“Hullo, Kid!” cried Sellers as the boat came alongside the Sarah.

“Hullo, yourself,” replied Jude. “Where’ve you blown in from?”

“What’s become of Satan? Ain’t he aboard?” asked Sellers, ignoring the question.

“Satan’s dead,” said Jude.

“Satan’s which?”

“Died of the smallpox.”

“Well, I’m d—d!” said Sellers, casting his eyes over the Sarah and then resting them on Ratcliffe. “When was it?”

“A week ago.”

Sellers gave a word to the bow oar and the boat pushed off a bit, the fellows hanging on their oars.

“I thought I saw three of you on deck,” he shouted.

“The other chap’s gone below,” replied Jude.

The boat of the Juan hung for a moment as if in meditation. She made a striking picture, the blue water paling to green under her and the sun-blaze on the red topknots of the oarsmen. Then without a word more she turned back to the Juan.

Satan in the scupper seemed preparing to have a fit.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Jude.

“What’s the matter? What did you say I was dead for? Didn’t I tell you to say I was down with smallpox?”

“Well, what’s the difference?”

“Why, you mutt, wouldn’t you have been snivelin’ and cryin’ if I was dead? And you handed that yam out to him as ca’m as if you were talking of a tomcat! I didn’t believe you myself.”

“Why, I told him you was dead a week,” cried Jude. “D’you think I’d be snivelin’ and cryin’ a week if you was dead? Lord! what you do think of yourself!”

Satan did not reply. He was thinking that he had made a false move and that Jude had put the cap on the business. Cark would be certain now that there was something hidden on the island.

Satan was on the horns of a dilemma. One horn was the cache of provisions containing a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of stuff, the other horn was the old wreck that might contain nothing.

To hang on here was useless, for Cark would hang on too. Even if Cark went away, he would be sure to come back to hunt.

He sat with his back to the bulwarks, chewing and thinking. Then, heedless whether he was seen or not from the Juan Bango, he rose to his feet and leaned with his back against the rail He had come to a decision. Jude, watching him, said nothing, and Ratcliffe waited without a word. This little sea comedy interested him intensely, and all the more for its setting of loneliness and its background of blue sea and quarreling gulls.

It was to Ratcliffe that Satan spoke first “Look here!” said Satan. “You’re standin’ out of this, aren’t you?”

“Which—the wreck business?”

“Yep. You’re not keen upon puttin’ money into it and havin’ a share?”

“Oh, no. If you wanted me to, I’d be glad enough; but if you’d rather I stood out, I’ll do so. I’m not keen about money, anyway; only I’d like to see the fun.”

“You’ll see fun enough,” said Satan. “I’m goin’ to drag Cark in. First of all, if I don’t, he’ll keep hangin’ round here and sniff the cache; second, he’ll work the job for us with his crew.”

“He’ll gobble every cent,” said Jude.

“Which way?” asked Satan. “We’ll give him half shares, and well split on him if he doesn’t play fair. If we found stuff there, and once it was known, d’you think we’d be let keep it? We’ve got to get help, and isn’t he as good as another? If there’s no stuff there, he’ll have all his work for nothing.”

“The thing I can’t make out,” said Ratcliffe, “is the way he started out from Havana to find you. How did he ever expect to come across you?”

“Well, it’s this way,” said Satan. “Bein’ in with Pap, he knew the lines we worked on; f’rinstance, he knew we worked this place for abalones. If he hadn’t sighted as here; he’d have tried Little Pine Island, which is lonesomer than this place. You see he’s got it in his noddle, as far as I can make out, that Pap lifted the stuff and cached it, and Pine Island or here would have been the likeliest places. He reckoned when we put out of Havana this time we were out to lift it for good. Well, he’ll do the liftin’ if it’s to be done. Come on, I’m going over to see him right off. Jude, you stick here and clean up them abalones.”

