He heard again that queer little laugh of hers as she removed his hand. He felt again the warm body that had rested confidingly against him away there on the sandspit.
And then she was out on the black harbor alone in the Sarah, while he and Satan were watching the pictures! Suppose some lumbering sailing craft being towed to her moorings or some incoming mailboat were to smash into the Sarah—and they were to row off and find nothing—no Jude?
The thought almost made him rise from his seat to leave the place. But he could not explain to Satan; so he sat on till the lights flared out. And all the time, mocking the pictures on the screen, came pictures of Jude, all sunlit, real, fresh as herself!
Then, as they pursued their way to the wharf after leaving Skelton, the impatience increased; the darkness of the night, the blaze of the town, the gay life of the streets, and the revelry of the cafés seemed sinister and banded in a conspiracy against him and the lonely little figure of Jude. The indifference of Skelton, the way he had gone hurriedly off, the way he had ignored Satan, were part of the business, blended with the blazing cafés, the moving crowd of Chinks, colored men, Spaniards, and Americans, the brilliance and gaiety without heart, that seemed like a barrier between him and the humble little Sarah and Jude away out there in the darkness alone—waiting for him! It came to him that Jude was the one sole thing he wanted in the cruel, odd, electric-lit world—and he had left her!
They passed through narrow streets like the streets in an evil dream and blazing streets hideous with noise. Then at last they reached the wharf with its amber lights spilling on the black waving water. Satan hired a boat, and they put off, two dagoes rowing and Satan at the yoke lines.
The Sarah was anchored a mile out, and the vast three-mile harbor, vague in the starlight and circled by the hills, seemed to Ratcliffe more immense than when seen by daylight.
Lights, lights everywhere,—scattered lights of shipping, some near, some far away, gem-crusted bulks that were great liners at anchor, songs and voices, and the creak of the oars in the rowlocks! Then a sudden green, red, and white light ahead and a fussy and furious little tug that nearly ran them down and left them rocking in her wash.
“Scowbankers!” said Satan. Then: “I can’t make out the light of the Sarah, nohow.”
A clutch came to Ratcliffe’s heart, the clutch of something cold and malign which had seemed following him ever since Skelton’s presence had made itself felt like an evil omen.
They were so far out now that the sounds of the town and wharves had died to nothing; but still the creak of the oars in the rowlocks kept on. Then came Satan’s voice: