Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven.The Pearl-oyster Bed.We caught the south-east Trade winds the next day, very light at first, but gradually freshening as we ran farther into them; and then, as soon as we found ourselves fairly in the grip of the true breeze, with the water rippling blue and crisply all about us, we got the schooner under canvas once more, hoisted our “fins” inboard, and bore away upon a nor’-west course, with starboard studdingsails and big gaff-topsail set and dragging like a team of cart horses. A week of this sort of thing carried us to the calm belt under the Line; and here we once more brought our “fins” into action, using them for three whole days and a trifle over before we touched the southernmost fringe of the north-east Trades, when we again went bowling along under all plain sail, that being as much as we could conveniently show to a beam wind. Finally, on a certain morning immediately after breakfast, I climbed to the topgallant yard, armed with Cunningham’s telescope, which I had borrowed for the occasion, and, looking straight ahead, saw—just where I had expected to see it, namely, some fifteen miles beyond our jibboom end—a patch of white water, some three miles in length, stretching north and south right athwart the schooner’s hawse. It was the coral reef upon which, if the skipper’s friend Abe Johnson had spoken truth, that worthy had suffered shipwreck, followed by all the horrors of complete solitude for five solid months; and some two miles beyond which lay—according to Abe—the rich pearl-oyster bed that was the real object of theMartha Brown’svisit to this lonesome spot in the heart of the Pacific.“See anything, Mr Temple?” hailed the skipper from the quarterdeck, in a voice tense with excitement.“Ay, ay, sir,” I replied. “It is there, right enough, as plain as mud in a wine-glass, about fifteen miles off, and stretching right athwart our hawse. You had better luff a point, sir, and go round its northern extremity.”“Luff a p’int it is,” answered the skipper, directing the helmsman. Then, as the schooner came to her new course, “How’s that, Mr Temple?”“Excellent, sir,” I replied; “we shall just nicely clear the northern end of the reef if she is kept at that.”“D’ye see anything else besides the reef, Mr Temple?” asked the skipper,—“anything, I mean, in the shape of another schooner, for instance?”“Nothing at all, sir,” I answered.“That’s all right, then,” answered the skipper in a tone of exuberant satisfaction. “I guess you don’t need to stay up there no longer, do ye?”I slung the telescope round my neck by its strap, and then, swinging off the yard, slid down to the deck hand over hand by way of the topgallant backstay, walking aft and joining the skipper and Cunningham as soon as my feet touched the planks.“So the reefs there, all right, is it?” remarked Brown, as I joined the pair and returned the telescope with thanks to its lawful owner. “There ain’t no chance of a mistake, I s’pose?”“No chance at all,” I replied confidently. “It is there as plain as the nose on one’s face. If you remember, I told you yesterday that, provided the breeze held, we should be at anchor in the lagoon by noon to-day; and so we shall.”“Ay, ay,” answered Brown. “I remember your sayin’ so. And I didn’t doubt your word, not for a second, for you’re an A1 navigator, and no mistake. Never knowed a better. But I was just a little bit afeard that Abe might ha’ been playin’ it on me, or else that his riggers might ha’ got a bit mixed. But I reckon it’s a square deal, since you say that the reefs there. What do it look like?”“From aloft it presents the precise appearance that you described to me,” I said. “A bare reef, almost awash, with not a thing upon it, except a few birds which I could just make out circling in the air above it.”“Ay, that’ll be it, sure enough,” agreed Brown. “I remember Abe speakin’ about them birds. Their eggs, some clams that he knocked off the rocks, and a fish or two that he managed to catch later on was all that the pore feller had to eat for five everlastin’ months—and raw at that.”It was just five bells when we weathered the northern extremity of the reef and bore away to look for the entrance to the lagoon. I was then aloft again, for the sake of the more extended view obtainable from the height of the topgallant yard; and as we swept past the reef, and I looked down upon it, I thought I had never seen a more ghastly place for a solitary human being to be cast away upon. It was composed, apparently, of nothing but coral, upon which the everlasting surf was gradually casting up a deposit of sand, which, when dry, the wind was as gradually distributing over its surface. Here and there I observed dark patches which I took to be seaweed, partly buried in the sand; and there was a tolerably well defined tide-mark, consisting apparently of more seaweed, and flotsam of various kinds cast up by the surf.But the most remarkable thing about the island was the multitude of birds, gulls principally. There were thousands of them in the air about the reef, and many more thousands of them sitting on the reef itself. The time was no doubt coming when the guano of these birds, their dead bodies, and the refuse of their food, mingling and agglomerating with the sand and rotting seaweed, would form an extraordinarily rich soil, upon which a few coconuts, drifting across the illimitable ocean, would be cast up by the surf, and, becoming buried, would sprout, throw out roots and shoots, and become trees, as has happened in the case of so many others of the Pacific islands. But at that moment there was not a green thing upon it.The atoll, as a whole, was almost perfectly circular in shape, having a diameter of about four miles; and for purposes of description it may be spoken of as consisting of three parts, namely, the island, the lagoon, and the encircling reef. The island, which, being dry, was of course the highest part of the atoll, measured about three and a quarter miles long, and was crescent-shaped, being about three-eighths of a mile wide in the middle, tapering off north and south in the form of the cusps of the crescent moon; and from the extremities of the two cusps there swept away the encircling reef which enclosed the lagoon in a very perfect natural breakwater, having the inevitable opening as nearly as might be in its middle, just opposite the widest part of the island. But although I have spoken of the island as being the highest part, it must not be supposed that even this rose any considerable height above the level of the ocean, its highest point, as we subsequently ascertained, being only a bare six feet above the water’s surface.I was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the passage through the reef almost immediately after going aloft; we therefore had no difficulty in hitting it off, and, conning the schooner from the crosstrees, I took her through without a hitch, our anchor plunging into the placid waters of the lagoon a few minutes after the skipper had struck six bells.“Well, gents,” Brown remarked, rubbing his hands, as, having been forward to supervise the mooring of the ship in my absence aloft, he came aft and joined Cunningham and myself, while the crew took to the rigging and went aloft to furl the canvas, “here we are at last; and ne’er a sign of theKingfisheranywhere about. Did ye happen to notice anything at all like a h’yster bank anywhere near while you was aloft, Mr Temple?”“Yes, sir, I did,” answered I. “I took a good look round while we were coming in, and I noticed a distinct discoloration of the water about a mile out, as dead to leeward of the island as it can possibly be. I have no doubt we shall find that to be the shoal of which your friend spoke. And there was another thing I noticed while I was aloft, and which I will take this opportunity of mentioning. The island is literally covered with birds, sir, and, unfortunate as is the necessity, I am afraid that our very first task must be to kill every one of them.”“Kill off them birds, Mr Temple?” echoed the skipper, in a tone of mingled surprise and indignation. “Why, what harm are they adoin’?”“None at all at present, sir. But—by the way, how do you propose to obtain the pearls which you hope to procure from the oysters in yonder bed?”