THE SANDSPIT
That was one of the strangest moments in his life. He had never seen
anything comparable to this long white street of sand curbed with
emerald waves, leading nowhere, lost, useless, desolate, brilliant with
a brilliance that hit the heart as well as the eye, flown over by the
white gulls.
The sands fizzed to the sea wind, and away to north and south they
trembled and waved in the heat; but the curious thing was the fact
that, despite their loneliness, one did not feel alone. The place
seemed populous, filled with a crowd that for a moment had made itself
invisible. Perhaps it was the riot of color and the brilliance of
light: the effect remained.
Jude, looking round, seemed preoccupied about something. It was the
absence of gulls.
“Last time I was here,” said Jude, “it was all over gulls’ nests, right
here in the middle. Now they seem to have gone off to the ends. Wonder
what’s come to them?”
“Maybe it’s too early for them.”
“It’s a bit early, but not much: there’s always early breeders. No,
they’ve just took their hook—gulls are like that. We’ll have to go
and hunt at the ends. You go north and I’ll go south.”
“Well,” said he, “it’s an awfully long way. Suppose we have something
to eat first?”
“I don’t mind,” said Jude.
They got the provisions and water jar from the boat and sat down on the
sands. It was past noon and cooler, for the breeze had livened up, the
outgoing tide was leaving a strip of wet sand glittering like a golden
sword, and the fume of beach filled the air resonant with the gentle
rhythm of the waves.
They ate, leaning on their sides like old Athenians. They had no cup;
so they took it in turns to drink from the water jar. Then he lit a
pipe.
“This is jolly,” said he.
“Ain’t bad,” said Jude.
She made a pillow of sand for her head, and then, on her back with her
head on the pillow, lay like a starfish, spread-eagled, her hat over
her eyes.
He followed suit.
“How about those gulls’ nests?” he asked.
“Which ones?” evaded Jude.
“The ones you were going to hunt for?”
“Oh, them? Well, I reckon there’s dead loads of time.”
“Lots—listen to the sand!”
“It’s the wind blowing it.”
“I know. All the same this is a rum place. Do you know when we landed
here, just now, the first thing that struck me?”
“Naw.”
“Well, I felt as if the place was full of people.”
“Which way?”
“Oh, I don’t know; people I couldn’t see, ghosts.”
“Hants?”
“Yes.”
“What made y’ think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Somehow it reminded me of a story I’d once read.”
“What was the story?”
“About a beach over in the Pacific where wizards used to go and pick up
shells.”
“What’s them?”
“Chaps that work magic and sell themselves to the devil. They can make
themselves invisible so’s you can’t see them, and they used to come
to the beach and pick up shells, and then turn the shells into silver
dollars. You couldn’t see them, but you could hear them rustling about,
like that sand, and talking to one another, and now and then you’d see
a little fire blaze up.”
Jude, interested, rolled over, rested her chin in her palms, and kicked
a bare heel to the sun.
“I reckon you’re not far wrong,” said Jude.
“How?”
“Well, I’ve felt the same way here myself, as if there was hants about
and if you’d turn your head sharp you’d see someone behind you. Now
you’ve talked of it. I’ll be always thinking it if I come here again.
Wish you’d kept your head shut.”
She sat up and looked about her.
“Sorry,” said Ratcliffe, raising himself on his arm; “but if you come
again I’ll come with you, and that’ll keep the hants off—unless I’m
gone.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well, when this cruise is over I’ll have to leave you both and go
home. I don’t want to go.”
Jude said nothing. Staring over the sea under the brim of her hat, she
did not seem to have heard him.
“I’d much sooner stick on here with you and Satan. What’s that thing
floating out there?”
“Turkle,” said Jude. “Look, he’s doing a dive!”
He sat up beside her.
“So he has. Well, he’s gone.” He sat with his knees up, looking over
the sea.
