“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.”