“Well,” answered the skipper, “I had it in my mind to take the schooner out to the bed every mornin’ and anchor her right on top of it. Then I thought of lowerin’ the boats, and, as the oysters comes up, dischargin’ ’em into the boats, one boat at a time, until we’ve got a fair cargo, a’ter which that boat’ll be sent ashore in charge of, say, two men; and Number 2 boat’ll be loadin’ while Number 1 is goin’ ashore and comin’ back. And when the oysters is took ashore, my plan is to spread ’em out on the island and let ’em rot in the sun, an’—ah yes! now I see what you means about them blamed birds. They’ll just go for them rottin’ oysters an’ play the very Ole Gooseberry with ’em—is that what you mean?”“Precisely,” I said. “They will attack the decaying oysters, and you will probably lose about three-fourths of your pearls.”“Ay, I see; I see,” murmured the “Old Man”. “It seems a most tarnation pity,” he continued regretfully, “but I guess we’ll have to do it—or lose most o’ them pearls.”“It will be an endless job, too—to say nothing of the pity of it—to kill off all those thousands of birds,” remarked Cunningham. “But perhaps, after all, it may not be necessary to resort to such extreme measures as that. Have you any firearms on board, Captain?”“You bet I have, and ammunition too,” answered the skipper, with a grin. “You don’t catch old Eph Brown venturin’ his property on an expedition like this here—among savages, too, when we gets away down among the islands a’ter that there sandalwood—without bringin’ along the means to defend it. I got a dozen muskets and six shot guns down below; and I reckon I can get the lot out in ten minutes.”“Then,” said Cunningham, “I’ll tell you what we will do, Captain, if you are agreeable. Let Temple and me have a couple of those shot guns, with a moderate quantity of ammunition, and we will go ashore and shoot a sufficient number of those birds to make them thoroughly afraid of anything resembling the human figure. Then, when we have done that, we will rig up a scarecrow on the leeward extremity of the island, where I suppose you will deposit your oysters to undergo the process of decay, and see how that acts before we attempt anything in the nature of actual wholesale slaughter.”“Yes,” assented the skipper eagerly, “I guess that plan’s well worth tryin’, and I’m much obliged to ye for thinkin’ of it. I don’t want the death of any more o’ them birds laid to my door than what there’s actooal need for, for they’re purty creeturs, and, when all’s said and done, God made ’em, same’s He made you and me. But I’m afeard that a few of ’em’ll have to die, so the job might as well be done at once. I’ll go down below and get them shot guns, and you and Mr Temple might as well go ashore directly after dinner.”Accordingly, as soon as our midday dinner was over, the gig—our gig—was hoisted out, and Cunningham and I, with two hands for a crew, and with a shot gun each, together with a double pocketful of cartridges, went ashore to perform the exceedingly unpleasant but necessary task of frightening the birds so effectually that they would not be likely to interfere to any very great extent with our pearling operations. At the last moment, just before shoving off from the schooner’s side, Cunningham shouted to the cook to pass down into the boat the biggest basket that he could find, and this the “Doctor” did, with the result that when we landed on the island we carried with us a basket capable of holding quite one hundred gulls’ eggs.We had already decided that the southern extremity of the island was the proper place upon which to deposit our oysters, when obtained, because by placing them there the exceedingly offensive odour which would be generated by the process of decay would be carried away by the wind over the open sea, while by anchoring the schooner as far to windward as possible we might hope to escape in a very great measure, if not altogether, the annoyance of the smell; therefore, upon landing, we started operations at the south end of the island by driving the birds away from there.But our task was by no means so easy as we had anticipated; for so extraordinarily tame were the birds that they positively refused to rise at our approach, actually permitting themselves to be caught and their necks to be wrung rather than take the trouble to get out of our way. Certainly they resisted actual capture most vigorously, fighting us with beak and wing, and many a sharp peck and severe blow did we receive within the first ten minutes of our operations; but they would not take to flight, or make the slightest attempt of any kind to avoid us. Consequently at length, and very much against our will, we were obliged to open fire upon them, and it was not until the creatures saw the struggles and heard the piteous cries of the wounded among them that they at length began to grasp the factthat we were enemies, and dangerous. And even then it was not until we had killed some three hundred of them that they seemed to have fully learned their lesson, and took to flight at our approach. While this wretched work of slaughter was proceeding the two men with the basket followed in our footsteps and collected the eggs from the abandoned nests, choosing the cleanest as being most likely to be fresh; so that, upon our return to the schooner that night, the cook got to work, and all hands supped sumptuously upon boiled and fried gulls’ eggs, while we in the cabin regaled ourselves upon savoury omelette, followed by pancakes.After supper Cunningham and I, with an old, discarded suit of clothes belonging to the skipper, rigged up a most realistic scarecrow, ready for transportation to the shore the first thing next morning.We were all astir at daybreak next day; and while the hands, under the skipper’s supervision, hoisted out the longboat and jollyboat and passed them astern ready for towing, and then proceeded to wash down the decks, Cunningham and I took the gig, and, carefully depositing our scarecrow in the sternsheets, pulled ashore and set up the figure, the birds taking to the air with loud, plaintive cries the moment that we stepped ashore. Then, having set up the figure, which represented a man carrying a gun, we returned to the schooner, observing with satisfaction, as we did so, that the birds seemed indisposed to settle again, but, after wheeling in the air over the island for some time, winged their way out to sea.By the time that we got back to the schooner breakfast was ready, and all hands were at once piped to the meal, regardless of the hour, the word at the same time being passed that everybody would be expected on deck again within twenty minutes. But no such warning was needed, for the forecastle hands by this time knew as well as the afterguard what we had come to this lonesome spot for, and were as eager as ourselves not only to see how the adventure would “pan out”—to use their own expression—but also to gain the utmost possible advantage over theKingfisherand her people, whom they regarded as would-be lawless poachers upon our own private property; therefore when we of the cabin returned to the deck after a hasty meal, which we had bolted in less than a quarter of an hour, all hands were on deck, ready and waiting for orders. Accordingly no sooner did the skipper poke his head out of the companion and bellow the order to loose all fore-and-aft canvas than the group on the forecastle split itself up into sections, one section actually running aft to cast loose the mainsail, while a second attacked the foresail, a third laid out to loose the jibs, and the fourth and last proceeded to fix the levers of the patent windlass and to heave in the slack of the cable.A quarter of an hour sufficed us to get the canvas set and the anchor broken out of the sand; and then, as the schooner paid off and filled, Cunningham proceeded to get his diving gear on deck and to make ready for the great experiment, while I sprang into the fore rigging and made my way aloft to the topsail-yard, from which to con the schooner out through the reef in the first place, and afterwards to look out for the oyster bed. We could not possibly have had a finer day for the beginning of our operations, for the sky was a clear, rich, deep blue, dappled here and there at intervals with small patches of Trade-cloud, which looked like bits of cotton wool, drifting solemnly athwart the azure, while the Trade wind was blowing very moderately, and there was no sea to speak of.I had scarcely got myself comfortably settled upon the topsail-yard when the skipper hailed me from where he stood aft close alongside the helmsman.