Ratcliffe helped in the swabbing and polishing. No housekeeper ever exercised more meticulous care in this respect than Satan. He was a fanatic where cleanliness was concerned, and polish,—witness the brasswork of the wheel, the binnacle and skylight,—even paint and varnish were minor gods compared with Brasso!

Meanwhile, as the Sarahites worked, the Natchez and Juan, lying in cynical and sinister neglect and dirt, showed little signs of life. The working party on the reef seemed busy enough; but the ships, save for a few hands lounging at the rails or squatting about the foc’sle head, might have been deserted.

About ten o’clock a boat put off from the Natchez. Cleary was in the sternsheets, and as she came alongside he hailed the Sarah.

Satan came to the rail.

“Sellers’s going to bust her open today,” said Cleary. “Just had word from him.”

“I thought he wouldn’t be ready till tomorrow,” said Satan. “Just had word the hole’s near deep enough and the star cuttin’s from it. He’s got the powder off and reckons to fire it at noon. Wants you to come an’ help.”

“Oh, does he?”

“He’s a bit bothered about the fuse, not havin’ done much of that sort of work, and he reckons you’re an ingenious cuss an’ll be able to put him wise.”

“Oh, does he? Well, I’ll be there.”

Cleary came over the rail.

“No spittin’!” cried Satan.

Cleary, averting his head in time to send the squirt of tobacco juice overside instead of on the deck, looked around.

He nodded at Ratcliffe, disregarded Jude, and fixed his eye on the blazing binnacle and the glittering rods of the skylight.

“Dandy ship,” said he. “Whaar you goin’ to take the prize?”

“Where your old tub’d be skeered to show her nose. How’s the potato crop gettin’ along?”

Cleary turned his quid over and allowed his eyes to travel about the deck.

“Waal,” said he, speaking with point and consideration, “some likes one thing and some likes another, but I never did see that fandanglin’ with frills an’ brasswork an’ sich lends anythin’ to the sailin’ qualities of a ship.”

Jude, raising herself up from flemish coiling a rope, blazed out:

“Maybe it don’t to an old cod boat blowin’ along with her own smell,” began Jude. “Shet up!” said Satan. Then to Cleary, “Have a drink?”

“I’m willin’,” said Cleary, “but thought you was a dry ship.”

Satan winked, slipped below, and returned with a bottle of rum, a glass, and a water jar. There were three or four bottles of rum on board. Satan said he kept the stuff for “rubbing his corns”; he never drank it. There were also a revolver and a rifle on board. He never fired them: lethal weapons have their time and place.

Satan, having placed the bottle and jar on the deck, produced another glass from his pocket, filled out a four-finger peg for Cleary and another for himself.

“Here’s luck,” said Cleary.

“Here’s luck—no spittin’!”

They drained glasses.

“Holy Mike!” cried Cleary, his eyes bulging and his face injected. “What sorter bug-water’s this?”

“British Navy; thirty over proof.”

Cleary, with one eye shut, seemed turning over in his mind the activities going on in his stomach and on the whole approving.

“Well,” said he, “I’ve drunk wasp brandy and one or two nigger dopes—they don’t get near it, not in knots. A man’d want to be a centipede to carry a bottle of that stuff, I reckon. N’more, thanky. Well, I’m off, and I’ll fly a flag when Cark gives the signal he’s got the stuff ready for the fuse.”

Off he went. “For the land’s sake, Satan! what made you swallow that stuff for?” said Jude.

Satan took his seat on the skylight edge, then he gulped, then he hiccupped.

“Get your hind legs under you and cart the bottle and the glasses down below,” said Satan. “Strewth!—gimme the water jar till I flood my hold.”

He drank till Ratcliffe thought he would never stop, then he went to the port rail and canceled matters.

“It’s Demerara Black John,” said he apologetically to Ratcliffe as he turned, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Some likes it, but I’ve no holdin’ with drink.”

Ratcliffe was about to ask why he had swallowed it, but he checked himself. Jude, who had just appeared again, put the question.

“What in the nation made you drink that snake-juice?” asked Jude.

Satan took a glance at the sun, at the reef, and at the Juan.

“Now then,” said he, “finish up clarin’ away that raffle and get the dinner ready; I’ve no time to be talkin’.”

He set to sand and canvassing the rail he had been working on when Cleary appeared, Jude and Ratcliffe took up their jobs, and the ordinary life of the Sarah resumed as though the rum incident had never been.

All the same, work could not prevent Ratcliffe from pondering the dark problem of Satan and his doings.

Why had he not put out an anchor light last night? Why had he pretended to Sellers that he was short of oil? Why had he swallowed a glass of rum only to unswallow it again?

Then in the monotony of work his mind passed from these considerations to a state of pleasant expectancy. What would they find in the wreck, and the explosion of the barrel of powder, how would it come off?

He felt as pleased as a boy about to fire a brass cannon and not sure whether it will burst or not.