H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ At these times Ratcliffe might have fancied the vanished one lost or drowned, but for the profane language that rose and floated away on the breeze.
All the same, it was dull work for the boat tender. Having nothing else to think of, he thought of Jude. Her figure chased away dullness.
A man in the bright and early morning is quite a different person from the same man at noon, and coming across Jude after a long course of Skelton was like stepping from a gray afternoon to dawn. Was it possible that Skelton and Jude were vertebrates of the same species? ”

“ Then the moon began to rise from beyond the Bahamas, a vast, full moon, with the sea seeming to cling to her lower limb as she freed herself. Dusky, at first, she paled as she rose, and now, in her light, the palms of the island and the coral beach showed clear.
Palm Island is a scrub of cactus and bay cedar bushes, half a mile long and quarter of a mile broad, with not more than forty trees. Crabs and turtles and gulls are its only visitors, and desolation sits there visible and naked. But in the moonlight, on a night like this and seen from the sea, it is fairyland—storyland. ”

“ A Royal Mail boat passing out gave her the kick of its wash as she settled down to her moorings, a customs boat dropped alongside, and the customs men, hailing Satan as a friend and brother, came aboard and transacted business with him in the cabin. The wind blew warm, bringing scents and sounds across the vast harbor, fluttering the flags of the shipping, and Ratcliffe, standing at the rail, dazzled by the brilliance of the scene before him, knew that his cruise was over. ”

“ Only for Jude and the Sarah and the queer new sense of freedom from all the associations he had ever known, only for something likable about Satan, the something that gave him power to wheedle things out of people and bend them to his wishes, Ratcliffe might have reacted against the Tyler hypnotism. As it was, the whole business seemed as jolly as a pantomime, as exciting as a new form of novel in which the folk were real and himself a character. ”

“ Ratcliffe, his mind full of pirates and bucaneers, Spaniards and plate-ships, found himself wondering if men had ever been marooned here, if Morgan and Van Horn and all that crowd had ever had dealings on that beach, and what the moon could tell about it all if she could remember and speak. He was thinking this when the creak of block and cordage struck his ear, and past the stern of the Dryad came gliding the fore canvas of a small vessel, a thing that seemed no larger than a fishing boat. ”

“ The crying of the gulls round the spit had died down; nothing remained but the voice of the sea, silent as dumb death from the blue horizon to the planking of the dinghy when it spoke.
“That’s her!” suddenly said Jude.
“What?”
“Lone—I kin see the spars of the Juan an’ the Sarah. Rubber and you’ll see them too.”
He turned with his elbow resting on the thwart and picked out the spars on the sea-line.
“And the Natchez,” said Jude. “Look, close up to the Juan. Cleary’s put in and we not there! I’d forgot Cleary; didn’t believe he’d pick up the place so soon. There he is. Oh, hell!” ”

“ They were handling the canvas on the Juan.
“Cark’s off!” cried she.
Satan came on deck. Across the blue blaze of the sea they could hear now the clank of the windlass pawls,—the Juan’s anchor was coming up.
“I thought Sellers would have come on board before they started,” said Ratcliffe. “They’re in a big hurry, aren’t they?”
“You bet,” said Satan with a grin. “He’ll crack on everything to get to Havana for that dynamite; won’t stop to eat their dinners till they’re back,—that’s what they’d have us believe—swabs!” ”

“ Ratcliffe was awakened by Jude calling on him to “show a leg.”
“Satan’s on deck,” said Jude, “and if you believe in washin’ he’ll give you a swill with a bucket. Hurry up and come down again, for I want a swill myself. Swim? Not on your life! Sharks, that’s why.”
The voice came from a hammock which he had blundered against in the semidarkness. Then on deck after his swill, drying himself with an old towel provided by Satan, he stood for a moment watching the sun break up through the water and the great sea flashing to life and the white gulls flying. ”

“ From the foc’sle came the muffled thrumming of a guitar.
It was Ratcliffe’s first experience with a Spaniard. He followed Satan, who followed Sellers down a steep companionway and then into a cabin where a great shaft of sunlight from the skylight above struck down through a haze of cigarette smoke.
The place was paneled with bird’s-eye maple; the seats were upholstered in thick ribbed silk, worn and stained; the carpet was of the best, but threadbare in spots and burnt with cigar droppings; the metal fittings far too good for a trading schooner of the Juan type. ”

“ Washing up dishes with Jude was a game. To the whole-souled Jude all this business was a game,—hauling on the halyards, fishing, cooking, hanging on to the beard of a storm by the sea anchor, wreck picking and so on,—and she had infected him. Already they were good companions and, when together, of the same age, about nine—though she was fifteen and he over twenty.
“Stick them on that shelf,” said Jude. “Oh, Lord!—butter-fingers!—lemme! That’s the gadget to keep them from shiftin’ if the ship rolls. Now stick the knives in that locker. You don’t mind my tellin’ you, do you?” ”

“ It was her anchor light.
He listened for voices. None came. Then he saw a lantern being carried along her deck. It vanished, probably through a hatch.
Then he went below, and, dropping asleep the instant he turned in, dreamt that he was marooned on Palm Island with Skelton, and Skelton was trying to hang him on a palm tree for a pirate, and the gulls were shouting “Seven fathom!—seven fathom—seven fathom!” Then came oblivion and the sleep of youth that defies dreams. ”

