s whistle came over the water. She sprang to her feet.

Satan’s form appeared at the rail of the _Sarah_. He was making

movements with his arms as though signaling, and Jude flung up an arm

in answer.

Then, shading her eyes, she looked seaward.

“What’s up?” asked Ratcliffe.

“Come on!” said Jude.

She seized the sack, called on him to help her, and between them they

ran it down to the water’s edge. Then they got the dinghy afloat, the

sack on board, and started.

“What’s up?” again asked Ratcliffe, as they rowed.

“Sail,” said Jude.

He had seen nothing, perhaps because of the sun-dazzle on the water or

because he had not looked in the right direction. The sensitiveness

of the Tylers to the approach of strangers and their hawklike vision

struck him as belonging almost to the uncanny.

Satan had rigged a tackle, and without a word uttered the sack was got

aboard and below. Then and not till then did Satan speak.

“It’s Cleary,” said he.

Jude took the old glass he had been using, and examined the stranger,

then she handed it to Ratcliffe. He turned it on the fleck of sail

which sprang gigantic into the form of a big fore-and-aft-rigged boat,

beating up for the island, the late afternoon sunlight flashing back

from the foam at the forefoot and her foam-wet bows.

“Who is Cleary?” asked he, handing back the glass.

“Cark’s partner,” said Satan, “sort of half and half partner. They’re

always bestin’ one another. Cleary is by way of bein’ a ship breaker

and dealer in odds and ends; owns a couple of ratty old schooners

besides that old ketch. Wonder what he’s doin’ down here? Curse him!”

“He’s after Cark, most likely,” said Jude. “Maybe he’s got a smell of

the wreck.”

“Maybe,” replied Satan. “He’s always spyin’ on Cark. There’s nothin’

much that Cleary don’t know, and if he got wind that Cark’s on a likely

job he’d put out after him.”

It seemed to Ratcliffe all at once that the old wreck lying on that

unseen reef might have been likened to a carcass in the desert, and

that he was watching the gathering of the vultures to a feast.

First Carquinez, now Cleary—how many more would come circling out of

the blue?

He said so, and Satan concurred.

“It’s got out somehow or ’nother,” said Satan, “and Lord only knows

there may be half a dozen others on the hunt. You see, the very fac’

of Cark’s puttin’ to sea himself would give suspicions to half Havana;

but Cleary is the only man beside Cark that knows my ports of call. He

knows I come here for abalones, and he knows I hunt round Pine Island,

not to say other places.”

Satan fell into meditation for a moment. Then he resumed:

“That’s what the cuss has been doin’. He’s been on the hunt for me,

same as Cark was, only for different reasons. Now you wait and see.

Jude!”

“Hullo,” said Jude.

“Did you cover the cache proper?”

“You bet; but there’s a sack of stuff we didn’t manage to bring off.

It’s among the bushes.”

“It’ll have to lay there.”

“What’s the name of Cleary’s boat?” asked Ratcliffe as he watched the

approaching ketch.

“The _Natchez_,” said Satan, “an old cod boat, built at Marthas

Vineyard. Lord! ain’t they crackin’ on! Cleary’s in a hurry. There’s no

denyin’ that.”

He whistled contentedly as he leaned on the rail, and Ratcliffe,

watching his hatchet-sharp profile, wondered what was coming next.

Of one thing he was beginning to feel certain,—Cleary, Carquinez,

Sellers, and anything else that might come out of Havana on the long

trail for plunder would find a match in Satan.

CHAPTER XII

AN HONEST MAN

The ketch carried on, heading straight for the _Sarah_; then, spilling

the wind from her sails, she came round, presenting a full view of her

dirty old hull and dropping her anchor two cable lengths away.

Almost on the last rasp of the anchor chain she dropped a boat, which

shoved off for the _Sarah_.

“That’s Cleary,” said Satan, shading his eyes.

It was, and as Cleary came on board, leg over rail, saluting Satan

with the affability of old acquaintanceship and the quarterdeck with

a squirt of tobacco juice, Ratcliffe fell to wondering what sort of

place Havana might be and what else it might give up in the way of

detrimentals.

Carquinez was bad and Sellers was bad, but Cleary was—Cleary. Against

the gold and blue of afternoon, the sight of this faded man, who

looked as though he had seen better days, who suggested a broken-down

schoolmaster, with a slungshot in his pocket, struck Ratcliffe with

astonishment and depression. It was as though the dazzling air had

suddenly split to disclose a London slum.

“Hullo! Hullo!” said Cleary. “Thought I recognized the old hooker. What

you doin’ down here away?”

Jude made a dive for the galley, and Ratcliffe could hear her choking.

The sound banished the feeling of depression and repulsion created by

the newcomer and brightened him somehow.

Here was the comic man of the pantomime come aboard.

“What am I doin’?” said Satan. “I’m fishin’ for chair-backs. What are

you doin’ yourself?”

