The ketch carried on, heading straight for the Sarah; then, spilling the wind from her sails, she came round, presenting a full view of her dirty old hull and dropping her anchor two cable lengths away.

Almost on the last rasp of the anchor chain she dropped a boat, which shoved off for the Sarah.

“That’s Cleary,” said Satan, shading his eyes.

It was, and as Cleary came on board, leg over rail, saluting Satan with the affability of old acquaintanceship and the quarterdeck with a squirt of tobacco juice, Ratcliffe fell to wondering what sort of place Havana might be and what else it might give up in the way of detrimentals.

Carquinez was bad and Sellers was bad, but Cleary was—Cleary. Against the gold and blue of afternoon, the sight of this faded man, who looked as though he had seen better days, who suggested a broken-down schoolmaster, with a slungshot in his pocket, struck Ratcliffe with astonishment and depression. It was as though the dazzling air had suddenly split to disclose a London slum. “Hullo! Hullo!” said Cleary. “Thought I recognized the old hooker. What you doin’ down here away?”

Jude made a dive for the galley, and Ratcliffe could hear her choking. The sound banished the feeling of depression and repulsion created by the newcomer and brightened him somehow.

Here was the comic man of the pantomime come aboard.

“What am I doin’?” said Satan. “I’m fishin’ for chair-backs. What are you doin’ yourself?”

Cleary turned, spat his quid overboard, and then, leaning on the rail, looking seaward, with his back to the others, and, just as easy as though he were aboard his own ship, laughed.

“Fishin’ for chair-backs!” Then, sluing his head half round, “How’s the abalone fishin’ gone?”

“Jude!” cried Satan.

“Hullo!”

“Bring up them pearls!”

Cleary turned, and, leaning with his back against the rail, began to fill an old pipe in a languid and leisurely manner. Then, when the pearls were produced, he turned them from the matchbox into the palm of his hand.

“How much?” asked Cleary.

“Forty dollars,” said Satan.

“Forty which?”

“Dollars.”

“Ain’t worth forty cents.”

“Well, who’s askin’ you to deal?” Cleary carefully poured the pearls into the matchbox, closed it, and put it in his pocket.

Satan did not seem to mind.

“Jude!” said Satan.

“What?”

“Bring up them cigars!”

“Who’s the gentleman?” asked Cleary.

“Gentleman came aboard for a cruise off a yacht. You needn’t mind him; he’s only out for pleasure.”

Cleary nodded to Ratcliffe, who nodded in return. Then things hung for a moment till Jude appeared with the cigar-box, and the newcomer, having tapped the tobacco out of his pipe, chose a cigar, lit it and, leaning with his back against the rail and his thumbs in the armholes of his old waistcoat, blew clouds. He seemed for a moment far away in thought, and Ratcliffe, watching him and Satan,—Jude having vanished again, attacked with another fit of choking,—puzzled his head in vain to find out the inner meaning of what was going on. The wretched pearls were scarcely worth five dollars, he had heard Satan say so, and Cleary, evidently an expert, was not the man to pay eight times their worth, nor was Satan the man to allow the other to pocket them.

Then suddenly Cleary spoke.

“Cark’s a clever man, don’t you think?”

“Well, seein’ he’s your partner, you’re a better judge than me,” replied Satan.

“Well, maybe that’s so,” said Cleary. “Partners we were, and partners we are till I ketch him and bust him.” “Why, what’s he been doin’ to you?”

“Now, I’ll tell you,” said Cleary. “I’m an honest man. I don’t say in trade I’m not above shavin’ the barber, but between man an’ man I’m honest, and I’m goin’ to tell you straight out Cark and me has been layin’ for you ever since your dad was fool enough to give Cark the tip about that treasure business. I wasn’t keen on it, same as he was. I allowed there might be somethin’ in it—but that don’t matter. What gets my monkey is Cark he gets fearful thick with Sellers, then he cools off on the business of the treasure gettin’, and a matter of two weeks ago he rigs up a job for me to see after at Pensacola that’d have taken me two months and more. I says to myself, ‘There’s somethin’ in this.’ Says nothin’ to Cark. Off I goes, taking the old Natchez. Hadn’t reached the latitood of Key West when back I puts, and finds Cark gone with the Juan and Sellers.

“Then I knew he’s started to hunt for you again, leavin’ me in the lonely cold. He’s been huntin’ you ever since last fall, that’s straight; but he’d never let me down before. He’d always told me the results. I tell you he’s huntin’ for you now, and the surprisin’ thing is he hasn’t found you, knowing as he does this is one of your grounds.”

“How do you know he hasn’t found me?”

“What you mean?”

“Why, he was here this morning and off not four hours ago.”

“Christopher!”

“Him and Sellers.” “Holy Mike!”

“You was comin’ up from West, you ought to have sighted him.”

“Sighted nothin’ but a tank, and her nearly hull down.”

“Well, if you’d been here a few hours earlier, you’d have smelt the old Juan as well as sightin’ her.”

“Was he here on business?”

“He was,—he was after that wreck Pap told him of. You just told me he’s been after me since last fall spyin’ on me. I know it, and I’m pretty sick of the business. B’sides, he’s as good to help in it as anyone else; so I’ve made a contrac’ with him.”

“Sufferin’ Moses!—a contrac’ with Cark!” Cleary stood for a moment as though absorbing this news, then he laughed, the funniest laugh Ratcliffe had ever heard,—it was like the whinny of a pony. He saw Jude’s head at the cabin hatch, and the head suddenly duck and vanish, as though her body had been doubled up.

“A contrac’ with Cark!”

“Well, what are you laughin’ at?”

“Nothin’. May I ask what terms?”

“We go shares.”

“In the pickin’s?”

“What else?”

“Have you give him the location?”

“I have.”

“You’ve give him the location and let him slip his cable—him and Sellers?”

“What odds? It’ll take a month to bust her open and hunt for the stuff. I’ll be after him tomorrow.”

Cleary crossed his arms and stood with the half-cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth and pointing skyward, his eyes fixed on the deck and his left eye half closed.

Jude’s face had reappeared at the cabin hatch, and the grin on it spread to Ratcliffe’s.

Satan alone was unmoved, half-sitting on the keg and cutting up some tobacco.

“Well,” said Cleary at last, “you’ve made your bargain, there’s no gettin’ round that. I’m not wishin’ to poke my nose in your business, nor to ask what your share is to be, but I’m partners with Cark, and you see how he’s let me down—cayn’t you give me a lead?”

“Which way?”

“Give me a lead to the location. It won’t make a cent difference to you.”

“How’s that?”

“Clear enough, I don’t want none of your share. Cark’s the man I want to tap, having a right to, being partners.”

Satan seemed to turn this matter over in his mind for a moment. Then he said, “Suppose we come back to them pearls?”

“Right,” said Cleary in a lively voice. “What’s this you was askin’, forty? Well, forty you shall have.”

He produced an old brown pocketbook, counted out four ten-dollar notes, and handed them over.

Satan examined each note, back and front, folded them, and placed them into his pocket.

“Now,” said Cleary, “out with the lead!” “You’ll have it tomorrow,” said Satan. “I’m pickin’ up my anchor tomorrow mornin’. You’ve only to follow me.”

“I’d rayther have the indications on paper.”

“Maybe you would, but you won’t. I’ve made my bargain with Cark, and there’s nothin’ in the contrac’ about givin’ the location away to third parties. I can’t help you followin’ me.”

“I take you,” said Cleary.