“ Jude grinned. Ratcliffe thought he had never met with a stranger couple than these two, especially Jude. Hanging on with the boathook, he contemplated the dirty, daring face whose fine, gray, long-lashed eyes were the best features.
“How old are you?” asked he, addressing it.
“Hundred an’ one,” said Jude. “Ask me another.”
“She’s fifteen and a bit,” said Tyler, “and as strong as a grown man.”
“I thought she was a boy,” said Ratcliffe.
“So I am,” said Jude. “Girls is trash. I’m not never goin’ to be a girl. Girls is snots!” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now Skelton with his starch off and in an emergency was a sound man, with a heart as good as any ordinary mortal’s.
He had an eye that no little detail ever escaped. He had seen Jude at Palm Island, he had heard her speak, he had seen her half an hour ago, and Ratcliffe’s manner left him in no doubt as to his absolute earnestness.
The man was about to commit suicide, social suicide. He had seen men do the same thing often in different ways. ”

“ A charnel, limy smell rose, poisoning the air.
“Good God!” said Ratcliffe.
“Slaver,” said Satan. “What did I tell you? Nombre de Dios be sugared! She’s an old slaver, wrecked with the men under hatches. Here’s Sellers!”
Sellers, panting, his face all mottled, and followed by Cleary, had gained the deck.
“Boys, what is it?” cried Sellers.
“Gold!” cried Satan. “Go careful, for the hull deck’s sprung. Get on your hands and knees. Gold bars an’ di’monds—we’re all rich men!”
The pair of scoundrels, crawling like crabs, stuck their heads over the break. ”

“ Satan, having given his orders, had retired into himself and the business of patching an old sail. He was seated at the work under the awning, and he seemed scarcely to notice the others as they got the boat away.
“Satan’s got something up his sleeve,” said Jude as they pulled for the beach. “I reckon he’s laying low to get the better of Cark.”
“Well, if you ask me,” said Ratcliffe, “I think he has got the better of him in some way or another. I don’t know how, and I don’t want to. I’d sooner wait and see. It’s as interesting as a game of chess.” ”

“ Brothers aren’t much good as companions. Ratcliffe was a new thing, absolutely new, from his striped pajamas and dandy clothes to his condition of mind, just as she was a new thing to Ratcliffe. Never did two beings come together so well or create more rapidly a little world of mutual interests out of the little things of life, or a weaker being dominate more completely the stronger. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Davits! God love you! what do you want them things for?”
“Except for hoistin’ fools off the ship?” said the voice of Jude from the darkness. “Air you goin’ to get a move on? You’ve got the old awning to take in and stow. Maybe you’ve forgotten it.”
They got the awning down and stowed, and then, against a train of fire crawling on the eastern sea-line and in a light that made the world like the vestibule of Fairyland, Satan set to on the problem of the dinghy. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Half an hour later, just as the electrics were springing alive and the anchor lights of the shipping marking the dusk blue sky, they started. They stood on the wharf steps for a moment watching Jude row off, then they turned to the town.
Havana smells different from any other seaport. She smells of rum and garlic and dirt and cigars and the earth of Cuba, which is different from the earth anywhere else. The harbor and the town exchange bouquets; the negroes help; Spanish cigarettes, Florida water and decaying vegetables lend a hand. Satan led the way. ”

“ The sense of his loneliness came on Ratcliffe, sudden as the clap of a door. He had cut the painter with civilization. The deck of the Sarah Tyler seemed smaller than ever, Jude and Satan more irresponsible and unaccountable, and his own daring a new thing, somewhat dubious. ”

“ Then he gave a sudden yell of laughter and vanished, sitting down on the deck evidently, while another form appeared at the rail, a lantern-jawed, long-haired, youthful figure, rubbing the sleep out of its eyes. It stared at the occupant of the dinghy, then it opened its mouth and uttered one word:
“Moses!”
“He sleeps in them things!” came a half-strangled voice from the deck. “Satan, hold me up, I’m dyin’!”
“Shut your beastly head!” said Satan. Then to Ratcliffe, “Don’t be minding Jude,—Jude’s cracked,—but you sure are gotten up—Say, you from that hooker over there?” ”

“ I think, from what I have seen of her, that she has a fine character, honest as the day, good as gold.”
“Maybe,” said Satan; “but you never know what a woman is, seems to me, till she’s been rubbed against a man. Those were Pap’s words and he’d got a headpiece on him. Well, I reckon time will tell.”
They went on deck.
The moon had not risen yet, and the island lay like a humped shadow in the starlight. To seaward the anchor light of the Natchez showed a yellow point, and from the beach came the lullaby of little waves falling on the sand. ”

“ Lone Reef was on all the charts, and the name was enough.
“I’ve been by there,” said Sellers at last, “and I’ve never seen signs of a wreck.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Satan. “She lies flush with the coral in a crik between two arms of reef, not a stump of a mast on her. The hull of that reef must have raised itself since she was sunk, for the water in the crik doesn’t cover her at high tide and low tides it’s pretty near empty. But she’s been under right enough, years ago, for the decks are coraled over, hatches and all, and the stuff’s turned to iron cement with the sun and weather. ”

“ He wore evening clothes, covered by a light overcoat. Ratcliffe rose and, followed by Satan, pursued him, touching him on the shoulder outside and in the full blaze of the lamps.
“Good God!” said Skelton. “Ratcliffe!”
“Just got in,” said Ratcliffe. “Had a ripping time. Where’s the Dryad?”
“Up at the wharf, coaling,” replied Skelton, absorbing Ratcliffe’s rough and ready garb, the cloth cap he was wearing, and Satan. “I’m staying at the Matanzas; but I go aboard tomorrow morning, and we’re off in the evening. What have you been doing with yourself?” ”

“ Satan would, no doubt, set other unfortunates digging for the Nombre just as he had set Cleary and Sellers tinkering and towing at the Haliotis, just as he had held up freighters for a bunch of bananas, just as he had made Thelusson and his crew careen and scrape the Sarah, just as he had made Ratcliffe an accomplice in his plans and a handy man to help him in his works ”