She stood for a moment, frightened at her handiwork.

Then, as he pulled himself together, she drew away a step.

“What ails you?” asked she.

Ratcliffe, sitting up with his hand to the top of his head, groaned.

She drew a step closer. Then she saw that he was laughing, and drew a step back.

“Get up, and don’t be fooling,” said she.

“Fooling! And who started it?” asked he.

Jude made no reply. She turned and went off to the cache, lugged the sacks a bit more away from the opening, and started to put the poles across. When he joined her on the work she wouldn’t speak. She was evidently mortally offended.

He knew at once and by some fine instinct what was the matter with her. He had trod on her dignity, like the Thelusson woman,—treated her like a child, that is to say like a girl, for the two things were synonymous with Jude, who seemed to have no more idea of the realities of sex than a pumpkin. When she did speak at last, it was to give jeering orders.

“Lord! Did you never have to use your hands? Which way is that to be sticking the poles? Why, it’d take twenty dozen to cover it the way you’re doing! Leave a foot and a half between them.”

“Right,” said Ratcliffe humbly.

“I didn’t say two foot.”

“Sorry.”

“Now the branches an’ stuff.”

She had reserved one of the poles, for what reason soon became apparent.

Each sack was too heavy to be carried by one person, so she slung one to the middle of the pole, and they started for the beach, Caleb and Joshua fashion, Ratcliffe in front.

It was horrible work. They had to keep step, which was difficult; owing to the bushes, the going was bad. The sack kept slipping toward Jude, owing to the inequality of their heights, and the pressure of the pole on his shoulder was galling; also the wind had changed and was coming from the direction of the gulf, warm and moist like the breath from a great mouth.

When they reached the beach he sat down. Unused to hard work and unused to the climate, he was sweating and exhausted. Jude looked comparatively cool and fresh.

“Now then, Lazybones!” said Jude. Then she collapsed also, sitting down with her knees up and her arms round them. She seemed to have forgotten the sack, Ratcliffe, everything, as she sat whistling dreamily between her teeth and staring across the water toward the Sarah.

She had kicked off her boots, and her toes were playing with the sand. Uncramped by boots, her feet were as expressive as her hands.

“You’ll hear Satan begin to holler in a minute,” said Jude.

“Let him,” said the other, “I’m not going to stir another foot till I’ve rested myself.”

“Oh, he won’t holler at you. It’s me he’ll go for; you’re the first-class passenger.”

“No, I’m not: I’m one of the crew.”

Jude laughed in a mirthless manner.

“Well, I reckon myself one, anyhow,” said he. “I wouldn’t have come on board unless I was to help in working the boat.”

“Oh, Satan won’t mind you helpin’ to work her,” replied she; “but he didn’t bring you aboard for that.”

“I know—and it was awfully decent of him. He just thought I’d like the cruise.”

Jude sniffed.

“I reckon you don’t know Satan,” said she.

“How?”

“Satan never does nothing for nothing.”

“Well, what did he bring me aboard for?”

“Lord knows,” said Jude; “but he’s got something up his sleeve, sure. Mind you, Satan’s as straight as they make them unless he’s dealin’ with law chaps and such, and you’d be safe with him if you was blind and dumb and covered with diamonds only waitin’ to be picked off you. You see, you’re straight, and anyone that’s straight with Satan he’s straight with them. It’s different with lawyers, or guys like Cark and Sellers, who’d beat their own gran’mothers out of their store teeth. All the same, you look out with Satan. He’s got some plan about you, sure.”

“What sort of plan is it, do you think, Jude?”

“Lord knows. Nothing to harm you, anyway; maybe it’s to go shares in some deal—I dunno.”

“Well, I’m up for any deal he likes to propose that would benefit him—as much money as he wants.”

“Satan’s not set on money,” said Jude, “not in a big way. I reckon he’s something like Pap. Pap would take no end of trouble making a few dollars, but he was never really set on bein’ rich. I reckon he took up that old wreck business more for the fun of the thing than the dollars. He used to say great riches was only trouble to a man, an’ that he only wanted God’s good air and ’nough to live on.”

“Well, maybe he was right,” said Ratcliffe.

“I reckon Satan cottoned to you because he thought you was honest,” said Jude.