Cleary turned, spat his quid overboard, and then, leaning on the rail,

looking seaward, with his back to the others, and, just as easy as

though he were aboard his own ship, laughed.

“Fishin’ for chair-backs!” Then, sluing his head half round, “How’s the

abalone fishin’ gone?”

“Jude!” cried Satan.

“Hullo!”

“Bring up them pearls!”

Cleary turned, and, leaning with his back against the rail, began to

fill an old pipe in a languid and leisurely manner. Then, when the

pearls were produced, he turned them from the matchbox into the palm of

his hand.

“How much?” asked Cleary.

“Forty dollars,” said Satan.

“Forty which?”

“Dollars.”

“Ain’t worth forty cents.”

“Well, who’s askin’ you to deal?”

Cleary carefully poured the pearls into the matchbox, closed it, and

put it in his pocket.

Satan did not seem to mind.

“Jude!” said Satan.

“What?”

“Bring up them cigars!”

“Who’s the gentleman?” asked Cleary.

“Gentleman came aboard for a cruise off a yacht. You needn’t mind him;

he’s only out for pleasure.”

Cleary nodded to Ratcliffe, who nodded in return. Then things hung

for a moment till Jude appeared with the cigar-box, and the newcomer,

having tapped the tobacco out of his pipe, chose a cigar, lit it and,

leaning with his back against the rail and his thumbs in the armholes

of his old waistcoat, blew clouds. He seemed for a moment far away in

thought, and Ratcliffe, watching him and Satan,—Jude having vanished

again, attacked with another fit of choking,—puzzled his head in

vain to find out the inner meaning of what was going on. The wretched

pearls were scarcely worth five dollars, he had heard Satan say so, and

Cleary, evidently an expert, was not the man to pay eight times their

worth, nor was Satan the man to allow the other to pocket them.

Then suddenly Cleary spoke.

“Cark’s a clever man, don’t you think?”

“Well, seein’ he’s your partner, you’re a better judge than me,”

replied Satan.

“Well, maybe that’s so,” said Cleary. “Partners we were, and partners

we are till I ketch him and bust him.”

“Why, what’s he been doin’ to you?”

“Now, I’ll tell you,” said Cleary. “I’m an honest man. I don’t say in

trade I’m not above shavin’ the barber, but between man an’ man I’m

honest, and I’m goin’ to tell you straight out Cark and me has been

layin’ for you ever since your dad was fool enough to give Cark the

tip about that treasure business. I wasn’t keen on it, same as he

was. I allowed there might be somethin’ in it—but that don’t matter.

What gets my monkey is Cark he gets fearful thick with Sellers, then

he cools off on the business of the treasure gettin’, and a matter of

two weeks ago he rigs up a job for me to see after at Pensacola that’d

have taken me two months and more. I says to myself, ‘There’s somethin’

in this.’ Says nothin’ to Cark. Off I goes, taking the old _Natchez_.

Hadn’t reached the latitood of Key West when back I puts, and finds

Cark gone with the _Juan_ and Sellers.

“Then I knew he’s started to hunt for you again, leavin’ me in the

lonely cold. He’s been huntin’ you ever since last fall, that’s

straight; but he’d never let me down before. He’d always told me the

results. I tell you he’s huntin’ for you now, and the surprisin’ thing

is he hasn’t found you, knowing as he does this is one of your grounds.”

“How do you know he hasn’t found me?”

“What you mean?”

“Why, he was here this morning and off not four hours ago.”

“Christopher!”

“Him and Sellers.”

“Holy Mike!”

“You was comin’ up from West, you ought to have sighted him.”

“Sighted nothin’ but a tank, and her nearly hull down.”

“Well, if you’d been here a few hours earlier, you’d have smelt the old

_Juan_ as well as sightin’ her.”

“Was he here on business?”

“He was,—he was after that wreck Pap told him of. You just told me

he’s been after me since last fall spyin’ on me. I know it, and I’m

pretty sick of the business. B’sides, he’s as good to help in it as

anyone else; so I’ve made a contrac’ with him.”

“_Sufferin_’ Moses!—a contrac’ with Cark!” Cleary stood for a moment

as though absorbing this news, then he laughed, the funniest laugh

Ratcliffe had ever heard,—it was like the whinny of a pony. He saw

Jude’s head at the cabin hatch, and the head suddenly duck and vanish,

as though her body had been doubled up.

“A contrac’ with Cark!”

“Well, what are you laughin’ at?”

“Nothin’. May I ask what terms?”

“We go shares.”

“In the pickin’s?”

“What else?”

“Have you give him the location?”

“I have.”

“You’ve give him the location and let him slip his cable—him and

Sellers?”

“What odds? It’ll take a month to bust her open and hunt for the

stuff. I’ll be after him tomorrow.”

Cleary crossed his arms and stood with the half cigar stuck in the

corner of his mouth and pointing skyward, his eyes fixed on the deck

and his left eye half closed.

Jude’s face had reappeared at the cabin hatch, and the grin on it

spread to Ratcliffe’s.

