LONE REEF
It was the morning of the third day out, somewhere about four o’clock.
The moon had set, and the _Sarah_ was lifting against a gentle head
sea, boosting the foam from her bows under the light of a million stars.
Satan was at the wheel, Jude below in her hammock, and Ratcliffe at
the weather rail, close to Satan. He was leaning over watching the
water,—gouts and lines of star-shot foam, planes of ebony blackness,
and now and then, deep down, the bloom of phosphorus like the life in
the heart of a black opal.
“What time do you reckon we’ll strike the reef?” asked Ratcliffe.
“We’re right on to it now,” replied Satan, “and if it wasn’t more’n a
five-knot breeze I’d heave her to.”
“You aren’t afraid of running on it?”
“Lord, no! There’s no smell of it yet.”
“You mean to say you could smell it?”
“Waal,” said Satan, “I don’t know if it’s rightly smell or hearin’ or
what, but I’d know it, even with the wind as she is. I reckon it’s
maybe the water. Shoal water smells different from deep, and it’s shoal
water right up from four miles to Lone. Feels different too.”
“How do you mean?”
“More choppy—I dunno—different. Jude would tell you the same. Pap had
the sense of it too. Western ocean folks can smell ice miles off when
the bergs are cruisin’ about. I reckon it’s the same thing— There’s
the sun.”
Right ahead, as if touched by a wizard, the stars had faded above
the sea-line, the sky over there looked sick, a stain on the velvety
splendor of the night.
A great gull passed the _Sarah_, flying topmast high, and now far
off and as though coming through a pinhole could be heard a creaky
lamentable sound,—the crying of gulls.
“I’ve got the smell of her now,” said Satan. “Them gulls you’re hearin’
aren’t all of them from Lone. There’s a big spit to east’ard, and
they’ll be comin’ up against the wind. Say, will you take a bet?”
“What sort?”
“I’ll bet you even dollars Cleary hasn’t held on same as we’ve done the
last six hours. He was droppin’ astern a long way last time I sighted
him. He’ll have seen the reef on the chart right ahead of him, and his
navigation is no account: hasn’t no sea sense. He’ll be hove to singin’
‘Lead, kindly light’ and listenin’ for the breakers—What you say?”
“I’d rather bet on the _Sarah_.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Satan.
The head sails showed hard now against the east, and almost before
one could turn and look again the blaze had come above a band of
opal-tinted mist which passed and vanished, leaving on the horizon a
train of fire pale as guinea gold.
In that moment, far ahead and as if suddenly sketched by a pencil
against the eastern light, they saw the naked spars of a vessel
anchored in the dawn.
“That’s Cark,” said Satan. “Told you we’d find him here—damn swab!”
“Well, I couldn’t have believed it,” said Ratcliffe. He remembered the
sailing of the _Juan_, presumably for Havana, and though he had sized
up Sellers and Carquinez for what they were worth, still, the evidence
of their duplicity, here before his eyes, came as a shock.
In a moment it was blotted out by the sun, washed away in the blazing,
seething ocean of light that sprang on them as if to the blast of a
trumpet.
Satan swung his head over his shoulders. Ratcliffe followed his gaze.
The sea to westward was empty, not a sign of a sail.
“Cleary’s gone,” said Ratcliffe.
“Oh, he’ll be nosin’ along soon,” said Satan. “He’s sure to come close
enough to see Cark’s topmasts, and then he’ll pounce.”
He put the helm over, and the _Sarah_ payed off to the north so as to
round the northern spur of the reef.
“That’s the wreck,” said Satan, “that line like a lump of rock.”
Ratcliffe, shading his eyes, could now see the reef, long and
foam-flecked, stretching from north to south, the line of rock
absolutely unsuggestive of a wreck, beyond the reef the _Juan’s_ masts
and spars, and about the reef-spurs the gulls flitting and wheeling;
but, despite the movement of the gulls and the splendor of the morning,
the place struck him as the most desolate he had ever seen.
“Nothing stirring,” said Satan, as they rounded the north spur and the
boom came over. “Them lowsy Spaniards are all in their bunks. Rap on
the deck for Jude. Hi, Jude, y’lazy dog, show a leg! What you doin’!”
“Comin’,” cried a voice, followed by the sounds of thrashing about and
inquiries of the Lord to know where her clothes were.
Then at the hatch appeared a face blind with sleep. She ran with
Ratcliffe to get the lashings off the anchor, helped to let go the
halyards, and as the anchor fell and the _Sarah_ swung to her moorings
a couple of cable lengths from and outside the _Juan_, down she sat on
the deck like a person collapsing under a heavy load.
The sight of the _Juan_ did not seem to move her at all. Like a
dormouse suddenly electrified into life and movement, the stimulus
withdrawn, the mechanism ceased to act. She yawned, turned on her side,
and hid her face in the crook of her arm as if to shut out the sun.
Satan, whistling between his teeth, stood with his hands on the rail
looking at the _Juan_.
“They’re wakin’ up,” said he.
A fellow with a red handkerchief round his head had appeared on deck.