He got into the dinghy, followed by Ratcliffe, and they pushed off.

As they drew closer the Juan Bango showed up more distinctly for what she was.

One of the old schooners that used to run in the carrying trade between Havana and the Gulf ports, she had fallen from commercial honesty; anyhow in appearance, perhaps because Carquinez did not bother about appearance. You could not have damaged his paint if you had tried,—it was sun-blistered and gone green,—but his copper showed sharp and clear through the amazing brilliance of the water, without trace of weeds or barnacles.

Sellers was hanging over the rail as they came alongside.

If he felt surprise at this resurrection, he did not show it much.

“Hullo, Satan!” cried Sellers. “Thought you was dead.”

“Cark on board?” asked Satan without wasting time on explanations. “He’s down below,” said Sellers, accepting the attitude of the other. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, just a gentleman that’s come along for a cruise,” said Satan. “So you’ve found me!”

“Seems so,” said Sellers; “but tie up and come aboard.”

Satan tied the painter to a channel plate and got over the side, followed by Ratcliffe.

The deck of the Juan sagged, and plank and dowel were indistinguishable one from the other by reason of dirt. Forward some of the crew were scraping a spare boom, and others collected round the foc’sle head were smoking cigarettes. The wind had died out into a warm breathing, setting aft and bringing with it a faint odor like the smell of acetylene. It was garlic.

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.

Everywhere lay evidence of splendor that had seen better days.

All these fittings had, in fact, been torn out of a yacht bought by Carquinez for an old song, and at the end of the saloon table, going over some papers with a cigarette in his mouth, sat Carquinez himself, a figure to give one pause.

The whole of the left side of this gentleman’s face was covered by a green patch. It was said that he had no left side to his face, that it had been eaten away by disease, and that, were he to unveil himself, the sight would frighten the beholder. However that may have been, what remained visible was enough to frighten any honest man with eyes to behold the nose of a vulture above the peaked chin of a money changer.

“Hullo, Cark!” said Satan.

“Come in,” said Cark.

“Bring yourselves to an anchor,” said Sellers, pointing out two of the fixed seats on each side of the table and taking another close to the owner of the Juan. “What’ll you have?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Satan. “Something soft will suit us, and long.”

Carquinez raised a bird-shrill voice:

“Antonio!”

“Si, SigÑor,” came a response from outside, and on the voice a dusky form at the cabin door.

“Bring me two Zin and Zinzibeers for these two zentlemen, please.”

“No gin!” cried Satan, Ratcliffe concurring. “Ginger beer will do.”

“Zinzibeers,” said Carquinez.

It was nearly all that he said at this interview, the trusty Sellers doing the talking. Said Sellers to Satan, “Well, it’s funny us hittin’ on you like this, durned funny! We’d been down to Acklin looking up a location Cark was keen about, and comin’ back I shifted the helm, seein’ you lying here and not recognizin’ the old Sarah. I thought it was Gundyman’s boat.”

Said Satan, taking up the drink just presented by Antonio, “Here’s our respects to you both. Thought I was Gundyman, did you? Well, I spotted you on sight. Didn’t want to see you neither. This gentleman will tell you I was squattin’ in the scuppers while Jude was handing you that lie about the smallpox.”

“Oh, was you?” said Sellers with an open and hearty laugh.

“I was so. Let’s cut pretendin’ and play on the square—are you willin’?”

“None better.”

“Well, I’ll put my cards out. You and Cark here have been after me pretty near since last fall; reason why, that wreck Pap told Cark of.”

“W’ich was that?”

“I said let’s cut pretendin’ and play fair,” said Satan sternly.

Cark wilted and raised his fingers in deprecation, and Sellers cut in.

“Yes, we’ll play fair. There was talk of a wreck between your dad and us, and I’m not denying we had an eye after it. You see I’m open and honest with you. Heave ahead.”