Alone here with Jude she seemed a different person from what she had
been aboard the _Sarah_. The strange antagonism she had suddenly
exhibited, and a trace of which had remained up till this morning,
seemed to have utterly vanished. Perhaps it was the “hants,” or the
loneliness, or a combination of both, but she seemed subdued.
“Well, I don’t see what you want going for if you don’t want to,”
suddenly said Jude, drawing up her knees and crossing them with her
hands.
“Oh, bother!” said he. “Don’t let’s think of it; besides, we’ll fix up
something. I don’t want to go. I’ve never had such a jolly time in my
life, and I’m not going to lose sight of you and Satan—unless you want
to.”
“Lord! I don’t want to.”
“Well, that’s all right We’ll stick together, somehow, and let the old
world go hang, and we’ll go hunting abalones and fishing—let’s make
plans.”
His arm somehow slipped round her waist, half automatically, just as
one puts one’s hand on a person’s shoulder. When he realized what he
had done, he realized, at the same time, that she did not seem to mind;
more than that, she reciprocated in a way by letting her shoulder rest
more comfortably against his. It was companionship, pure and simple,
and her mind seemed far away, wrapped in the sun-blaze as with a
garment, and wandering—who knows where?
“Heave ahead,” said Jude drowsily. “What’s your plans?”
“Plans—oh, I’ve lots. Let’s go round the world in the old _Sarah_—get
a couple more hands.”
“Where’d you stick them?”
“Well, you’ve got a foc’s’le.”
“Not big enough for a tomcat. The nigger filled it. He said he reckoned
he’d got to stick his head through the hatch to breathe.”
“Well, we’ll get rid of the _Sarah_ and get a bigger boat.”
“Lord! Don’t you never let Satan hear you say that: she’s his skin!”
“We’ll do without extra hands, then, and work her, the three of us. I
can steer all right now.”
“Kin you?”
“You know jolly well I can!”
“What’s the points of the compass? Run ’em off.”
“North—nor’-nor’east, nor’east—um—”
Jude chuckled subduedly.
“Heave ahead!”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“Never knew.”
“Well, maybe.”
The confiding shoulder rested more heavily against him as against a
cushion and she began to hum a tune. She seemed to have forgotten
the points of the compass, him, everything, just as a child suddenly
forgets everything in day-dream land.
The absolute contentment of doing nothing, resting, listening to the
waves, had fallen upon him too, with a something else, a sort of
mesmerism born of his companion, the strangest feeling as though Jude
were a part of himself, as though he had put his arm round his own
waist and a new self,—a much pleasanter self than the old one, less
stiff, more human, and somehow more alive.
The metronomic rhythm of the little waves falling on the sand seemed
to mix his thoughts together and blur them; but he saw Skelton,
Sir William Skelton, Bart., he saw a girl he, Ratcliffe, had been
engaged to, he saw all sorts of men and all sorts of women, everyone
he had ever known, it seemed to him, in a nebulous cluster, and they
all seemed, somehow, not quite alive,—not dead, but sleeping in
the trance we call civilization, their days ordered by the beat of
a metronome,—get up—wash—dress—eat—work or play—eat—work or
play—eat—work or play—bed—sleep—get up—wash—dress etc.,—all the
figures moving like one, their very laughter and tears ordered except
when they got drunk or went mad.
It seemed to him that vivid life was not so much a question of vitality
as of freedom.
Was that the secret Satan had discovered,—Satan, who had no hankering
after great riches, but was free as a gull? Satan and Jude were
gulls,—seagulls, untamable as seagulls and as far from civilization!
It was as though his arm were round a bird,—quiescent by some miracle
and allowing him to handle it, and imparting to him, somehow, the
knowledge of its vitality,—the vitality of freedom.
“What I like about the old _Sarah_,” said he, “is the way she just pots
about—with nothing to do.”
“Nothing to do!”
“Well, you and Satan can take things easy.”
“Oh, can we? That’s news—what d’you call easy?”
