DISHED
He struck to the north. Over there in the north the sea was of a violet
blue accentuated by the white blaze of the sands.
The sands, once one got moving on them, were full of interest,
strewn along the sea-edge with all sorts of prizes,—colored shells,
cuttlefish bones, extraordinary seaweeds, bits of wreckage; a few yards
out a nautilus fleet was steering, with tiny sails set to the wind, the
oldest ships that ever floated on the sea, unspoiled by storm and time,
just as they were launched in the morning of the world. He watched them
for awhile, forgetful of gulls’ eggs, or quicksands, or the sun, now
sensibly declining.
If ever things had purpose, these had. They were going somewhere,
bound on some business, keeping formation, and possessed of charts and
compasses and barometers as surely as of sails. They made him think of
God, and then they made him think of Satan,—Satan, whose sea sense
served him better than all precise knowledge.
Then he remembered Jude and glanced back. Away, far away to the south,
he saw her. The sands dipped and rose there, and sometimes she was
invisible and his heart thumped to the idea that a quicksand had taken
her, then she reappeared and he went on, and, ever as he went, he
seemed walking deeper into loneliness, peopled with viewless things and
half-heard voices.
Sometimes a chiming sound like the shattered and mingled voices of
distant bells filled the air,—it was the singing of the sands. He had
not noticed it in company with Jude, but here alone he noticed it.
Sometimes laughter, far away in the distance, came distinct, human,
and startling,—it was the calling of a laughing gull,—and always,
penetrating all other sounds with the subtlety of osmosis, the silky,
sinister whisper of the wind playing with the sand-grains. He went on.
Something nearly tripped him. It was a great spar, half sanded over,
the relic of some ship that had come to grief, maybe, on the spit.
The sight of this spar touched everything with a new and momentary
color. “Gascoign, the Sandal Wood Trader,” and other old stories he had
read in his boyhood came back to him half-remembered, and with them
came a whiff from a world he had half-forgotten,—a breath of the air
we breathe at fifteen.
He saw to his satisfaction that the gulls were beyond his reach, a
broad channel of water cutting the spit in two right ahead. He took his
seat on the spar for a moment to rest and look about, and as he sat the
gulls, wheeling and crying, kept up around him the elusive atmosphere
of storyland.
All the money in the world could not have brought him that! Nor
could he have found it had he landed here from a yacht with grown-up
companions.
He fell to thinking what an extraordinarily lucky person he was, and
to plume himself on his instinctive wisdom in dropping Skelton and
civilization for Jude and Satan, who had led him into a world of
things he had never seen, things he had never imagined, things he had
half-forgotten.
Carquinez alone was a revelation, to say nothing of Sellers and Cleary.
There was only one cloud, smaller than a man’s hand; but there!—where
was it to end? It was all very well talking to Jude about sailing round
the world: you can’t sail out of Time, and the time would come—the
time would come—
Jude was winding threads round him as a silkworm winds a cocoon,—tiny
threads but deathly strong. It was almost as though she were becoming
part of himself,—part of himself and part the sun and freedom and blue
sea. She seemed half built up of those things and to have the power
to make him one with them. Well, there was no use in bothering. So he
said to himself, and as he said it the cloud no larger than a man’s
hand swelled and twisted and rolled across the sandspit before him,
resolving itself into a troupe of female relations, male relations,
friends,—people as remote from Satan and Jude as parrots from
seagulls, caged parrots content in the great gilded cage of convention.
What would they say about Jude? He had an instinctive knowledge of what
Jude would say about them, if they ever met, which seemed impossible.
Then came the weird recollection that they had, in a way, actually met.
She had met Skelton, the high priest of the whole crowd, Sir William
Skelton, Bart. Old Popplecock was the label she had affixed to him, and
it somehow stuck and fitted. What label would she affix to his aunts,
his two maiden mid-Victorian aunts, should she ever meet them?
A faint halloo from the south sent aunts and all other considerations
flying. He turned. Jude, far away on the sands, was coming toward the
dinghy. She was carrying something and running as if pursued; then he
saw her trip and fall.
She was on her feet in a second, and the thing pursuing her had
evidently given up the hunt, for she stood examining something she had
picked up from the ground, and seemed regardless of everything else.
He waited for her by the boat, and as she came up he guessed the
tragedy. She had been carrying a hatful of birds’ eggs and had smashed
than when she fell. The hat was eloquent.
“Smashed them every one,” said Jude, wading out and beginning to wash
the hat. “All your fault!”
“My fault! For heaven’s sake how?”
“Stuffing me up with them yarns.”
“What yarns?”
“Hants.”
“Was that what made you run?”
“Who was running?”
“You were.”
“Oh, was I? Reckon you’d have run too.”
“Did you see anything?”
“Yep.”
“What was it?”
“You never mind.”
She was evidently in a vile, bad temper; so he took his seat on the
sand waiting for her to cool. Then, hat in hand, she came and sat
close beside him, more out of a desire for company than friendship, he
imagined; then, placing the hat to dry, she began examining the sole of
her right foot, spreading the toes apart and brushing off the sand.
“Well, I’m awfully sorry,” said he at length. “But tell us—what was it
you saw, really?”
“A wuzzard.”
“What was it like?”
“Nothin’,” then suddenly, and as if unburdening her soul, “I hadn’t
more’n got the last of the eggs when I turned and saw him walking on
the sands,—little old man with a glass under his arm, dressed queer
in a long coat, an’ a hat on his head like an I dunno what. I wasn’t
afraid, thought he was real, and he stuck the glass to his eye ’sif he
was looking out for a ship.”
“Yes.”
“Then he went out—puff—like the sniff of a candle—hu—hu—” She
clung to him.
“It was all my fault,” said he, “talking that nonsense. Don’t think of
it: it was only an optical illusion.”
“He didn’t cast a shadow—I remember now.”
“That proves it. I’ve often heard cases like that. Sir Walter Scott saw
a man like that once, and he knew it was only an illusion. He had some
wine handy and he drank a glass of it, and the thing disappeared.”
“I reckon I’d have drunk a barrel of rum if I’d had one handy,” said
Jude, drawing away a bit. “Let’s get off. Lord! Look at the sun—it’s
half down. Come’n help with the boat.”
They got up, and taking the dinghy by the gunnels began to haul her to
the water. They had not got her more than a couple of yards when Jude
straightened up as though remembering something and clapped her hand to
her head.
“We’re dished!” said Jude.