“Tawps’l-yard, there!” he shouted. “I s’pose you don’t happen to see nothin’ of that there blamedKingfisheranywhere about, do ye, Mr Temple?”I sent my gaze slowly and searchingly right round the entire rim of the horizon. The air was so crystal-clear that no glass was needed to aid the eye. Had there been as much as three or four feet of a royal-masthead showing above the horizon I could not have failed to detect it, but there was nothing; the horizon was absolutely bare in every direction, and I so reported it. The skipper waved his hand by way of reply, and I forthwith turned my attention to the business in hand, which was that of conning the schooner through the passage in the reef.Twenty minutes later we were outside, rising and falling easily upon the long Pacific swell; and the moment that it was prudent for us to do so we starboarded our helm a trifle and kept away for the slightly discoloured patch of water that seemed to mark the position of the shoal upon which we expected to find the boundless wealth of the extensive bed of pearl-oysters spoken of by the departed Abe. Ten minutes sufficed us to run down to it, and the moment that we reached it I saw that we had not come upon a wild-goose chase. The oysters were there, all right, thousands, millions of them, showing up as a light-brown patch, nearly ten acres in extent, clearly distinguishable through the crystal-clear water. I allowed the schooner to run to about the very centre of the patch, and then shouted for the anchor to be let go.Meanwhile all halyards had been let run two or three minutes earlier, and the canvas was rolled up anyhow, everybody, from the skipper to the cabin boy, seeming to be suddenly seized with a perfect delirium of excitement. As for me, I went down on deck by way of the backstays, and at once proceeded to lend Cunningham a hand to get into his makeshift diving rig, which he was very carefully overhauling. And while this was doing, four of the hands came along with a twenty-five-foot ladder, heavily weighted at the bottom with pigs of iron ballast, which Cunningham had caused to be constructed; and this they launched over the side, allowing it to hang plumb up and down, well secured, just abaft the main rigging. This was for Cunningham to descend by; and upon looking over the side I saw that it reached to within about four feet of the surface of the oyster bed. The getting of Cunningham into his suit, and the arranging of all the preliminaries, such as the rigging of a derrick wherewith to hoist to the surface the nets of oysters after Cunningham had filled them, the hauling of the longboat alongside to receive the first load, and so on, kept us busy for a full half-hour, during which the skipper paced to and fro, urging us to hurry, and gnawing his finger nails to the quick in his excitement and impatience.But at length everything was ready, even to the shovel which Cunningham was to use for shovelling the oysters into the nets; and with the upper end of the air hose securely made fast to the main rigging, close to where I stood with the signal line coiled in my hands ready for paying out, and with a stout sword bayonet girt about his waist as a defence against the possible attack of prowling sharks, the amateur diver was assisted to climb the rail and get his feet upon the topmost rung of the ladder, after which he was left to his own devices. We had taken the precaution to send a good man aloft in a boatswain’s chair, bent to the end of the gaff-topsail halyards, to keep a lookout for sharks, and he had reported none in sight; we therefore hoped that we should not suffer any very serious interruption from them, and Cunningham went over the side with the utmost confidence, I keeping my eye on him as he cautiously descended the ladder rung by rung, and paying out the signal line in such a manner as always to maintain a very light strain upon it.At length I saw him step off the bottom rung of the ladder and gingerly lower himself to the surface of the oyster bed, having reached which he gave a single tug of his signal line to indicate that he was all right. Then, after pausing for a moment, apparently to take a good look round, he cast off the shovel from the end of the line by which it had been lowered, and proceeded methodically to shovel the oysters, just as they came, into one of the nets, which had also been lowered within his reach. Ten minutes of steady work now ensued, at the end of which he gave the signal to hoist away, and up came our first spoils, probably about five hundred oysters, which were swung over the longboat and emptied into her, the second net having meanwhile been lowered down to the diver.And now there occurred a somewhat diverting episode; for no sooner was the first net-load of oysters discharged into the longboat than the skipper, unable any longer to endure the suspense, scrambled over the side, armed with a formidable jack knife, and, leaping down into the boat, seized an oyster and proceeded to force it open with the blade of his knife, no doubt fully expecting to find at least one pearl of price in it. But, alas! the poor man was doomed to disappointment, for there was no sign or vestige of pearl in the fish, save the lovely iridescent lining of the two shells. A second attempt fared no better, and the disappointed seeker flung the shells far from him with a muttered something that sounded not unlike an imprecation. But the good man was not to be so easily put off. A third oyster was seized and savagely wrenched open, and this time three diminutive seed pearls rewarded his perseverance. Yet still he was not satisfied. A fourth oyster was opened, and proved a blank; a fifth was seized, and as the two shells were forced apart a magnificent pearl was revealed, together with some six or eight much smaller ones. A shout of triumph apprised us all of the fact that at last the search had proved successful; and the next moment up came the skipper, his face aflame with delight and excitement, to show all and sundry what a pearl looked like when fresh taken from the parent fish.Meanwhile the process of filling, hoisting, and emptying the nets went steadily on for the best part of an hour, and then Cunningham signalled that he was coming to the surface, some three thousand oysters having by that time been secured. When Cunningham presently appeared, and the glass of his helmet was unscrewed, he informed us that his makeshift suit was perfectly watertight, and answered its purpose even better than he had dared to expect, and that he had come up simply because he felt fatigued with his unaccustomed work and needed a little rest. The skipper thought this a good opportunity to change boats, so he sent away the longboat with her load in charge of a couple of men, giving them instructions how to dispose of the oysters; and the gig was hauled up alongside in her place. Then the boatswain, who had all along manifested the utmost interest in the diving question, volunteered to change places with Cunningham and do a spell of shovelling: but the engineer explained that he could take another turn below quite easily, and proposed, as an amendment, that the boatswain should take on the afternoon shift; and, this being arranged, he again descended and resumed operations.Then in due course there came a brief respite while everybody went to dinner, half an hour being allowed for the meal, at the expiration of which time operations went on uninterruptedly until about half an hour before sunset, when we were perforce obliged to cease work, in order to get the schooner back into the lagoon before nightfall. But we had done not at all badly; for I had kept a rough—a very rough—account of the number of oysters that had been brought to the surface that day, not counting them, of course, but just estimating the number that had come up in each net, and when I came to total up I found that, unless my calculations were a long way out, we must have secured at least twenty-five thousand oysters as a reward for our day’s work.But this by no means ended with the mooring of the schooner in the lagoon, for when that was done there still remained the oysters to be laid out in rows upon the southern extremity of the island; and we soon found that the landing and laying of them out was a much more lengthy process than the getting of them up from the sea bottom. Very fortunately for us, we had arrived at the island when the moon was four days old, and in that exquisitely clear atmosphere a moon of even that age affords a very useful amount of light, of which we availed ourselves to empty the boats and make all ready for the next day before finally knocking-off work.The next day was, with a rather notable exception, just a repetition of the day which had preceded it. The weather was as fine, and matters worked even more smoothly, for almost every hour revealed to us some little improvement that might be made in our methods of work, which we promptly adopted. Thus, for example, the boatswain having proved himself to be quite an expert