He came and looked over the side at the _Sarah_, then vanished.
“Gone to wake Cark out of his beauty sleep,” said Satan. “Look! There’s
two more of them movin’ about like sick flies. Will you look at the
way they’ve stowed them sails?—and they’ve got her a sight too close
to the reef. Get a Western Ocean sea suddenly runnin’ and the anchor to
drag, where’d they be?”
He turned and contemplated the prostrate figure of Jude.
“There’s another sleepin’ beauty,” said he. “Ought a be married to
Cark. Well they’d look in the same hammock with Sellers fannin’ the
flies off them!”
The figure on the deck turned on its back, stretched out its arms,
yawned, and then sat up holding its knees.
Youth may sneer at Age; but, anyhow, Age knows nothing of the weariness
of Youth, of a morning.
Satan, satisfied with the semi-resurrection, dropped below, and
promptly the figure fell on its back again with arms outspread.
“Get up!” said Ratcliffe.
“I’m getting— Say!”
“Yes.”
“I—ow—yow—ain’t it awful bein’ tired?”
“You’ll be all right when you’re on your feet. Get up!”
“I’m getting— Say, d’you know where the fishing lines are? Starboard
locker. Fetch’m up, an’ that chunk of grouper I kep’ for bait—in the
tub.”
“Right.”
When he returned on deck she was drying her head in the sun, having
soused it in a bucket of water.
Then they dropped a line.
Away through the diamond-clear water, thirty feet down, they could see
the slack of the anchor chain like a conger on the coral and sponge.
A nurse shark passed like a grisly ghost, then a shoal of sardines,
then a young whip ray not bigger than a soup plate, then a mangrove
schnapper that nosed the bait, swallowed it, and was hauled on board.
“He’ll be enough,” said Jude. “You clean him while I get the frying pan
ready. Hullo! blest if Cark’s not putting off a boat!”
A boat had been dropped on the starboard side of the _Juan_ and was
rounding her stern.
“That’s Sellers,” said Jude, shading her eyes. “Satan! Below there!”
“Hullo!”
“Sellers is coming off.”
“I’ll be up in a minute.”
The boat came alongside, just as it had come at Palm Island,—same
boat, same crew, Sellers just the same.
“Hullo, Kid!” cried Sellers.
“Hullo yourself! Thought you was gone to Havana.”
“Thought you was to wait for us at Pa’m Island,” said Sellers. “Hullo,
Satan, that you? How about your contrac’ with us?”
Satan, who had just come on deck, leaned over the rail and contemplated
Sellers. Then he spoke.
“God A’mighty!” said Satan. He stared at Sellers for a moment as one
might stare at a prodigy. Then he broke out:
“Contrac’! Holy George! _What_ you say, contrac’? You daar to hook
onto my channel plates, and I’ll buzz this fish at y’r head! Shove off!
What are you doin’ here, anyway? Why aren’t you at Havana gettin’ the
dynamite?”
“Why ain’t you waitin’ for us at Pa’m Island?” logically responded
Sellers. “If you want to know why we’re here. I’ll tell you. It was a
bet I had with Cark.”
“Which way?”
“I bet him you’d never wait for us at Pa’m Island, but’d light out for
here to raise the stuff if we went foolin’ off to Havana. Seems I was
right, don’t it?”
The impudence of this made Ratcliffe gasp, but left Satan quite unmoved.
“S’pose we quit lyin’,” said he.
“I’m willin’ to follow soot,” replied Sellers.
“Well, then,” said Satan, “follow soot off to the wreck an’ get your
workin’ party onto the business like hot nails. I’ll be over to help
you soon’s we’ve had breakfast. You’ve no time to waste.”
“How’s that?”
“Cleary’s after you.”
This news seemed to take the wind out of Sellers. He sat for a moment
without speaking.
“How do you know that?” asked he at length.
“He put into Palm Island not more’n four hours after you’d gone; said
you and Cark had tricked him and he was after your blood. I told him
that wasn’t no concern of mine. He asked me had I seen you.”
“What did you say?”
“The truth. Think I’d perjure me soul lyin’ for the likes of you and
Cark? Told him I was goin’ to join you.”
“_Sufferin’_ Moses! You’ve put your hoof in it this time! Go on and
don’t stand waggin’ your tail! What’d he say?”
“Nothin’, didn’t say nothin’, but when I put out he put out after me.”
“Followed you?”
“Yep. I only lost him last night; but it’s ten to one he’ll drop on us.
He’ll be bustin’ everywhere round here.”
“He will,” said Sellers, “and then it’s half shares he’ll be wantin’,
not to mention Cark’s liver. I’m sweatin’! Cark’s let that chap down
cruel. I owns it. Did it against my advice. Did he have many with him?”
“Reckon so. The old _Natchez_ was full as a beehive with the
toughest-lookin’ crowd.”
