They got up, and taking the dinghy by the gunnels began to haul her to the water. They had not got her more than a couple of yards when Jude straightened up as though remembering something and clapped her hand to her head.
“We’re dished!” said Jude.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CRABS
“How do you mean?” said he.
She explained. It was like her to forget and spend the precious time lazing and playing about with “wuzzards.” The sun was taking his plunge into the sea, darkness was upon them, and she could not find her way back in the dark. Moon or starlight would be of no use. The thriddy spars of the Sarah and Juan, invisible from the sandspit even in daylight, would be picked up only several miles out. She could not steer by the stars, and there was a great sweep of current setting sou’east which might take them to Timbuktu. Satan would have done the business right enough blindfolded; but she was a night-funk, she confessed it. Night put her all abroad and mixed up everything in her mind so that front seemed back and west seemed east, besides filling the world with “hants.” She had “near died” of fright fetching that sack from the cache the other night.
All this in a lugubrious voice not far from tears, as they stood facing each other, and lit by the remorselessly setting sun.
“All right,” said Ratcliffe. “Cheer up. We’ll just have to stick here till daybreak. We have some grub left and lots of water. No use pulling the boat farther down. But I expect Satan will be in a stew.”
“I reckon he’ll know,” said Jude. “The weather’s all right. He’d scent if we were in any trouble, and he’d borrow Cark’s boat to hunt for us.”