diver, it was arranged that Cunningham and he should work spell and spell about, each man working two hours and then taking two hours’ complete rest. On this, our second day upon the bank, Cunningham and the boatswain had each been down once, the dinner hour had arrived and passed, and Cunningham was down again, working with tremendous energy—for a friendly rivalry had already arisen between him and the boatswain as to who could send up the most oysters—while I stood in the main chains, tending the signal line and intently watching the toiling figure diligently shovelling oysters away down below in the cool green shadow of the schooner’s hull. As on the previous day, we had a man aloft for the express purpose of keeping a lookout for sharks, but every time we hailed him his reply was that there were no sharks in sight.Suddenly, as I stood watching Cunningham, a great greyish-brown object slid lazily along beneath me, and paused immediately above the toiling diver. A single glance sufficed me to identify it as a shark, full twenty feet in length; and I instantly sent down the pre-arranged danger signal, while the man at the masthead yelled: “Shark ho! right over the diver!” I sang out to the two men who were in the boat receiving the oysters as they came up to seize a couple of oars and violently splash the surface of the water with them, in the hope that the sound would drive the brute away—for, after all, the shark, voracious as it is, is a timid creature, easily frightened by any sudden or unaccustomed noise. And the attempt met with at least partial success, for the shark instantly darted away a few yards; but it as suddenly turned, and, apparently quite undismayed by the splashing, slowly came back.Meanwhile, however, Cunningham had dropped his shovel, and, having drawn the sword bayonet with which he was armed, stood quite quietly on the defensive, alertly on the watch. Evidently the shark did not quite know what to make of the strange creature on the sea bottom, for he now began to swim rapidly to and fro, making short tacks each way of a few yards only, eyeing Cunningham intently all the while. Then, before we could do anything in the nature of intervention, the brute suddenly wheeled and made a dash straight for the engineer. So lightning swift was the onslaught that the only thing I distinctly saw was the quick whisk of the creature’s tail as it turned, and the sudden dart of the great body, followed by an equally sudden writhing movement; then in an instant the great fish appeared to be enveloped in a cloud of red, in which it almost disappeared; and the next thing I distinctly realised was that it was gone, while, the red cloud slowly dissipating, Cunningham was presently revealed in the very act of recovering his shovel for the purpose of resuming work. I signalled to him to come up at once, but he replied with a vigorous negative, and the next moment he was hard at work again.A minute or two later the man aloft hailed: “I guess Mr Cunningham have give that there shark his gruel; for there he is, away out there on the starboard quarter, in his dyin’ flurry!” And, sure enough, there the brute was, on the surface, about a hundred and fifty yards away, twisting and splashing in the midst of a boil of pink foam; and a few minutes later the struggles ceased altogether, and the monster floated quiescent and awash, dead, one of its great pectoral fins and a narrow strip of its white belly just showing above the surface. I was terribly afraid that the smell of blood, and of the dead carcass, would attract other sharks to the neighbourhood, and so further imperil Cunningham’s safety—for sharks are reputed to possess an extraordinarily keen scent; but nothing of the kind happened. The dead shark slowly drifted away and was finally lost sight of, and we finished our day’s work without further interruption.Thus matters went steadily on for a fortnight, by which time we had accumulated some three hundred and eighty thousand oysters, and had laid them out upon the island to undergo the process of decay in the scorching rays of the sun. And that they were undergoing that process at a very rapid rate our olfactory nerves soon informed us; for the odour of them became perceptible as early as the fourth day, while by the end of the fortnight it was so strong as to be scarcely endurable even on the oyster bank itself, which was about a mile to leeward of the island, although, by berthing the schooner every night right up in the weather corner of the lagoon, we managed to avoid getting more than an occasional whiff of it during the hours devoted to rest.By the end of the fortnight, however, we discovered that even the accumulation of wealth by scooping up pearl-oysters from the bottom of the sea may become monotonous after a while, especially when the accumulation is for somebody else’s benefit; therefore, with one accord, we petitioned “Old Man” Brown to give us a change of occupation by allowing us to amuse ourselves searching for pearls among the rotting fish, which now covered a considerable portion of the leeward half of the island. And Brown gladly jumped at the proposal; for he was every day growing more anxious lest theKingfisherand her crew of “toughs” should heave in sight and become troublesome, and was more than willing to make sure of such spoil as we had already accumulated. Therefore, on a certain morning, instead of getting the schooner under way and proceeding to the oyster bank, as usual, the longboat was hauled alongside, and, attired in our very oldest clothes, armed with a ship’s bucket each, and provided with a plentiful supply of disinfectant cloths to fasten over our mouths and nostrils upon reaching the field of action, all hands of us, except the cook and the cabin boy, got into her and pulled away for the shore.The air was literally darkened by the immense numbers of birds that had returned to the island, attracted by the odour, after having been driven off, and we soon saw that a few of the bolder of them had summoned up courage to settle among our oysters, despite the scarecrow which we had set up; but they took to flight immediately upon our approach, and hovered over us all day, uttering their melancholy cries with such persistency, and creating such a volume of sound, that we could scarcely hear our own voices.However, we were there not to talk but to work. Upon stepping ashore the first thing we did, after securing the boat, was to fill our buckets with clean salt water, in which to wash and deposit any pearls that we might find; next we swathed our mouths and nostrils with the disinfecting cloths; and then, told off by the skipper, each of us took a row of the decaying fish and proceeded to search carefully the putrid matter for what many people regard as the most lovely gems in the world.There is no need for me to dilate upon the disagreeable, not to say disgusting nature of the task upon which we now found ourselves engaged; it may safely be left to the imagination of the reader, and I will content myself with merely placing upon record the fact that it was infinitely worse than even Cunningham or I had anticipated—and we believed that we had gauged the objectionable character of the work pretty accurately. But, so far at least as I was concerned, I soon forgot the sickeningly offensive nature of my work in the interest attaching to it, for I had not been five minutes engaged upon it when I came upon a most superb pearl, perfectly globular in shape, with the exquisite sheeny lustre peculiar to gems of what are termed the first water, and, as nearly as might be, an inch in diameter. Such a find as this was more than enough to make me forget all the disagreeableness of the work upon which I was engaged, and to stimulate my curiosity to its highest pitch. Accordingly I proceeded with zest, and within an hour had secured a round dozen of good-sized pearls—although none of them approached the first in size—together with a sufficient quantity of smaller pearls to fill about one-third of an ordinary half-pint tumbler. Nor was this first hour of mine an exceptionally fortunate one, for when we knocked off work at the end of the day my total find amounted to no less than one hundred and seven pearls, ranging in size from half an inch in diameter up to a monster that measured just over an inch and a quarter, while of smaller gems I had more than sufficient to fill two tumblers. And when we all came to compare notes together upon our return on board I found that I was by no means the most fortunate one of the party, the skipper’s total and those of three of the forecastle hands considerably exceeding mine in quantity.

