Jude got up and came behind him to look, while Ratcliffe leaned forward.
“There’s the chart,” said Satan. “There’s the reef, and there’s the name of the hooker pointin’ at the reef, and there’s the latitude and longitude wrote up in the corner. Plain, ain’t it?”
“That’s plain enough,” said Ratcliffe.
Jude, munching a biscuit, concurred.
“Plain enough, ain’t it?” went on Satan. “Give a man the name of Lone Reef, and with any old Admiralty chart he’ll get there, and he has only to land on the reef to find the hooker stuck there in that crik between them two arms. Jude has seen her, and I’ve walked over her and ’xamined her, and she’d have been broke open maybe by this, only chaps don’t land on reefs like that, not unless a storm lands them. We struck it huntin’ for abalones. Plain enough, ain’t it? Well, I tell you the whole business is no use to any man who hasn’t that chart in his hand and who can’t read what’s written on it secret. Here you are! Take a good long look, and I’ll give you ten dollars if you spot what I mean. It’s as clear as simple.”
Ratcliffe spread the thing before him on the table.
“I can’t see anything in it,” said he at last, “except what’s written plain enough. There’s Rum Cay, there’s the reef, the name of the wreck with a pointer to the reef, and the latitude and longitude up in the corner. No, I can’t see anything but that: it all seems plain as a pikestaff. I take an interest in cryptograms, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Cryptograms? Hidden writing.”
“Well, that’s what’s before you,” said Satan. “Pap never twigged it, nor any of the crowd that had the handlin’ of it. It’s only a month ago I spotted it.”