But they had no time to watch her. The deck of the Sarah was lumbered with stuff that had to be stowed out of sight. It took an hour before everything was shipshape and snug, and by that time the oncomers were close in, their sails big bellied with the wind, beating up for the entrance.
They came through, the Juan leading, the Natchez some two cable lengths behind; then, with canvas threshing and the gulls yelling round them, they dropped their anchors, the Juan to starboard of the Sarah and the Natchez farther up the lagoon. Ratcliffe had expected demonstrations of hostility: there were none.
They could see Sellers directing the fellows forward, and they could make out Cleary on the deck of the Natchez. Then they saw Sellers drop below, and through the binoculars they could see Cleary as though he were only a few yards off,—he was smoking and giving orders to the hands. Then he came and spat over the rail and stood looking toward the Sarah with his eyes shaded; having finished this inspection, he too dropped below.
“I’d a sight sooner they’d shook their fists at us,” said Satan. “They know they’ve got us, sure.”
Then Sellers reappeared on the deck, and the Juan dropped a boat.
“Here he is,” said Jude, “and whether he’s got us or whether he hasn’t, he ain’t coming aboard this ship!”
She ran forward and fetched the mop from the hole where it was stowed.
“Let up!” said Satan. “I don’t want no fightin’: I tell you, I’ve got a plan; I don’t want no mops in it.”
“He ain’t coming aboard,” said Jude.
As the boat of the Juan came alongside, Sellers, in the sternsheets, raised his hand in a lordly fashion and slightly, as befitted a superior taking notice of an inferior.