We caught the south-east Trade winds the next day, very light at first, but gradually freshening as we ran farther into them; and then, as soon as we found ourselves fairly in the grip of the true breeze, with the water rippling blue and crisply all about us, we got the schooner under canvas once more, hoisted our “fins” inboard, and bore away upon a nor’-west course, with starboard studdingsails and big gaff-topsail set and dragging like a team of cart horses. A week of this sort of thing carried us to the calm belt under the Line; and here we once more brought our “fins” into action, using them for three whole days and a trifle over before we touched the southernmost fringe of the north-east Trades, when we again went bowling along under all plain sail, that being as much as we could conveniently show to a beam wind. Finally, on a certain morning immediately after breakfast, I climbed to the topgallant yard, armed with Cunningham’s telescope, which I had borrowed for the occasion, and, looking straight ahead, saw—just where I had expected to see it, namely, some fifteen miles beyond our jibboom end—a patch of white water, some three miles in length, stretching north and south right athwart the schooner’s hawse. It was the coral reef upon which, if the skipper’s friend Abe Johnson had spoken truth, that worthy had suffered shipwreck, followed by all the horrors of complete solitude for five solid months; and some two miles beyond which lay—according to Abe—the rich pearl-oyster bed that was the real object of theMartha Brown’svisit to this lonesome spot in the heart of the Pacific.