Satan alone was unmoved, half-sitting on the keg and cutting up some

tobacco.

“Well,” said Cleary at last, “you’ve made your bargain, there’s no

gettin’ round that. _I’m_ not wishin’ to poke my nose in your business,

nor to ask what your share is to be, but I’m partners with Cark, and

you see how he’s let me down—cayn’t you give me a lead?”

“Which way?”

“Give me a lead to the location. It won’t make a cent difference to

you.”

“How’s that?”

“Clear enough, I don’t want none of your share. Cark’s the man I want

to tap, having a right to, being partners.”

Satan seemed to turn this matter over in his mind for a moment. Then he

said, “Suppose we come back to them pearls?”

“Right,” said Cleary in a lively voice. “What’s this you was askin’,

forty? Well, forty you shall have.”

He produced an old brown pocketbook, counted out four ten-dollar notes,

and handed them over.

Satan examined each note, back and front, folded them, and placed them

into his pocket.

“Now,” said Cleary, “out with the lead!”

“You’ll have it tomorrow,” said Satan. “I’m pickin’ up my anchor

tomorrow mornin’. You’ve only to follow me.”

“I’d rayther have the indications on paper.”

“Maybe you would, but you won’t. I’ve made my bargain with Cark, and

there’s nothin’ in the contrac’ about givin’ the location away to third

parties. I can’t help you followin’ me.”

“I take you,” said Cleary.

CHAPTER XIII

PROBLEMS

The sun was nearly touching the horizon when he dropped into his boat

and rowed off.

“Look here!” said Ratcliffe. “Are you in earnest with that chap?”

“I sure am,” said Satan.

“Going to take him down to Lone Reef?”

“Yep.”

“But how about Carquinez? We had got to wait for him here till he gets

back from Havana with the dynamite.”

“Yes,” said Satan, “we’d got to wait here one week, or maybe ten days

allowin’ for weather—where was you born?”

“How?”

“Cark’s tried to sell me a pup, that’s how! He’s gone to no Havana:

he’s crackin’ on for the wreck with every stitch he can carry. Reckons

to bust her open and scoop the boodle while we’re layin’ here rubbin’

our noses and waitin’ for him. Mind you,” said Satan, “I may be wrong,

but that’s my ’pinion.”

“But he sailed off toward Havana.”

“Lord! Hasn’t he a rudder?”

“All the same, would it pay him?”

“How?”

“Well, if he played a dirty trick on you like that, wouldn’t he be

afraid you’d split?”

“Who to?”

“To the authorities at Cuba.”

“D’you remember Sellers talkin’ about landin’ the stuff,” asked Satan,

“sayin’ they’d have to take it round to Santiago way? They thought I

was drinkin’ all that in. If there were any dollars in the business,

d’you think they’d touch Cuba? Not they! They’d either cache the stuff

or run it to some likely port. I was laughin’ in my hat all the time.

Now you may think me a suspicious cuss. I’m not; but a feller has to

run by compass in this world or go off his course, and my compass in

this turnout is Cark. I say he’s gone down to Lone Reef and given me

the left leg over the business, and my compass is the fac’ that he

can’t run straight. Not if he tried to, he couldn’t run straight; nor

could Sellers nor Cleary. If them fellers were straight, I’d match

them and give them a fair deal. As it is, they’re like a lot of blind

bally-hoolies playin’ blindman’s buff, runnin’ round and round, with me

in the middle, tryin’ to kidoodle me and bein’ kidoodled themselves.

Forty dollars for them rotten pearls, and all sorts of fixin’s out of

Sellers—_and I haven’t done with them yet_!”

It had seemed to Ratcliffe, on board the _Juan_, that Carquinez was

the spider of the web of this business. It seemed to him now that the

spider was Satan.

He began to wonder was there any wreck at all, was the treasure

story a myth. The idea of these rogues being incited to dreams of

fortune so that they might be plundered of pots of paint and cans of

turpentine and a few dollars appealed to him immensely. He remembered

Thelusson and Skelton, he remembered Jude’s yarn about fruit steamers

being held up, he remembered Carquinez and Sellers, and he had just

seen Cleary; and of a sudden Satan’s ocean-wide activities appeared

before him in nightmare contrast with their microscopic results. Great

steamers stopped for a bunch of bananas, yachts lying idle to careen

the _Sarah_, ships sailing from Havana to hunt for buried treasure—but

in reality to supply the wandering _Sarah_ with cans of turpentine and

a few dollars! Was there any treasure, or was the whole thing a Tyler

fake invented by Pap and handed to his family as an heirloom? He could

not resist the question.

“That chart you showed us,” said he,—“is there anything really in it?”

Satan took him at once.

“The chart’s all right,” said he, “for them that can read it. If you

mean is it _genuine_, I reckon it is—for them that can read it.

