Down below, at supper, the injured housekeeper was still in evidence and rose to a charge that the fish was overfried. Satan was the accuser.

The defendant, “het up” and flushed, replied in the language of the sea:

“Go’n fry your head! Clackin’ on deck and leavin’ me to do the work—the pair of you! It’s all men’s good for.”

“Why, I thought you was a man!” said Satan. “You cut and carry on like a man; scratch you and your tongue goes both ends like a woman. Start you on a job, and you sit down to it before it’s half done. I saw you lazin’ on the beach, and now look where we are,—there’s a sack of stuff not brought off and how are we to bring it with Cleary messin’ round?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” said Jude. Then she checked herself and her eyes met Ratcliffe’s.

“It was my fault,” said he. “I got tired.”

Jude looked at him. This defense of her, trifling though it was, seemed to make a new relationship between them. It seemed to her that Ratcliffe had suddenly become different. She could not tell what the difference was or how it had come about in the least, or why she half-resented his shielding her, even in this small matter; then her eyes fell away and rested on the table before her.

“It wasn’t,” said she. “It was my fault I was foolin’ when I ought to have been workin’, and now the stuff is lyin’ there—” She choked, and then to the horror of Satan she pushed her plate away and broke into tears, hiding her face on her folded arms. Then, before the astonished ones could speak, she rose and dashed out of the cabin.

“Land’s sake!” cried Satan. “What ails her? Cryin’! She’s never done that before—and all over that rotten sack—why, let it lay there, cuss the thing!”

He went on with his supper in an irritable manner.

“She’s overtired, maybe,” said Ratcliffe. “Wait and I’ll fetch her back.”

He left the cabin and came on deck.

The moon had not risen yet, and the riding light, which had been run up before supper, showed yellow against the stars.

Not a sign of Jude.

He went forward. There she was, huddled up in the bows.

“Jude!”

The bundle sniffed.

“Come on down to supper. Satan’s not angry.”

“Who the”—sniff—“cares whether’es angry or not? You lea’ me alone!”

“But what are you crying about?”

“Ain’t cryin’!” “Well, what are you lying on the deck for?”

“’Cause I choose.”

“Come on down and help to clear the things away.”

“Clear them yourself!”

He bent down and tried to take her arm. She shook him off, rose suddenly like a released spring, ran to the side where the dinghy was moored, and got over the rail.

He looked over. She was in the boat unfastening the painter.

“Where on earth are you going?”

“Ashore.”

She pushed off.

Ratcliffe came down to the cabin.

“She’s gone ashore.”

“She’s gone for that sack,” said Satan unconcernedly. “Reckons to get it off before moon rise, I expect.”

“But it’s too heavy for one.”

“She’ll do it. You’ve put her monkey up makin’ her confess it was her fault. She’s never done that before in all her born life. She’s just natural proud and she’d as soon cut her tongue out as give in she was in the wrong. You’ve made her do more’n I’ve ever made her do, and how you’ve done it—well, search me.

“You aren’t gettin’ on with your supper,” said Satan after a pause.

“Oh, I’ve had enough. I was wondering if she has her boots for going through that bush stuff.”

“She’s got them all right. They were in the dinghy: she didn’t bring them aboard. You’re worryin’ a lot about the kid.” “Well, maybe. She’s the jolliest kid I ever struck, and I don’t want any harm to come to her; the pluckiest, too. There’s not many people would go off alone in the dark like that in a place like this.”

“Lord bless your soul!” said Satan. “That’s nothin’, no more than walkin’ down the street to Jude. Do you think sailin’ these seas is all fair-weather work? Why, we’ve been rubbin’ our noses in destruction since she was born. She don’t know what fear is.”

“I could tell that from her face.”

“It’s her face that’s troublin’ me,” said Satan. “Pass me the water pitcher, will you? She’s begun to take after mother. A few months ago she was the homeliest little pup ever littered; but she’s beginnin’ to pick up in looks, and if she takes after her mother’s side in looks and ways—Lord save us!”

“Was your mother good looking?”