“See anything, Mr Temple?” hailed the skipper from the quarterdeck, in a voice tense with excitement.

“Ay, ay, sir,” I replied. “It is there, right enough, as plain as mud in a wine-glass, about fifteen miles off, and stretching right athwart our hawse. You had better luff a point, sir, and go round its northern extremity.”

“Luff a p’int it is,” answered the skipper, directing the helmsman. Then, as the schooner came to her new course, “How’s that, Mr Temple?”

“Excellent, sir,” I replied; “we shall just nicely clear the northern end of the reef if she is kept at that.”

“D’ye see anything else besides the reef, Mr Temple?” asked the skipper,—“anything, I mean, in the shape of another schooner, for instance?”

“Nothing at all, sir,” I answered.

“That’s all right, then,” answered the skipper in a tone of exuberant satisfaction. “I guess you don’t need to stay up there no longer, do ye?”

I slung the telescope round my neck by its strap, and then, swinging off the yard, slid down to the deck hand over hand by way of the topgallant backstay, walking aft and joining the skipper and Cunningham as soon as my feet touched the planks.

“So the reefs there, all right, is it?” remarked Brown, as I joined the pair and returned the telescope with thanks to its lawful owner. “There ain’t no chance of a mistake, I s’pose?”

“No chance at all,” I replied confidently. “It is there as plain as the nose on one’s face. If you remember, I told you yesterday that, provided the breeze held, we should be at anchor in the lagoon by noon to-day; and so we shall.”

“Ay, ay,” answered Brown. “I remember your sayin’ so. And I didn’t doubt your word, not for a second, for you’re an A1 navigator, and no mistake. Never knowed a better. But I was just a little bit afeard that Abe might ha’ been playin’ it on me, or else that his riggers might ha’ got a bit mixed. But I reckon it’s a square deal, since you say that the reefs there. What do it look like?”

“From aloft it presents the precise appearance that you described to me,” I said. “A bare reef, almost awash, with not a thing upon it, except a few birds which I could just make out circling in the air above it.”

“Ay, that’ll be it, sure enough,” agreed Brown. “I remember Abe speakin’ about them birds. Their eggs, some clams that he knocked off the rocks, and a fish or two that he managed to catch later on was all that the pore feller had to eat for five everlastin’ months—and raw at that.”

It was just five bells when we weathered the northern extremity of the reef and bore away to look for the entrance to the lagoon. I was then aloft again, for the sake of the more extended view obtainable from the height of the topgallant yard; and as we swept past the reef, and I looked down upon it, I thought I had never seen a more ghastly place for a solitary human being to be cast away upon. It was composed, apparently, of nothing but coral, upon which the everlasting surf was gradually casting up a deposit of sand, which, when dry, the wind was as gradually distributing over its surface. Here and there I observed dark patches which I took to be seaweed, partly buried in the sand; and there was a tolerably well defined tide-mark, consisting apparently of more seaweed, and flotsam of various kinds cast up by the surf.

But the most remarkable thing about the island was the multitude of birds, gulls principally. There were thousands of them in the air about the reef, and many more thousands of them sitting on the reef itself. The time was no doubt coming when the guano of these birds, their dead bodies, and the refuse of their food, mingling and agglomerating with the sand and rotting seaweed, would form an extraordinarily rich soil, upon which a few coconuts, drifting across the illimitable ocean, would be cast up by the surf, and, becoming buried, would sprout, throw out roots and shoots, and become trees, as has happened in the case of so many others of the Pacific islands. But at that moment there was not a green thing upon it.

The atoll, as a whole, was almost perfectly circular in shape, having a diameter of about four miles; and for purposes of description it may be spoken of as consisting of three parts, namely, the island, the lagoon, and the encircling reef. The island, which, being dry, was of course the highest part of the atoll, measured about three and a quarter miles long, and was crescent-shaped, being about three-eighths of a mile wide in the middle, tapering off north and south in the form of the cusps of the crescent moon; and from the extremities of the two cusps there swept away the encircling reef which enclosed the lagoon in a very perfect natural breakwater, having the inevitable opening as nearly as might be in its middle, just opposite the widest part of the island. But although I have spoken of the island as being the highest part, it must not be supposed that even this rose any considerable height above the level of the ocean, its highest point, as we subsequently ascertained, being only a bare six feet above the water’s surface.

I was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the passage through the reef almost immediately after going aloft; we therefore had no difficulty in hitting it off, and, conning the schooner from the crosstrees, I took her through without a hitch, our anchor plunging into the placid waters of the lagoon a few minutes after the skipper had struck six bells.

“Well, gents,” Brown remarked, rubbing his hands, as, having been forward to supervise the mooring of the ship in my absence aloft, he came aft and joined Cunningham and myself, while the crew took to the rigging and went aloft to furl the canvas, “here we are at last; and ne’er a sign of theKingfisheranywhere about. Did ye happen to notice anything at all like a h’yster bank anywhere near while you was aloft, Mr Temple?”

“Yes, sir, I did,” answered I. “I took a good look round while we were coming in, and I noticed a distinct discoloration of the water about a mile out, as dead to leeward of the island as it can possibly be. I have no doubt we shall find that to be the shoal of which your friend spoke. And there was another thing I noticed while I was aloft, and which I will take this opportunity of mentioning. The island is literally covered with birds, sir, and, unfortunate as is the necessity, I am afraid that our very first task must be to kill every one of them.”

“Kill off them birds, Mr Temple?” echoed the skipper, in a tone of mingled surprise and indignation. “Why, what harm are they adoin’?”