We’ll see some day if I’m right or wrong; but, honest truth, I’m not

botherin’ much about it,—the chances are so big, as I told you before,

against treasure huntin’, and even if we strike it what’s the use of

barrels of gold to a feller like me? If you ask me, I’m botherin’ more

about the kid than huntin’ for money.”

“You mean?”

“Jude. Suppose I was to get a bash on the head from one of them cusses,

or drop to the smallpox, same as I pretended to Sellers, what’d become

of the kid?”

The sound of the “kid” frying fish for supper came mixed with the

question.

“I know,” said Ratcliffe, “that’s a problem that must often occur to

you, I should think.”

“You’ve seen the sort of crowd Havana’s made of,” went on Satan. “It’s

hard to tell which is worse, the Yanks or the Spaniards, and there’s

not a seaport that’s not the same, and when I think of me lyin’ dead

and her driftin’ loose, it gets my goat. It’d be different if she was a

boy.”

“Besides that,” said the other, “she can’t go on always as she is now.”

“How’d you mean?”

“Well, dressed as she is now. She’ll grow up.”

“Sure,” said Satan.

“She’ll have to dress differently some day.”

“Meanin’ skirts?”

“Yes.”

Satan laughed a hollow laugh. The idea seemed so futile that he did not

dwell upon it, or seemed not to.

“Have you any female relations yourself?” asked he.

“Lots,” replied Ratcliffe, calling up in memory his cousins and aunts,

females of the highest upper-middle-class respectability, and vaguely

wondering what they would think of Jude could they see her.

“The bother is,” said Satan, “she don’t take to women folk; always was

against them, and that Thelusson woman put the cap on the business,

kissin’ her and handin’ out slop talk. Well, I don’t know. I reckon

she’ll have to go on bein’ what she is till somethin’ happens; but it

would have been a lot handier if she’d been born a boy.”

He turned and went below.

The sun had sunk beyond Palm Island, and a violet dusk, forerunner of

the dark, was spreading through the sky. Over beyond the _Natchez_ the

sea for a moment became hard looking as a floor of beryl, then vague.

Ratcliffe, lingering for a moment watching this transformation scene,

found himself thinking of Jude and her problem. The Tylers had taken an

extraordinarily firm hold upon him. He knew them more intimately than

he knew his own relations, or fancied so. It seemed to him that he had

known them for years.

When this cruise was over and he packed up his traps and left them, he

would probably never see them again. Jude and Satan would go their way

and he would go his way—and what would happen to Jude? Suppose Satan

were to die, get knocked on the head or “fall to the smallpox”? The

thought hurt him almost as much as it hurt Satan; for Jude had, somehow

or another, captured his mind and touched his heart, and her youth and

absolute irresponsibility before the major facts of life had infected

him in the most extraordinary manner.

Over there on the island, engaged in the serious matter of provisioning

the _Sarah_, they had been carrying on like children. He had not

thought of it then; now, reflecting sanely, it rose before him together

with the rest of this strange cruise, and for a moment the whole

business seemed mad, absolutely mad. The supersane figure of Skelton

rose up before him, and beyond Skelton, Oxford, the calm, sane

English country, where the Tylers would have been impossible, the hard

bourgeois conventions of the upper-upper-middle classes, those uncles,

cousins, and aunts to whom Class was as holy as Sunday and to whom Jude

would be absolutely invisible as she was.

He was engaged in these reflections when a voice broke the stillness

of the evening, a half-tired, half-cantankerous voice, the voice of an

overworked housekeeper who had been frying fish while others have been

idling.

“_Ain’t_ you comin’ to help me?” inquired the voice.

CHAPTER XIV

HANTS AND OTHER THINGS

Down below, at supper, the injured housekeeper was still in evidence

and rose to a charge that the fish was over-fried. Satan was the accuser.

The defendant, “het up” and flushed, replied in the language of the sea:

“Go’n fry your head! Clackin’ on deck and leavin’ me to do the

work—the pair of you! It’s all men’s good for.”

“Why, I thought you was a man!” said Satan. “You cut and carry on like

a man; scratch you and your tongue goes both ends like a woman. Start

you on a job, and you sit down to it before it’s half done. I saw you

lazin’ on the beach, and now look where we are,—there’s a sack of

stuff not brought off and how are we to bring it with Cleary messin’

round?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” said Jude. Then she checked herself and her eyes

met Ratcliffe’s.

“It was my fault,” said he. “I got tired.”

Jude looked at him. This defense of her, trifling though it was,

seemed to make a new relationship between them. It seemed to her that

Ratcliffe had suddenly become different. She could not tell what the

difference was or how it had come about in the least, or why she

half-resented his shielding her, even in this small matter; then her

eyes fell away and rested on the table before her.

“It wasn’t,” said she. “It was my fault I was foolin’ when I ought to

have been workin’, and now the stuff is lyin’ there—” She choked, and

then to the horror of Satan she pushed her plate away and broke into

tears, hiding her face on her folded arms. Then, before the astonished

ones could speak, she rose and dashed out of the cabin.