“Well,” said Satan, “I don’t know what you call good looks. Pap said she was a nacheral calamity; that was after she’d bolted with the Baptis’ man. It wasn’t the looks so much as the somethin’ about her that’d make a blind man rubber after her if she passed him in the street, that’s what Pap said. He never said no prayers, but when he was talkin’ of Jude I’ve heard him say time and again, ‘Thank the Lord she don’t take after her mother!’ and now it’s comin’ out, same as the ace of spades a shark has hid up his sleeve—and what’s comin’ after, Lord only knows.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I scarce know myself, but Pap said those sort of women couldn’t help bein’ nacheral calamities, attractin’ chaps and turnin’ the world upside down. He said a man, once they’d got the clutch on him, was no more use than a hypnotized fowl, whatever that is. You’ve heard what Jude said about skirts—well, I’m thinkin’ that’s all baby talk, an’ it’s my ’pinion when she gets her nacheral sailing orders she’ll be into skirts some day, same as a dude takes to water, and hypnotizing chaps, same as her mother before her.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Ratcliffe; “but I don’t think she’ll be a natural calamity. 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.

“Now if it wasn’t these days,” said Satan, “I’d be in two minds about putting out straight now, rather than lyin’ all night by that feller Cleary.”

“What do you mean by these days?”

“Well, in the old throat-cuttin’ days I reckon Cleary would have gone through us, sunk the old Sarah, and taken me aboard his hooker with a gun at my head to make me show him the way to the wreck; but things is different now. Fellers are afraid of the law. Cark’s mortally afraid of the law, so’s Cleary.”

“What time do you start tomorrow?”

“After sun-up, if the wind holds.”

“It will be a joke if we find Carquinez at the reef. What will he say, do you think?”

“Cark? Oh, he’ll not mind. There ain’t no shame in Cark. He’ll have broke his contrac’ by not goin’ to Havana, he’ll stand proved to the eyes as a damn cheat. He won’t mind: the contrac’ not bein’ regular, the law can’t have him.”

“I expect Cleary will go for him.”

“Maybe,” said Satan. “Then we’ll have some fun. There’s Jude.”

Something like a swimming water rat was breaking the star shimmer on the sea. It was the dinghy.

Jude was sculling it from behind, noiselessly. It came alongside to starboard like a ghost, and with it came Jude’s voice calling for the tackle. Then the sack came aboard and after it Jude.

“Well, you’ve done it smart,” said Satan, “and no mistake. Now off down with you and have your supper. We’ve got to start bright and early in the morning.”

Jude said nothing. Her anger and irritability seemed to have departed. She kicked off her boots, hitched up her trousers, and started down below.

“She never keeps a grudge up,” said Satan.

Away in the middle of the night Ratcliffe was awakened by a stifled scream, the voice of Satan promptly following. “Wake up! What ails you?”

“For the Land’s sake, where am I?”

“In your hammock. What’re you dreamin’ of?”

“Gee-owsts.”

“Hants, you mean.”

“Black faces they had, and they was chasin’ me round and round them trees.”

“That’s what comes of stuffin’ yourself and goin’ to bed on top of it. Get off your back and onto your side. Wakin’ a body up like that! What was they like?”

“The hants?”

“Yep.”

“I can’t be talkin’ for fear of wakin’ him up.”

“He’s asleep. I hear him snorin’. What was they like?”

“They’d black faces and tails like cows—an’ I’d rather not be talkin’ of them.”

“Wonder what it means dreamin’ of them things?”

“Nothin’ good—bad weather, most like.”

“Glass is steady.”

“Well, maybe we’ll bust on a reef or somethin’.”

“Oh, shet your head!”

“Shet yours. I’m wantin’ to get asleep.”

Silence.

Ratcliffe could hear the water outside tickling the ribs of the old Sarah. A bigger swell was running, and she rose to it with balloon-like buoyancy. A score of little voices from the trickle and slap of the sea against the timbers to the click of the rudder chain marked her movements. The idea of the ghosts chasing Jude round the dream tree reminded him of how he had chased her round the real tree and kissed her—kissed her out of irritation.

Something in his half-asleep state told him he had been a fool to do that. It was all done in play, just as a little boy might kiss a little girl; but he was not a little boy. What had prompted him?

Then as he lay dissolving into slumber the groaning timbers of the Sarah said something that sounded like “nacheral calamity,” and then, the door of sleep flung wide, he was walking on a blazing beach with Cleary.

The Natchez and the Juan were at anchor out on the blue dream sea, a great wreck was heaved up on the sands, and when they reached it Cleary tapped on the timbers and said something about a “nacheral calamity,” and at the words a porthole opened and Jude’s fresh young face appeared laughing, framed by the timbers of the wreck.

It seemed to him the most delightful vision—then it popped in and the porthole closed and Carquinez came riding up on a horse, saying he was going to “bu’st” the wreck open with dynamite to get at the treasure.