“I’m comin’ to the point,” said Satan, “and the point is you and Cark between you have got it in your heads that you’ve only to follow me, find out where she’s located, and claim shares for not tellin’.”

“Heave ahead,” said Sellers.

“Well, you’ve got it wrong,” went on Satan. “You may follow me till the old Juan rots to pieces and you’ll never know, not if I don’t want you to know—got that clear?”

“Clear as day,” said Sellers.

“Well, then, here’s something else. If that wreck is what she’s taken to be, it’s more than one man’s job to shift the boodle and bank it. I’ve got to have help, and if we can arrange a deal I’d just as soon have you two in the show as anyone else.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Sellers.

Carquinez said nothing, but his hand shook, and Ratcliffe, watching him, received a shock. A wreath of cigarette smoke was stealing out from beneath the patch on his cheek! He wished the conference over and himself back on board the healthy Sarah. It came to him all at once that he had been drawn into a web of which Carquinez was the spider. Satan, too, and Jude had been drawn in. He could do nothing, however, at least for the moment, but watch and wait, and Satan’s face was worth watching as that wily diplomatist sat facing Sellers.

“Not that I don’t believe you’d kidoodle me over the business if you had a chance,” continued Satan. “You would, sure; but you see I’ve got the weather gauge of you, knowing what I do of you, and that’s more’n I’d have with strangers.” “Sure,” said Sellers.

“Well, then,” said Satan, “we’ve got that far, and it comes to terms. What’s your share to be for helpin’ to collar the stuff and dispose of it in Havana?”

“Two dollars out of every three that we make,” said Sellers promptly. “There’s the salving, you can’t do that alone, or your dad would have done it prompt; then there’s the cashing of it, you’re lost men if you try that job on by yourselves. Why, there’s not another man in Havana could do it only Cark, and even he couldn’t bring the stuff into Havana Harbor! It’ll have to be landed back of the island, north of Santiago. Lord knows what he’ll have to pay!”

Satan cogitated for a moment.

“I’ll meet you,” said he at last. “I’m not set on big money. Anything more?”

“No, that’s all,” said Sellers.

Carquinez nodded approval, and lighting another cigarette leaned back in his chair.

“And what’s this gentleman doing in the business?” asked Sellers, referring to Ratcliffe.

“Oh, he’s standing out,” said Satan. “He’s just on a cruise with us.”

“Yes, I’m standing out,” said Ratcliffe. “I’m in it only for the fun of the thing, though I’m willing to help.”

“Well, I reckon you’ll have fun enough,” said Sellers, “if we get foul of the customs, or if some other hooker comes poking along while we’re salving. You’re British, aren’t you?”

“I am.” “I thought so. Come out for a spree?”

“You may put it like that.”

“Did you by any chance come off a big white yacht that went west yesterday?”

“Yes, I did. What made you guess that?”

“Well,” said Sellers, “it’s easy to be seen you aren’t one of us, and your clothes give you away. It’s easy to be seen you haven’t been dough-dishing long in the old Sarah. I didn’t get your name.”

“Ratcliffe.”

“No trade or business?”

“None. My father was Ratcliffe the shipowner, Holt & Ratcliffe.”

“Lord—love—a—duck!” said Sellers. “You’re not wanting for money, I reckon. Well, this gets me, it do indeed! Holt & Ratcliffe—should think I did know them!”

“Antonio!” suddenly piped Carquinez.

“Si, SeÑor.” Antonio appeared.

“Pedro Murias,” said Carquinez.

Antonio vanished, and reappeared with a box of cigars, colossal cigars, worth twenty-five guineas a hundred in the London market. They were placed on the table and pushed toward Ratcliffe.

Satan grinned.

“Well,” said he, “we’ve fixed things so far,—two out of every three dollars to you and no deductions.”

“That’s it,” said Sellers.

“And now we’ve fixed terms,” said Satan, “I want to know all about this hooker.” “Which was you meaning?” asked Sellers.

