“Well,” said Satan in a half-hearted way, “maybe we’ll have a look at her; but it’s a job that wants more than three by rights. Pap was three men in himself; he’d a done it. It’s a dynamite job. She’s got to be blasted open.”
“I’ve heard stories about buried treasure in these seas—” began Ratcliffe. Jude turned her head.
“That’s bilge,” said she.
“Yarns,” said Satan. “Pap used to turn any man down that talked of stuff bein’ buried. First he said that chaps didn’t bury stuff, second if they did you couldn’t find it, what with earthquakes and sand siftin’ and such, and third that never an ounce of silver, or gold for the matter of that, has ever been dug up by the tomfools huntin’ for it. Havana is full of tall stories of buried treasure—chaps make a livin’ sellin’ locations and faked charts and the like of that. It’s a Spanish game, and it takes good American money every year. You see, Pap was a book-readin’ man,—taught himself to read, too, and didn’t start the job till he was near forty,—so he had a head on him, but somehow or ’nother he never made the money he ought. If he’d stuck in towns and places, he’d have been a Rock’feller; but he liked beatin’ about free, said God’s good air was better than dollars. But it stuck in him that he hadn’t made out, somehow. Then he turned into unbelievin’ ways, Said he was a soci—what was it, Jude?”
“Somethin’ or ’nother,” said Jude.
“Socialist?” suggested Ratcliffe.
“That’s it! Said the time was coming when all the guys that were down under would be on top of the chaps that were on top, and that there’d be such a hell of a rough house money’d be no use anyway; said the time was comin’ when eggs would be a dollar apiece and no dollars to buy them with, and me and Jude would be safest without money gettin’ our livin’ out of the sea. He was a proper dirge when he got on that tack. But all the same it stuck in him that he wasn’t on top, and one night when he was in Diegos’ saloon he heard three Spanish chaps layin’ their heads together. He knew the lingo well enough to make out their meanin’. They were in the bar. Pap wasn’t on the water wagon, but he was no boozer. He was sittin’ there that night just dead beat, as any man might be after the day’s work he’d done, runnin’ the customs—”
“Luff!” said Jude in a warning voice.
“Oh, close your head! Think I am talkin’ to a customs officer? He don’t care.”
“Not a bit,” said Ratcliffe. “Heave ahead.”