“Well, I hope I am.”

“He said to me, right off, after you’d gone back to the yacht, ‘I reckon that feller’s honest,’ he said.”

Ratcliffe laughed.

“You see,” went on Jude, “you don’t pick up honest parties round these parts, not by the bushel. You might rake Havana with a finetooth comb lookin’ for fellers that wouldn’t do you, but you wouldn’t find none. It’s the same all round the gulf, from N’Orleans to CampÊche; you can’t stick your nose in anywhere without being stung—if you’re a softy.”

“So he liked me because he thought I was straight. What did you like me for, Jude?”

“Lord! if you don’t fancy yourself! Who told you I liked you?”

“You did last night. You said you and Satan took to me right off.”

“Oh, did I? Well, maybe it was them pajamas—Hullo!” The shrill notes of a bo’sn’s whistle came over the water. She sprang to her feet.

Satan’s form appeared at the rail of the Sarah. He was making movements with his arms as though signaling, and Jude flung up an arm in answer.

Then, shading her eyes, she looked seaward.

“What’s up?” asked Ratcliffe.

“Come on!” said Jude.

She seized the sack, called on him to help her, and between them they ran it down to the water’s edge. Then they got the dinghy afloat, the sack on board, and started.

“What’s up?” again asked Ratcliffe, as they rowed.

“Sail,” said Jude.

He had seen nothing, perhaps because of the sun-dazzle on the water or because he had not looked in the right direction. The sensitiveness of the Tylers to the approach of strangers and their hawklike vision struck him as belonging almost to the uncanny. Satan had rigged a tackle, and without a word uttered the sack was got aboard and below. Then and not till then did Satan speak.

“It’s Cleary,” said he.

Jude took the old glass he had been using, and examined the stranger, then she handed it to Ratcliffe. He turned it on the fleck of sail which sprang gigantic into the form of a big fore-and-aft-rigged boat, beating up for the island, the late afternoon sunlight flashing back from the foam at the forefoot and her foam-wet bows.

“Who is Cleary?” asked he, handing back the glass.

“Cark’s partner,” said Satan, “sort of half and half partner. They’re always bestin’ one another. Cleary is by way of bein’ a ship breaker and dealer in odds and ends; owns a couple of ratty old schooners besides that old ketch. Wonder what he’s doin’ down here? Curse him!”

“He’s after Cark, most likely,” said Jude. “Maybe he’s got a smell of the wreck.”

“Maybe,” replied Satan. “He’s always spyin’ on Cark. There’s nothin’ much that Cleary don’t know, and if he got wind that Cark’s on a likely job he’d put out after him.”

It seemed to Ratcliffe all at once that the old wreck lying on that unseen reef might have been likened to a carcass in the desert, and that he was watching the gathering of the vultures to a feast.

First Carquinez, now Cleary—how many more would come circling out of the blue?

He said so, and Satan concurred. “It’s got out somehow or ’nother,” said Satan, “and Lord only knows there may be half a dozen others on the hunt. You see, the very fac’ of Cark’s puttin’ to sea himself would give suspicions to half Havana; but Cleary is the only man beside Cark that knows my ports of call. He knows I come here for abalones, and he knows I hunt round Pine Island, not to say other places.”

Satan fell into meditation for a moment. Then he resumed:

“That’s what the cuss has been doin’. He’s been on the hunt for me, same as Cark was, only for different reasons. Now you wait and see. Jude!”

“Hullo,” said Jude.

“Did you cover the cache proper?”

“You bet; but there’s a sack of stuff we didn’t manage to bring off. It’s among the bushes.”

“It’ll have to lay there.”

“What’s the name of Cleary’s boat?” asked Ratcliffe as he watched the approaching ketch.

“The Natchez,” said Satan, “an old cod boat, built at Marthas Vineyard. Lord! ain’t they crackin’ on! Cleary’s in a hurry. There’s no denyin’ that.”

He whistled contentedly as he leaned on the rail, and Ratcliffe, watching his hatchet-sharp profile, wondered what was coming next. Of one thing he was beginning to feel certain,—Cleary, Carquinez, Sellers, and anything else that might come out of Havana on the long trail for plunder would find a match in Satan.