“The wreck.”

“Listen to him!” cried Sellers. “Mean to say you don’t know all about her?”

“N’more than Adam. I’ve heard from Pap she was called the Nombre de Dios, and was full of gold plate got from churches; but that’s not much more than a name and a yarn. I’ve never banked much on the yarn. Seems too much of the New Jerusalem touch about it for me.”

“Well, maybe you’re wrong,” said Sellers.

“Spit it out,” said Satan. “Tell us what you know about her. You’ve got the contrac’; give us the news.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Sellers. “She weren’t no ship with gold plates,—your dad got that wrong,—she was a big Spanish ship out of Vera Cruz making for Spain. She had a cargo of timber, some of them heavy foreign timbers that don’t float. She’d got aboard her, besides the timber, more’n a million dollars’ worth of gold,—Mexican gold most of it, Spanish coin some of it. Lopez was the name of the skipper, and he laid to bank that gold for himself. He’d been forty years in these seas and knew every key and sandbank same as the insides of his own pockets.

“Him and the mate were the only men in the know about that gold beside a supercargo by name of Perez.

“Well, he colluded together with them two guys to sink the hooker in six fathom water out of trade tracks, give out that she’d sunk in a gale, and come back in a year or two and collar the boodle. They had her bored and plugged for the game, and when they got her to the location they pulled out the plugs, and she went down without a sneeze, natural as a dyin’ Christian.

“They got the boats away in order, and the crew was got off to a man; but that crew never got ashore. Maybe it was something wrong with the grub or the water, there’s no saying, but they never got ashore to turn witness. But the grub and water was all right in the dinghy. Them three guys had taken the dinghy, and they were picked up and landed somewhere on the gulf, fat and well.”

All through Sellers’ recitation Carquinez had sat nodding his head. He glanced now at Satan and Ratcliffe as if measuring its effect upon them, then he half closed his eyes again and retired into himself like a tortoise.

“They slung their yarn,” went on Sellers, “and made all good, and it was only left for them to wait awhile and hire or steal a likely boat to pick up the stuff, when the yellow fever took the supercargo and the mate, leaving Lopez to fish for himself.

“He got back to Havana, which was his natural home, and there he put up with his son, who was a trader in tobacco, got a bit of a factory not bigger than a henh’us, and turned out a brand of cigars made out of leavin’s and brown paper mostly.

“He put the son wise about the wreck; but he wouldn’t give the location away till it was time to go and pick up the stuff, which wouldn’t be for a year yet.

“Then he up and died, and the son started to hunt for the chart and couldn’t find it. The old guy had given him everything but the chart with the location marked on it. It wasn’t a proper chart, neither: just a piece of paper with the thing done rough, but giving the bearings. And it was never found—not by the son. The grandson found it—and where do you think? Pasted into the lining of an old hat. That wasn’t so long ago, neither, and what do you think that fool of a grandson did? Well, I’ll tell you what he did. First of all he comes to Cark here, and tries to get him onto the job on a ten per cent basis, Cark to risk his money and repitation for a lousy ten per cent on what might be only the bones of an old ship. He let out her name and history and everything but the location.

“Cark wasn’t having any on those terms,—was you, Cark?—and he told the chap to go to Medicine Hat and pick bilberries. The chap goes off, and what does he do but tries to get up a syndicate between himself and two yeggmen without a keel to their names! Perrira was the name of one, and da Silva was the name of the other, and they held a board meeting in Diego’s saloon one night and shot holes in one another in the back parlor.

“Silva and Perrira had fixed it to lay the grandson out and collar the chart for themselves, and they’d have done it, only he wasn’t backward with the shooting. Your dad was in the bar that night, and he twigged something from what they let drop before they went to the back parlor to hold their meeting. Then when the shooting began he was first into the room, and collared the chart, which was lying on the floor. He was always quick on the uptake, was your dad. Being a knowledgeable man, he reckoned Cark was the only chap in Havana to help him take the stuff and clear it. He knew the stuff was there by what he’d heard going on in the bar before the three chaps had left it for the back room, but before he could conclude business with Cark he up and died.”

