THE WRECK
After breakfast, leaving Jude to keep ship, they got the dinghy
overboard and rowed for the reef. Here to eastward the landing was made
easy by a scrap of beach a hundred yards long, where the boat of the
_Natchez_ was lying, having landed Sellers and his working party.
Satan, scrambling, led the way over the rocks to the central creek
between the two reef arms, where, ponded round with water, lay the
wreck.
The reef, seen from the deck of the _Sarah_, showed little sign of a
wreck. One had to land on it to discover that the long hogback of rock
rising from the creek had structure. There was not even the indication
of where a mast had been, bowsprit there was none, stem and stern were
almost indistinguishable; yet, standing there, with the gulls flying
round him and the lonely tune of the sea in his ears, Ratcliffe knew
that the thing he was gazing upon was a ship. Structure speaks! You can
destroy it, but can scarcely disguise it.
Between the right arm of the reef and the starboard bow of the hulk a
ridge of rock gave access to the deck, and as the others crossed over
he took his seat to rest for a moment and contemplate the thing before
him.
To see the Sphinx properly, one should visit it alone, and so with the
great wreck of the _Nombre de Dios_,—if that were its name,—crouching
here, camouflaged with rock-growth and weed, swollen, sinister in the
blazing sunlight, and sung to by the chime and gurgle of the sea.
Sunk in shallow water,—so the tale ran,—raised by that alteration in
level constantly in progress among the reefs and islands, freighted
with treasure, and guilty of the death of many a man—well, the tale
here rang true. On board the _Sarah_ one might doubt, but here, even in
face of that chart which seemed faked, one believed,—mainly, perhaps,
because one wanted to believe.
Here, sitting on the reef, one became part of the story, just as when
the lights of the theater are lowered one becomes part of the play.
The flower-blue sky, the sapphire sea, the tepid wind, the shouting
gulls, all became confederates. One saw, in the far past, the _Nombre
de Dios_ setting sail,—the tragic figure of Lopez on her quarterdeck;
the sinking of her in shallow, reef-strewn water; the escape in the
boats; men dying of starvation; the lapse of years; Lopez dying with
her secret still hidden; and Lone Reef rising still higher out of the
sea to expose more fully the murdered ship.
The reef had always been here, for it was down in the oldest charts.
Had it really risen? Was that chart, as Satan supposed, a lie?
According to Sellers’ story, the _Nombre de Dios_ had been sunk in
six-fathom water, thirty-six-foot. Well, if that was so, Satan was
right, for the highest point of the reef was only six feet above water,
and when she was sunk the reef would have been thirty feet under water
and so uncharted.
There was the chance that Lopez might have sailed her into the creek,
deeper in those days, and that the creek bottom might have raised
itself to its present level, the reef remaining the same. This seemed
unlikely.
And yet the decks must have been under water once, to account for the
old coral deposits.
It was low tide in the creek now: high-tide mark was six feet below the
deck level. He tried to calculate how far she must have been lifted,
gave up the attempt, and, rising, crossed by the rock bridge to her
deck.
This bridge of rock was another factor in the insoluble problem. It
seemed placed there by some marine architect without reason, built up
out of huge fragments as if from some fallen peak or spire.
“Step careful!” shouted Satan.
The warning came just in time, for the deck was slippery as ice in
patches where a thin moss had grown,—a gray, greasy moss, treacherous
as Death, and covering the droppings of innumerable sea birds.
He made his way aft, where Sellers was standing with Satan and the
half-dozen Spaniards that formed the working party. Drills and picks
lay about, and marks showed where work had been started the day before.
“It’s a foot thick,” said Sellers, “whatever it is, and harder than
cement. Rock!—this ain’t coral rock, not such as I’ve ever seen.
Harveyized steel’s more like it, and after that there’s the deck
planking to be got through.”
“Well,” said Satan, “I told you it was a dynamite job, and if you’d
played fair and got the stuff we’d have been a long sight nearer the
end of the business, even if we started a week later. But there’s no
use in talkin’ now, and there’s no use in messin’ about pickin’ holes
here and there. Your job is to make a hole big enough to sink that
barrel of powder of yours—take me? Sink it half deep and then lay a
fuse and fire the whole lot at once and risk chances. It’s ten to one
you’ll split the deck right open at one go. As for sinkin’ little holes
and usin’ small charges, you’ll be ten years on the job.”
Sellers rose up and wiped his brow and cast his eyes over the sea to
westward, evidently with Cleary in his mind.
“Well, I’m not sure you aren’t right,” said he. “I’ll fix it that way;
but it’ll be a long job with the tools we have.”
“Maybe,” said Satan. “And now to the question of them dollars.”
“Oh, them—I’ve spoke to Cark, and he’s agreeable.”
“Oh, is he? Well, then. I’ll go right aboard with you now while he’s
warm and get them dollars into my hand. Set your men at work and you
come along with me.”
Sellers hung fire for a moment, then he agreed, gave the working party
their directions, and led the way off the deck across the rock bridge.
He pushed off with Satan in the boat of the _Juan_. Satan asked
Ratcliffe to take the dinghy back to the _Sarah_.
“You won’t want to be hangin’ about the reef,” said Satan; “you’ll be
more comfortable aboard ship. And tell Jude to be sure and wash that
old jumper I left on the rail. She’s forgot it, for there it’s hangin’
still.”
“Right,” said Ratcliffe.