LITMIR.BIZ

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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

       Table of Contents

      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

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