“Land’s sake!” cried Satan. “What ails her? Cryin’! She’s never done

that before—and all over that rotten sack—why, let it lay there, cuss

the thing!”

He went on with his supper in an irritable manner.

“She’s overtired, maybe,” said Ratcliffe. “Wait and I’ll fetch her

back.”

He left the cabin and came on deck.

The moon had not risen yet, and the riding light, which had been run up

before supper, showed yellow against the stars.

Not a sign of Jude.

He went forward. There she was, huddled up in the bows.

“Jude!”

The bundle sniffed.

“Come on down to supper. Satan’s not angry.”

“Who the”—sniff—“cares whether’es angry or not? You lea’ me alone!”

“But what are you crying about?”

“_Ain’t_ cryin’!”

“Well, what are you lying on the deck for?”

“’Cause I choose.”

“Come on down and help to clear the things away.”

“Clear them yourself!”

He bent down and tried to take her arm. She shook him off, rose

suddenly like a released spring, ran to the side where the dinghy was

moored, and got over the rail.

He looked over. She was in the boat unfastening the painter.

“Where on earth are you going?”

“Ashore.”

She pushed off.

Ratcliffe came down to the cabin.

“She’s gone ashore.”

“She’s gone for that sack,” said Satan unconcernedly. “Reckons to get

it off before moon rise, I expect.”

“But it’s too heavy for one.”

“She’ll do it. You’ve put her monkey up makin’ her confess it was her

fault. She’s never done that before in all her born life. She’s just

natural proud and she’d as soon cut her tongue out as give in she was

in the wrong. You’ve made her do more’n I’ve ever made her do, and how

you’ve done it—well, search me.

“You aren’t gettin’ on with your supper,” said Satan after a pause.

“Oh, I’ve had enough. I was wondering if she has her boots for going

through that bush stuff.”

“She’s got them all right. They were in the dinghy: she didn’t bring

them aboard. You’re worryin’ a lot about the kid.”

“Well, maybe. She’s the jolliest kid I ever struck, and I don’t want

any harm to come to her; the pluckiest, too. There’s not many people

would go off alone in the dark like that in a place like this.”

“Lord bless your soul!” said Satan. “That’s nothin’, no more than

walkin’ down the street to Jude. Do you think sailin’ these seas is all

fair-weather work? Why, we’ve been rubbin’ our noses in _des_truction

since she was born. She don’t know what fear is.”

“I could tell that from her face.”

“It’s her face that’s troublin’ me,” said Satan. “Pass me the water

pitcher, will you? She’s begun to take after mother. A few months ago

she was the homeliest little pup ever littered; but she’s beginnin’ to

pick up in looks, and if she takes after her mother’s side in looks and

ways—Lord save us!”

“Was your mother good looking?”

“Well,” said Satan, “I don’t know what you call good looks. Pap said

she was a nacheral calamity; that was after she’d bolted with the

Baptis’ man. It wasn’t the looks so much as the somethin’ about her

that’d make a blind man rubber after her if she passed him in the

street, that’s what Pap said. He never said no prayers, but when he was

talkin’ of Jude I’ve heard him say time and again, ‘Thank the Lord she

don’t take after her mother!’ and now it’s comin’ out, same as the ace

of spades a shark has hid up his sleeve—and what’s comin’ after, Lord

only knows.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I scarce know myself, but Pap said those sort of women couldn’t

help bein’ nacheral calamities, attractin’ chaps and turnin’ the world

upside down. He said a man, once they’d got the clutch on him, was no

more use than a hypnotized fowl, whatever that is. You’ve heard what

Jude said about skirts—well, I’m thinkin’ that’s all baby talk, an’

it’s my ’pinion when she gets her nacheral sailing orders she’ll be

into skirts some day, same as a dude takes to water, and hypnotizing

chaps, same as her mother before her.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Ratcliffe; “but I don’t think she’ll be

a natural calamity. I think, from what I have seen of her, that she has

a fine character, honest as the day, good as gold.”

“Maybe,” said Satan; “but you never know what a woman is, seems to me,

till she’s been rubbed against a man. Those were Pap’s words and he’d

got a headpiece on him. Well, I reckon time will tell.”

They went on deck.

The moon had not risen yet, and the island lay like a humped shadow

in the starlight. To seaward the anchor light of the _Natchez_ showed

a yellow point, and from the beach came the lullaby of little waves

falling on the sand.

“Now if it wasn’t these days,” said Satan, “I’d be in two minds about

putting out straight now, rather than lyin’ all night by that feller

Cleary.”

“What do you mean by these days?”

“Well, in the old throat-cuttin’ days I reckon Cleary would have gone

through us, sunk the old _Sarah_, and taken me aboard his hooker with a

gun at my head to make me show him the way to the wreck; but things is

different now. Fellers are afraid of the law. Cark’s mortally afraid of

the law, so’s Cleary.”

“What time do you start tomorrow?”

“After sun-up, if the wind holds.”

“It will be a joke if we find Carquinez at the reef. What will he say,

do you think?”

“Cark? Oh, he’ll not mind. There ain’t no shame in Cark. He’ll have

broke his contrac’ by not goin’ to Havana, he’ll stand proved to the

eyes as a damn cheat. He won’t mind: the contrac’ not bein’ regular,

the law can’t have him.”

“I expect Cleary will go for him.”

“Maybe,” said Satan. “Then we’ll have some fun. There’s Jude.”

Something like a swimming water rat was breaking the star shimmer on

the sea. It was the dinghy.

Jude was sculling it from behind, noiselessly. It came alongside to

starboard like a ghost, and with it came Jude’s voice calling for the

tackle. Then the sack came aboard and after it Jude.

“Well, you’ve done it smart,” said Satan, “and no mistake. Now off down

with you and have your supper. We’ve got to start bright and early in

the morning.”

Jude said nothing. Her anger and irritability seemed to have departed.

She kicked off her boots, hitched up her trousers, and started down

below.

“She never keeps a grudge up,” said Satan.

Away in the middle of the night Ratcliffe was awakened by a stifled

scream, the voice of Satan promptly following.

“Wake up! What ails you?”

“For the Land’s sake, where am I?”

“In your hammock. What’re you dreamin’ of?”

“Gee-owsts.”

“Hants, you mean.”

“Black faces they had, and they was chasin’ me round and round them

trees.”

“That’s what comes of stuffin’ yourself and goin’ to bed on top of it.

Get off your back and onto your side. Wakin’ a body up like that! What

was they like?”

“The hants?”

“Yep.”

“I can’t be talkin’ for fear of wakin’ him up.”

“He’s asleep. I hear him snorin’. What was they like?”

“They’d black faces and tails like cows—an’ I’d rather not be talkin’

of them.”

“Wonder what it means dreamin’ of them things?”

“Nothin’ good—bad weather, most like.”

“Glass is steady.”

“Well, maybe we’ll bust on a reef or somethin’.”

“Oh, shet your head!”

“Shet yours. I’m wantin’ to get asleep.”

Silence.

Ratcliffe could hear the water outside tickling the ribs of the

old _Sarah_. A bigger swell was running, and she rose to it with

balloon-like buoyancy. A score of little voices from the trickle and

slap of the sea against the timbers to the click of the rudder chain

marked her movements.

The idea of the ghosts chasing Jude round the dream tree reminded him

of how he had chased her round the real tree and kissed her—kissed her

out of irritation.

Something in his half-asleep state told him he had been a fool to do

that. It was all done in play, just as a little boy might kiss a little

girl; but he was not a little boy. What had prompted him?

Then as he lay dissolving into slumber the groaning timbers of the

_Sarah_ said something that sounded like “nacheral calamity,” and then,

the door of sleep flung wide, he was walking on a blazing beach with

Cleary.

The _Natchez_ and the _Juan_ were at anchor out on the blue dream

sea, a great wreck was heaved up on the sands, and when they reached

it Cleary tapped on the timbers and said something about a “nacheral

calamity,” and at the words a porthole opened and Jude’s fresh young

face appeared laughing, framed by the timbers of the wreck.

It seemed to him the most delightful vision—then it popped in and the

porthole closed and Carquinez came riding up on a horse, saying he was

going to “bu’st” the wreck open with dynamite to get at the treasure.

CHAPTER XV

UNDER WAY

He was routed out before dawn by Satan. The cabin lamp was lit, the

table spread, and Jude was bringing in coffee. She seemed in a bad

temper, and as he huddled himself into his clothes he could hear her:

“Knockin’ myself about in the dark! That old slush lamp in the galley

don’t burn worth a cent. What you want haulin’ out this hour for?”

And to her Satan:

“Wind will be up with the sun—where’s them biscuits? We’ve got to get

the dinghy aboard yet, and all that raffle forward stowed, and it’ll be

light enough in another ten minutes.”

“Where’s Rat?”

“He’s comin’.”

He sat down to table opposite Jude. She scarcely gave him good morning.

The face that had looked so well framed by the porthole of the dream

ship was cross, almost sullen. He thought for a moment that her

ill-temper was directed toward Satan as well as himself; then, in some

subtle way, he knew it wasn’t. Early rising may have helped; but he was

the cause. What had he done? He could not think.

He remembered how she had acted when he had stood up for her the night

before. It was just the same this morning.

Satan said the coffee was burnt,—tasted like bud barley, and ought to

be slung in the slush tub. Ratcliffe stood up for the coffee, but was

cut short by Jude.

“I reckon it’s beastly,” said Jude; “but I haven’t more’n two hands

to be gettin’ the things on the table and the coffee boiled—and some

folks snoring in their bunks!”

“Shet up!” said Satan, ruffled at this wanton attack on the guest “And

talkin’ of snorin’, I reckon you can give any man points and beat him,

once you lay down to it. Why, you shake the ship so that I’ve woke often

of nights thinkin’ we’d got adrift and was dudderin’ over sandbanks.”

