“Told you I would,” said Jude. She sat down on the deck again as though nothing had happened and nursed her knees.
“You needn’t mind me,” said Ratcliffe. “I won’t tell.”
“Oh, it’s not that,” said Satan, “but Pap was mighty particular about keepin’ close. He located that hooker only three months before the fever took him—and he didn’t come on it by chance nuther. And now Jude’s given the show away!”
“I told you I’d tell him,” said Jude broodily.
“Told me you’d tell him! Why, ever since last fall you’ve been at me to keep my tongue in my head about it, and then you bring it out bing, first thing, yourself! That’s a woman all over.”
“Who are you callin’ a woman?”
“Me aunt. Shut your head and give over handlin’ that ball of yarn, clutch hold of the gaff and keep it steady while I fix this ring on her!”
He worked away in silence while Ratcliffe sat watching, vaguely intrigued by what had just passed. It was less the words than the place and circumstance,—the little deck of the Sarah Tyler, the blue lazy sea, the voice of the surf on Palm Island, the figure of Jude and Satan. He had seen Rum Cay: They had passed it in a pink and pearly dawn. The steward had called him up to look at it. South of that lonely and fascinating place old man Tyler had located a sunk ship. What sort of ship he knew instinctively and that the Tylers were not the people to halloo over nothing. The gulls did not know these seas better than they. He said nothing, however. It was Satan who spoke next.
“Pap had reckoned to lay for it this spring,” said Satan, “but the fever took him. Then we were underhanded. Jude and me can make out to work the boat and get a livin’, but we’re too underhanded for a big job. Why, takin’ that truck off the brig I told you about near laid us out, and we had the nigger to help and she was hove up so that it was like takin’ cargo off a wharfside.”
“Look here,” said Ratcliffe, “I’ll help if you care to go for it. I don’t want any share: just the fun. What’s in her?”