“’Murrican, what else? You see,” went on Jude as she put the potatoes into the kettle, “fish costs nothing to us and they’re mighty glad of it, but I reckon they’d bat our heads off if they knew about the dyin’ of thirst business.”
“But suppose you struck the same ship twice?”
“It’s not a job one does every day,” said Jude, with a trace of contempt in her tone, “and Satan don’t wear blinkers, and it’s not a job you could do at all if you didn’t know the lie of the fishin’ banks by where the ship tracks run. I reckon you’ve got to learn something about things.”
“I reckon I have,” said Ratcliffe, laughing, “and I bet you’ll teach me!”
“Well, shy that over to begin with,” said Jude, giving him the pail of dirty water.
He flung the water over the side, and as he did so he took a glance at the Dryad. Satan was in the boat just pushing off. When he returned to the galley with the news, Jude was preparing to fry fish: not the early morning fish, but some caught just before Ratcliffe had come on board.
Then he went to the rail again just as Satan was coming alongside.
Satan had a cargo of sorts. His insatiable appetite for canvas and rope was evidenced by the bundle in the stern, and there were parcels. The return of the empty portmanteau had not been waste labor.
“That’s coffee,” said he to Ratcliffe, handing up the goods. “We were runnin’ short. And here’s biscuits—catch a holt—and here’s some fancy muck in cans and c’ndensed milk—I told the chap our cow died yesterday. ‘Take everything you want,’ says he. ‘Don’t mind me—I’m only the owner.’ Offered me the mainsail as I was putting off an’ told me to come back for the dinghy. I’d told him I was sweet on her—full of fun he was—and maybe I will. Claw hold of this bundle of matches—they’re a livin’ Godsend—and here’s a case of canned t’marters—and that’s all.”
Skelton’s irony was evidently quite lost on Satan, or put down to his “fun,” but Ratcliffe could appreciate it, and the fact that its real target was himself.