“Lord love you for a liar!” was all Jude said. She refused help in

clearing away the things, joining them on deck a few minutes later,

just as day was coming into the eastern sky.

The problem of how to get the dinghy aboard had not occurred to

Ratcliffe till now. The _Sarah Tyler_ possessed no davits, and though

the old canvas boat was easy to handle as an umbrella, the sturdy

little dinghy was a different matter.

Standing in the half-dark with a faint wind bringing the smell of

the early morning sea, sharp as the smell of a new-drawn sword, he

questioned Satan on the subject.

“Get her aboard?” said Satan. “Oh, I’ll durn soon get her aboard.

Davits! God love you! what do you want them things for?”

“Except for hoistin’ fools off the ship?” said the voice of Jude from

the darkness. “_Air_ you goin’ to get a move on? You’ve got the old

awning to take in and stow. Maybe you’ve forgotten it.”

They got the awning down and stowed, and then, against a train of fire

crawling on the eastern sea-line and in a light that made the world

like the vestibule of Fairyland, Satan set to on the problem of the

dinghy. He had no doubt half a dozen dodges for the purpose. The one he

employed was simply to unshackle the main halyards and fix them to the

ring-bolt on the bow.

As they hauled on the tackle, and as if in answer to the creak of block

and shrill chantey started by Satan, the races of the gulls blazed

out. The deep-sea fishing gulls had long since started for sea; but

the shore gulls, as though waiting for a convoy to follow, were round

the stern of the _Sarah_. Then, the dinghy secured, the throat and

peak halyards were manned, and the mainsail rose slatting against the

splendor of the morning.

The sun was over the sea-line now, the wind rising to meet him, and

to starboard the fresh blue sea flooding against the wind showed the

_Natchez_, her canvas rising and the fellows swarming at the ropes.

Satan had unlashed the wheel and was standing by it, now that the

mainsail was set, shouting directions to his crew; and to Ratcliffe,

as he labored with Jude getting the foresail and jib on her, the truth

came in a flash that this was the real thing. The lazy peace of the

last couple of days had broken all at once. Activity, Adventure,

and Danger seemed suddenly to have boarded the old _Sarah Tyler_ and

delivered her as a prey to enormous and unknown forces.

He had never recognized till now the potential energy of canvas. The

mainsail seemed horribly vast, out of all proportion to the hull; the

slatting of the jib as they raised it spoke of an energy new born,

viewless, and seeming to have little relationship to the warm and

benign breeze.

But he had no time to think. The anchor was still to be had in, and

as he helped with Jude at the windlass—Pap’s patent that would have

raised a battleship—the threshing of the canvas with all sheets slack

and the voice of Satan came urging speed.

Then, when the old killick was aboard and the sails trimmed, came

Peace. With the wind on the starboard beam and the canvas hard against

the blue the _Sarah_ settled down to her work, Palm Island fading to

westward, and to sou’west the _Natchez_ with all sail set in pursuit.

Jude’s bad temper seemed to have blown away on the wind, the surly look

had gone from her face, and as she stood for a moment by Ratcliffe,

looking over the weather rail, her mind seemed entirely occupied by

Cleary.

“He’s blowing along,” said Jude; “but he’s feeling our pace. Not more

than holding his own—and he had the cheek to tell me once his old tub

could sail circles round the _Sarah_!”

Satan at the wheel cocked his eye over his shoulder at the _Natchez_,

spat, and refixed his gaze on the binnacle.

“Where’s your eyes?” asked Satan.

“In my head,” replied Jude. “What you gettin’ at?”

“He’s overhaulin’ us. Wonder he ain’t aboard! Time you was gettin’ that

anchor up and handlin’ the jib.”

Ratcliffe was about to share the blame when, remembering the incident

of the coffee, he checked himself and held his peace.

Satan was right. The _Natchez_ had the pace of the _Sarah_, at least

under present wind conditions and under plain sail. The two boats had

evidently never been matched before, and the gloom of the Tylers might

have been gaged by their silence. Satan did not want to run away from

Cleary; but he had promised him a “lead,” and this impudent display

of the better sailing qualities of the _Natchez_ was like a derisive

underscore to the promise.

Cleary, in this matter at least, was a very unwise man. He should have

checked the speed of his boat by mishandling her or even trailing a

drogher. Instead of that he held on, determined, evidently, to take the

shine out of the _Sarah_ and pour derision on the head of Satan.

Ratcliffe, little as he knew of boat-craft, felt the situation. Being

wise, he said nothing.

Suddenly Jude spoke.

“It’s her beams helping her. Try her on a wind and we’d knock flinders

out of her. Lord! to think of being beat by that old cod boat! Say,

cayn’t we do nothin’, crack on a balloon jib or somethin’?”

Satan laughed a mirthless laugh.