Cark nodded.

“That was so,” said he.

“Well,” said Satan, “we’ve got the whole yarn now, and I’m wishing to be done with the business. I’m pretty near sick of you two guys trailing after me, and I’ll hand you out my belief for what it’s worth. It don’t seem natural to me to find gold in a hooker like that, just for the picking up, and I’d sell any man my chances for a thousand dollars. I’ve no knowledge of what’s there. I’m just talkin’ out of my head. You know what I am, I make my livin’, and I’m content to run small. It’s maybe that that puts me against big ventures. Anyhow, we’ve got to push this thing through, we’ve made the contrac’. I don’t want it written down and signed, seein’ that the law couldn’t help me. I’m only sayin’ that if you play me crooked I’ll split. Got that in your heads?”

The high contracting parties on the other side nodded assent.

“That bein’ settled,” said Satan, “here’s the chart.”

He produced a metal tobacco box and took from it a folded piece of paper, which he laid on the table before Sellers.

The effect was magical.

Carquinez sprang from his chair like a young man, came behind Sellers, and, bending over his shoulder, looked. Ratcliffe, though out of the business, was as excited as the others. Satan alone was calm.

He had been carrying the thing about so long that it had probably lost its freshness of interest.

Sellers, without speaking, stared at the chart before him.

Rum Cay was shown, and then, southwest of Rum Cay, a line of reef marked “Lone Reef,” and in red ink, connected to the reef by a red line, the name “Nombre de Dios” could be made out, the “Dios” very indistinct at the frayed edge of the paper. In the top right-hand corner the latitude and longitude were written, but so faintly that it would have required close study in a strong light to make the figures out.

Nobody bothered about them. 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. We’ve got to dynamite her open.”

“Sure,” said Sellers; then, after a moment’s pause, “It’ll be a big job, if it’s what you say. I had it in my mind that she was a diving job in shallow water—never thought of the blasted coral.”

Carquinez said nothing. He withdrew to his seat at the end of the table and lit another cigarette. To Ratcliffe the silence of Carquinez approached the weird. The way Sellers, without consulting him, did all the talking seemed uncanny as though the pair were telepathic.

One thing certain was gradually being borne in upon him,—they were a most atrocious pair of rogues, and the marvel to him was the simplicity of Satan in having any dealings at all with them. They would surely swindle him, take what precautions he might. They would never give him a third share of any treasure. They would, most likely, murder him before he could split on them, if treasure were found. Of this Ratcliffe felt certain. He tried to telegraph a warning across the table, but Satan seemed blind to winks and frowns.

“Well, it’s there,” said Satan, “near a foot thick. You’ve got to drill it, and stick dynamite cartridges in the drill-holes and fire them. Got any dynamite aboard?”

“Not an ounce.”

“We might make out with blasting powder.”

“Yes, if we’d got it,” said Sellers. “There ain’t no use worrying, we’ve got to shin out of this back to Havana and get the explosives. Question is who’ll go for them, us or you?”

“Not me,” said Satan, “not if she was to lie there till the last trumpet. We’re underhanded, for one thing, and, f’r another, I’m gettin’ little enough out of the job as it stands without fetchin’ and carryin’ for you.” “Then we’ll go,” said Sellers. “’Twon’t take us more than a week to get there and back. Give us ten days, counting accidents, and we’ll pick you up here.”

“Why not at the reef?” asked Satan.

“Don’t matter,” said Sellers. “Here or there, it’s all the same to us; ain’t it, Cark?”

Cark nodded assent, and Satan, recapturing the chart, folded it up and put it back into the tobacco box.

“Right!” said he, placing the box into his pocket. “Here you’ll find us.”