“None at all at present, sir. But—by the way, how do you propose to obtain the pearls which you hope to procure from the oysters in yonder bed?”

“Well,” answered the skipper, “I had it in my mind to take the schooner out to the bed every mornin’ and anchor her right on top of it. Then I thought of lowerin’ the boats, and, as the oysters comes up, dischargin’ ’em into the boats, one boat at a time, until we’ve got a fair cargo, a’ter which that boat’ll be sent ashore in charge of, say, two men; and Number 2 boat’ll be loadin’ while Number 1 is goin’ ashore and comin’ back. And when the oysters is took ashore, my plan is to spread ’em out on the island and let ’em rot in the sun, an’—ah yes! now I see what you means about them blamed birds. They’ll just go for them rottin’ oysters an’ play the very Ole Gooseberry with ’em—is that what you mean?”

“Precisely,” I said. “They will attack the decaying oysters, and you will probably lose about three-fourths of your pearls.”

“Ay, I see; I see,” murmured the “Old Man”. “It seems a most tarnation pity,” he continued regretfully, “but I guess we’ll have to do it—or lose most o’ them pearls.”

“It will be an endless job, too—to say nothing of the pity of it—to kill off all those thousands of birds,” remarked Cunningham. “But perhaps, after all, it may not be necessary to resort to such extreme measures as that. Have you any firearms on board, Captain?”

“You bet I have, and ammunition too,” answered the skipper, with a grin. “You don’t catch old Eph Brown venturin’ his property on an expedition like this here—among savages, too, when we gets away down among the islands a’ter that there sandalwood—without bringin’ along the means to defend it. I got a dozen muskets and six shot guns down below; and I reckon I can get the lot out in ten minutes.”

“Then,” said Cunningham, “I’ll tell you what we will do, Captain, if you are agreeable. Let Temple and me have a couple of those shot guns, with a moderate quantity of ammunition, and we will go ashore and shoot a sufficient number of those birds to make them thoroughly afraid of anything resembling the human figure. Then, when we have done that, we will rig up a scarecrow on the leeward extremity of the island, where I suppose you will deposit your oysters to undergo the process of decay, and see how that acts before we attempt anything in the nature of actual wholesale slaughter.”

“Yes,” assented the skipper eagerly, “I guess that plan’s well worth tryin’, and I’m much obliged to ye for thinkin’ of it. I don’t want the death of any more o’ them birds laid to my door than what there’s actooal need for, for they’re purty creeturs, and, when all’s said and done, God made ’em, same’s He made you and me. But I’m afeard that a few of ’em’ll have to die, so the job might as well be done at once. I’ll go down below and get them shot guns, and you and Mr Temple might as well go ashore directly after dinner.”

Accordingly, as soon as our midday dinner was over, the gig—our gig—was hoisted out, and Cunningham and I, with two hands for a crew, and with a shot gun each, together with a double pocketful of cartridges, went ashore to perform the exceedingly unpleasant but necessary task of frightening the birds so effectually that they would not be likely to interfere to any very great extent with our pearling operations. At the last moment, just before shoving off from the schooner’s side, Cunningham shouted to the cook to pass down into the boat the biggest basket that he could find, and this the “Doctor” did, with the result that when we landed on the island we carried with us a basket capable of holding quite one hundred gulls’ eggs.

We had already decided that the southern extremity of the island was the proper place upon which to deposit our oysters, when obtained, because by placing them there the exceedingly offensive odour which would be generated by the process of decay would be carried away by the wind over the open sea, while by anchoring the schooner as far to windward as possible we might hope to escape in a very great measure, if not altogether, the annoyance of the smell; therefore, upon landing, we started operations at the south end of the island by driving the birds away from there.

But our task was by no means so easy as we had anticipated; for so extraordinarily tame were the birds that they positively refused to rise at our approach, actually permitting themselves to be caught and their necks to be wrung rather than take the trouble to get out of our way. Certainly they resisted actual capture most vigorously, fighting us with beak and wing, and many a sharp peck and severe blow did we receive within the first ten minutes of our operations; but they would not take to flight, or make the slightest attempt of any kind to avoid us. Consequently at length, and very much against our will, we were obliged to open fire upon them, and it was not until the creatures saw the struggles and heard the piteous cries of the wounded among them that they at length began to grasp the factthat we were enemies, and dangerous. And even then it was not until we had killed some three hundred of them that they seemed to have fully learned their lesson, and took to flight at our approach. While this wretched work of slaughter was proceeding the two men with the basket followed in our footsteps and collected the eggs from the abandoned nests, choosing the cleanest as being most likely to be fresh; so that, upon our return to the schooner that night, the cook got to work, and all hands supped sumptuously upon boiled and fried gulls’ eggs, while we in the cabin regaled ourselves upon savoury omelette, followed by pancakes.

After supper Cunningham and I, with an old, discarded suit of clothes belonging to the skipper, rigged up a most realistic scarecrow, ready for transportation to the shore the first thing next morning.

We were all astir at daybreak next day; and while the hands, under the skipper’s supervision, hoisted out the longboat and jollyboat and passed them astern ready for towing, and then proceeded to wash down the decks, Cunningham and I took the gig, and, carefully depositing our scarecrow in the sternsheets, pulled ashore and set up the figure, the birds taking to the air with loud, plaintive cries the moment that we stepped ashore. Then, having set up the figure, which represented a man carrying a gun, we returned to the schooner, observing with satisfaction, as we did so, that the birds seemed indisposed to settle again, but, after wheeling in the air over the island for some time, winged their way out to sea.