“You have no fixed work, you can knock off when you like, you haven’t
to carry cargo, or be bothered with owners, or be up to time. You are
as free as the gulls.”
Jude took his hand and removed his arm from around her waist just
as one removes a belt. She wanted to shift her position. She seemed
to have lost interest in the conversation. Sand had got between her
toes, and she removed it, running her finger between them. She had
no handkerchief,—never used one or needed to use one: the perfectly
healthy animal never does.
Then, crossing her legs like a tailor and squatting in front of him,
she dived into the right hand pocket of her trousers and produced a
dollar, a slick, evil, suspicious-looking dollar. She seemed utterly
to have forgotten the gulls’-nesting business and how the time was
running on, and having little passion for the business he was content
not to remind her.
“I’ll match you for dollars,” said Jude. She was no longer the person
of a moment ago. She was the harbor larrikin, the clodder of bathing
nigger girls, a person to be avoided by pious boys with possessions in
the form of money or land.
The coin spun in the air.
“Tails is the bird,” cried Jude.
“Heads, then.”
“Tails! Y’owe me a dollar.”
It spun again.
“Heads! We’re quits. Heads again, heads—oh, hell!—what you want
sticking to heads for? That’s two dollars I owe you. Tails—scrumps!
that’s three! Tails again, that’s four. What you want sticking to tails
for? Why don’t you wabble about an’ give a body a chance? Heads—holy
Mike! What’s wrong with the durned thing? Five dollars gone on a bang!”
“We’re not playing right,” said he. “We should call alternately.”
“What’s that?”
“One after the other.”
“I’m not going to play any more,” said Jude. “I’m broke. The bank’s
bust and I kin’t pay you, not till I get to Havana—unless I play you
double or quits. You call; I’ll toss.”
“Heads.”
She sent the coin six feet high and it fell on the sand—heads!
“That settles it,” said Jude. “Ten dollars I owe you. You’ll have
to wait till we get to Havana, for if Satan knew I was tossing for
coins he’d sculp me. I can get some money out of the bank at Havana,
pretending it’s for something else. I haven’t a cent, an’ this old
dollar’s no use: it’s a dud.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” said Ratcliffe. “We were only tossing for
fun.” The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he regretted them.
Jude flushed red under her freckles and sunburn.
“I’m not taking your money, thank you,” said she; then breaking out,
“What the blizzard d’you think we’ve been playing at, and what you take
me for? S’posin’ I’d won, you’d a paid, wouldn’t you?”
“I didn’t mean anything,” said he.
“Y’shouldn’t have said it, then,” said she.
“Well, I’m sorry—I take it back.”
She played with the dud dollar for a moment, tossing it, and catching
it; then she put it into her pocket, uncrossed her legs, and lay flat;
her chin resting on the back of her hands.
Her hat was off, lying beside her, and the quarrel with him was
evidently over; she seemed plunged in reverie. Then he noticed that the
eyes, upturned under their lashes, were steadfastly looking at him.
Instantly they fell, and her position altered so that her face was
hidden on her arm.
He lit his pipe and smoked for a moment in silence.
“Jude!”
No answer.
“What’s the matter with you?”
Silence. He remembered how she had shammed dead on Palm Island, put
down his pipe, and crawled toward the corpse. It was rigid, and to
revive it he began to pour sand on its head.
“Quit fooling,” grumbled a voice; then, as if the sand had suddenly
revived memory and galvanized her to life, she scrambled to her feet.
“Them eggs—and the sun’s getting down and we fooling about!” She
picked up her hat. “I’ll take this end and you go t’other.”
“But I haven’t anything to gather them in.”
“Gather them in your hat, and keep a lookout for quicksan’s. If you get
into one, holler and throw yourself on your back. But you’ll easy tell
them—they look different from the or’nary sands.”
“How?”
“I dunno; just different. If you see the sand in front of you looking
different, keep clear of it.”
Off she went.