“S’much as to tell the cuss we’re beat. Don’t you think Cleary’s got no

balloon jibs up his sleeve? Hain’t you no sense?”

They held on, the _Natchez_ steadily overhauling them till she was dead

level half a mile away and drawing ahead.

Then, having demonstrated her superiority, she began to reduce sail so

as to give the _Sarah_ the lead.

Jude turned away and leaned with her back against the rail; then Satan

told her to take the wheel and went below for a “wash.”

CHAPTER XVI

THE STEERSMAN

Ratcliffe, taking his seat on the bottom of the dinghy, watched her as

she steered, the old panama on the back of her head and her eyes roving

from the binnacle to the luff of the mainsail. The following wind blew

warm, and the gentle creak of a block, the slash of the bow-wash, and

the occasional click of the rudder chain were the only sounds in all

the blue world ringing them.

A mile or more behind them the _Natchez_ showed, a triangle of pearl,

Palm Island had vanished, and nothing remained in all the wheel of sea

but a trace of smoke to the southward,—the smoke of some freighter

hull down on the horizon.

The sturdy little figure at the wheel seemed to have forgotten his

existence. He was wondering whether the grudge was still being kept up

against him, and what it was all about, and whether this indifference

was real or assumed, when a voice made him start:

“Say! Have you swallowed your tongue?”

“No, but I didn’t like to speak to you.”

“What for?”

“Well, I’ve heard you mustn’t speak to the man at the wheel.”

“Who stuffed you with that yarn?”

“Oh, I’ve seen it stuck up on steamboats, and besides I thought you

were in a temper with me.”

“Which way?”

“Well, you said davits were only good for hoisting fools off a ship.”

“So they are.”

“I thought you meant me.”

“Thought you was a fool, did you?”

“Then last night you got in a wax—Jude.”

“Yep.”

“Nothing—only—we don’t want to quarrel—and we haven’t been the same

since last night, somehow.”

“Which way?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You wouldn’t let me help to clear the things this

morning.”

“Wouldn’t I? Well, you can help to steer the ship now. Kin you steer?”

“Only a boat.”

“Well, it’s easy learnt, and you’re not much use aboard unless you can

take your hand at the wheel.”

He said nothing for a minute, admiring the way she had steered clear of

the subject he had started on.

“I don’t mind,” said he at last. “I’ll learn some time—you can teach

me.”

Jude let her eyes rest on him. Then suddenly, and with the vehemence

and force of a Methodist preacher driving home a point from the pulpit,

she spoke:

“_Air_ you stuck to the bottom of that dinghy with cobbler’s wax?”

He laughed and stood up.

“That’s right,” said Jude. “Now come’n take the wheel. Some time’s no

time! You’ve got to learn to handle her now if you want to. Go behind

me and look over my shoulder—that’s right.”

He stood behind her, wondering what the next command would be. It came

almost at once.

“Stick your eye on the compass card.”

“Right.”

“S’long as the pointer’s like that she’s on her course. Now I’ll let

her off a spoke or two—keep your eye on the card.”

The pointer altered its indication, and the mainsail seemed suddenly

attacked by the ague.

“Now she’s on her course again,” said Jude, altering the wheel. “Take

hold of her. I’ll stand by to give you a hand if you want it.”

He took the spokes she had been holding as she relinquished them, and

the first sensation that came to him was the feeling that he had taken

hold of something alive, something alive and sensitive as a hare.

The wheel seemed to have a motive power and will of its own, and the

infernal compass card to take affront at the least movement of the helm.

Jude rested her hand on his left hand to show him how and give him

confidence, and at the touch of her firm little hand the stage-fright

that comes to every steersman when he first takes the wheel left him.

In five minutes he had got the hang of the thing, or thought so.

“Can you run her alone?” asked Jude.

“Rather! It’s as simple as simple.”

“Right,” said Jude.

She drew off and took her seat on the dinghy.

“Easy, ain’t it?”

“Easy as pie.”

The wind freshened a bit, and the _Sarah_, heeling slightly, took

matters in her own hand for a moment and fell off her course. He put

the wheel over too much, and like a frightened horse she went plunging

away in the opposite direction, the wind spilling from her sails and

the main boom threatening to swing to port.

In a moment Jude was beside him, her hands on the spokes, and the

_Sarah_ on her course again.

A voice came from below, where Satan, like a sensitive plant, had

evidently felt the alteration in their course.

“What the —— are you doin’ up there?”

“Learning Rat to steer,” cried Jude.

Ratcliffe, himself again, retaking the wheel, turned to her.

“For God’s sake,” said he, “don’t call me that!”

“Which?”

“Rat.”

“For the land’s sake what’s the matter with it?”

“It’s a beastly name. If you want something short, call me what

everyone else calls me.”

“What’s that?”

“Bobby.”

“You’re lettin’ her off again,” said Jude. “Starboard—that’s it. Here’s

Satan: he’ll go on learnin’ you. I’m goin’ below for a wash.”

PART II