The amount of food those two put away was a revelation to Ratcliffe, and from start to finish of the meal they never stopped talking. One being silent, the other took up the ball. They had cottoned to Ratcliffe, evidently from the very first moment, for, at the very first moment, Tyler had been communicative about himself and his ship and his way of life. An ordinary ship’s officer coming alongside would have got fish at a price if he had been civil or a fish flung at his head if he had given “sass”: Ratcliffe got friendship.
It was maybe his youth and the fact that all young people are Freemasons that did the business; the humor of the gorgeous pajamas may have helped. Anyhow, the fact remained. He had secured something that knowledge or position or fortune could not have bought,—the good will and conversation of this pair, the history of the Tylers, and more than a hint of their life on these seas. They had four thousand dollars in the bank at Havana left by Pap, not to be touched unless the Sarah Tyler came to smash. They had no house rent or rates; no expenses but harbor dues, food, oil, and tobacco, and not much expense for food—at least just at present.
Tyler winked across the table at Jude and Jude grinned.
“Shut your head,” said Jude, “and don’t be givin’ shows away!” then suddenly to Ratcliffe, “We’ve got a cache.”
“Who’s giving shows away now?” asked Tyler.
“Oh, he won’t split,” said Jude.
“It’s on the island here,” said Tyler, “near a ton of stuff, canned. A brig went ashore south of Mariguana. We picked up the crew and heard their yarn and got the location. Then a big freighter came along and took the men off us. The wreck was only a hundred and fifty miles from our position, and we reckoned the salvage men wouldn’t be on the spot for a fortnight or more and something was due to us for savin’ that crew; so we lit out for the wreck. We had four days’ work on her. She was straddled on a reef with twenty fathoms under her counter and a flat calm, all but a breathin’ of wind. We made fast to her, same as if she’d been a wharf. We had the nigger then to help, and we took enough grub to last us two years an’ fourteen boxes of Havana cigars and a live cat that was most a skeleton.”
“She croaked,” put in Jude. “Satan fed her half a can of beef cut small, and then she scoffed half a bucket of water—that bust her.”
“We wouldn’t have been so free in taking the things but for the lie of the hooker on the reef and the weather that was sure coming,” said Tyler. “We knew all about the weather and the chances. And we didn’t cast off from that hooker an hour too soon! We were ridin’ out that gale three days, and when we passed the reef again making west the brig was gone.”
“And you cached the stuff here?”