The sight of Sellers’ face at this announcement set Jude off. She
seized the fish and started off to the galley with it, while Sellers,
having communed with himself for a moment, spoke:
“Crooked’s a bad course to run,” said this moralist. “I’ve always told
Cark so. I told you we’d no dynamite aboard,—neither we had,—but
there’s a keg of powder in the hold, and Cark reckoned to sample the
goods without your help. There, it’s out! You’d have had your share
as long as I’d a leg to stand on, honest you would, s’far as I was
concerned, and that’s all I have to say pers’nally on the matter. What
I’m gettin’ at is this: If Cleary turns up, there’ll be hell of a
rough house. Will you stand for us if there’s fightin’ to be done?”
“That depends,” said Satan.
“Which way?”
“I’m not trustin’ you no more, not without the coin in my hand. Cark’s
got to plank down something on account, if it’s no more’n a thousand
dollars. If he don’t, I’ll put out for Havana and blow the gaff. You’ve
overhauled the wreck?”
“Yep.”
“Well, you can judge what the chances are. You hop back lively as a
flea and tell Cark what I’m sayin’. Gold coin and right into my fist
this mornin’, or I’ll give the show away. It’s his own doin’. If he’d
played straight with me, I’d have trusted him. Seein’ he’s played
crooked, he’ll have to pay. One thousand dollars, or I go back to
Havana and you’ll have a t’pedoboat on top of you, to say nothin’ of
Cleary!”
“I’ll tell him,” said Sellers. “Come over to the reef soon as you’re
ready and I’ll give you word of what he says. I reckon it’ll be all
right. One thousand dollars?”
“Gold coin, and tell him it’ll be double after eleven o’clock.”
“Oh, he won’t kick,” said Sellers.
The boat shoved away.
Ratcliffe remembered what Satan had said about the chart and the hidden
writing in it and the high probability that the bones of the _Nombre
de Dios_ were lying elsewhere than here. More than ever did it seem to
him that Satan was the spider of this web,—not a malignant spider,
for the flies he was catching in the form of Carquinez and Sellers,
and possibly Cleary, were the weavers of the web, in which they seemed
tangling themselves. Satan only fell in with circumstance and took toll.
“Look here!” said he. “Suppose Carquinez pays you a thousand dollars’
advance, and suppose you don’t find any treasure, will you pay him
back?”
“Why should I pay him back?” asked Satan. “I’ve given him the location,
and that’s worth a thousand anyway.”
“But you said there was nothing on the chart, that it was a fake.”
“Lord! I said no such thing. I said that in my ’pinion the stuff wasn’t
here; but I may be wrong. There’s Jude hollering for us to come to
breakfast. Come along down and I’ll show you my meanin’.”
He scarcely spoke during the meal, and when it was over he took the
tobacco box from his pocket and opened the chart on the table.
“Now,” said Satan, “I’ll show you what I mean by sayin’ the stuff may
be here, but it’s a big sight larger maybe it isn’t. Don’t crowd me.
Stand behind me on either side and keep your eyes on the chart. Well,
now, there’s Lone Reef with the creek marked and the name of her, and
there’s Rum Cay to the left, and there’s the latitude and longitude
wrote up—all plain, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, seein’ Rum Cay is given, and seein’ Lone Reef is down on all
the charts and as well known as Cuba to any sailor man, what did the
man want stickin’ the latitude and longitude down for? The chart’s
not a sailin’ chart. A blind monkey wouldn’t use it nor bother about
examinin’ the latitude and longitude wrote on it. He’d just say, ‘Lone
Reef is the place I want to get to,’ and he’d get there with the
ordinary ship’s chart.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Satan, “in my opinion the chap that sank the _Nombre de
Dios_ knew of the old wreck lyin’ over there on Lone Reef and used it
as a blind, for the latitude and longitude wrote there so faint that
no man would bother to try to read it isn’t the latitude and longitude
of Lone Reef; it’s a hundred and ten mile out. It’s the latitude and
longitude of Cormorant Cay, a blasted sandbank down to s’uthard, all
shoals and gulls, and that’s where the _Nombre de Dios_ lies, in my
’pinion.”
Ratcliffe whistled.
“Of course I may be wrong,” said Satan, “there’s no knowin’.”
“I see what you mean,” said Ratcliffe. “This chap reckoned that anyone
finding or stealing the chart would take the latitude and longitude
written there for granted as the latitude and longitude of Lone Reef,
and not bother to examine the figures and verify them; having no cause,
indeed, to do so, seeing Lone Reef is so well known and on all the
charts.”
“That’s how it seems to me,” said Satan. “I’m not sayin’ I’m right, but
that’s how it seems to me, and if he figured that no one would trouble
about readin’ and verifyin’ the latitude and longitude as given there
he was right. Pap didn’t, and it was only by chance I did, a month
ago.”
“Have you seen Cormorant Cay?”
“Lord, yes! It’s a lagoon sandspit, and the hooker may be in the lagoon
for all I know, or under the sand for all I know, or I may be wrong all
through and that may be her on the reef over there. Well, we’ve got to
see; but it seems to me I’m pretty safe anyway, if I can touch Cark for
that thousand.”
So thought Ratcliffe.