By the time that we got back to the schooner breakfast was ready, and all hands were at once piped to the meal, regardless of the hour, the word at the same time being passed that everybody would be expected on deck again within twenty minutes. But no such warning was needed, for the forecastle hands by this time knew as well as the afterguard what we had come to this lonesome spot for, and were as eager as ourselves not only to see how the adventure would “pan out”—to use their own expression—but also to gain the utmost possible advantage over theKingfisherand her people, whom they regarded as would-be lawless poachers upon our own private property; therefore when we of the cabin returned to the deck after a hasty meal, which we had bolted in less than a quarter of an hour, all hands were on deck, ready and waiting for orders. Accordingly no sooner did the skipper poke his head out of the companion and bellow the order to loose all fore-and-aft canvas than the group on the forecastle split itself up into sections, one section actually running aft to cast loose the mainsail, while a second attacked the foresail, a third laid out to loose the jibs, and the fourth and last proceeded to fix the levers of the patent windlass and to heave in the slack of the cable.

A quarter of an hour sufficed us to get the canvas set and the anchor broken out of the sand; and then, as the schooner paid off and filled, Cunningham proceeded to get his diving gear on deck and to make ready for the great experiment, while I sprang into the fore rigging and made my way aloft to the topsail-yard, from which to con the schooner out through the reef in the first place, and afterwards to look out for the oyster bed. We could not possibly have had a finer day for the beginning of our operations, for the sky was a clear, rich, deep blue, dappled here and there at intervals with small patches of Trade-cloud, which looked like bits of cotton wool, drifting solemnly athwart the azure, while the Trade wind was blowing very moderately, and there was no sea to speak of.

I had scarcely got myself comfortably settled upon the topsail-yard when the skipper hailed me from where he stood aft close alongside the helmsman.

“Tawps’l-yard, there!” he shouted. “I s’pose you don’t happen to see nothin’ of that there blamedKingfisheranywhere about, do ye, Mr Temple?”

I sent my gaze slowly and searchingly right round the entire rim of the horizon. The air was so crystal-clear that no glass was needed to aid the eye. Had there been as much as three or four feet of a royal-masthead showing above the horizon I could not have failed to detect it, but there was nothing; the horizon was absolutely bare in every direction, and I so reported it. The skipper waved his hand by way of reply, and I forthwith turned my attention to the business in hand, which was that of conning the schooner through the passage in the reef.

Twenty minutes later we were outside, rising and falling easily upon the long Pacific swell; and the moment that it was prudent for us to do so we starboarded our helm a trifle and kept away for the slightly discoloured patch of water that seemed to mark the position of the shoal upon which we expected to find the boundless wealth of the extensive bed of pearl-oysters spoken of by the departed Abe. Ten minutes sufficed us to run down to it, and the moment that we reached it I saw that we had not come upon a wild-goose chase. The oysters were there, all right, thousands, millions of them, showing up as a light-brown patch, nearly ten acres in extent, clearly distinguishable through the crystal-clear water. I allowed the schooner to run to about the very centre of the patch, and then shouted for the anchor to be let go.

Meanwhile all halyards had been let run two or three minutes earlier, and the canvas was rolled up anyhow, everybody, from the skipper to the cabin boy, seeming to be suddenly seized with a perfect delirium of excitement. As for me, I went down on deck by way of the backstays, and at once proceeded to lend Cunningham a hand to get into his makeshift diving rig, which he was very carefully overhauling. And while this was doing, four of the hands came along with a twenty-five-foot ladder, heavily weighted at the bottom with pigs of iron ballast, which Cunningham had caused to be constructed; and this they launched over the side, allowing it to hang plumb up and down, well secured, just abaft the main rigging. This was for Cunningham to descend by; and upon looking over the side I saw that it reached to within about four feet of the surface of the oyster bed. The getting of Cunningham into his suit, and the arranging of all the preliminaries, such as the rigging of a derrick wherewith to hoist to the surface the nets of oysters after Cunningham had filled them, the hauling of the longboat alongside to receive the first load, and so on, kept us busy for a full half-hour, during which the skipper paced to and fro, urging us to hurry, and gnawing his finger nails to the quick in his excitement and impatience.

But at length everything was ready, even to the shovel which Cunningham was to use for shovelling the oysters into the nets; and with the upper end of the air hose securely made fast to the main rigging, close to where I stood with the signal line coiled in my hands ready for paying out, and with a stout sword bayonet girt about his waist as a defence against the possible attack of prowling sharks, the amateur diver was assisted to climb the rail and get his feet upon the topmost rung of the ladder, after which he was left to his own devices. We had taken the precaution to send a good man aloft in a boatswain’s chair, bent to the end of the gaff-topsail halyards, to keep a lookout for sharks, and he had reported none in sight; we therefore hoped that we should not suffer any very serious interruption from them, and Cunningham went over the side with the utmost confidence, I keeping my eye on him as he cautiously descended the ladder rung by rung, and paying out the signal line in such a manner as always to maintain a very light strain upon it.

At length I saw him step off the bottom rung of the ladder and gingerly lower himself to the surface of the oyster bed, having reached which he gave a single tug of his signal line to indicate that he was all right. Then, after pausing for a moment, apparently to take a good look round, he cast off the shovel from the end of the line by which it had been lowered, and proceeded methodically to shovel the oysters, just as they came, into one of the nets, which had also been lowered within his reach. Ten minutes of steady work now ensued, at the end of which he gave the signal to hoist away, and up came our first spoils, probably about five hundred oysters, which were swung over the longboat and emptied into her, the second net having meanwhile been lowered down to the diver.

And now there occurred a somewhat diverting episode; for no sooner was the first net-load of oysters discharged into the longboat than the skipper, unable any longer to endure the suspense, scrambled over the side, armed with a formidable jack knife, and, leaping down into the boat, seized an oyster and proceeded to force it open with the blade of his knife, no doubt fully expecting to find at least one pearl of price in it. But, alas! the poor man was doomed to disappointment, for there was no sign or vestige of pearl in the fish, save the lovely iridescent lining of the two shells. A second attempt fared no better, and the disappointed seeker flung the shells far from him with a muttered something that sounded not unlike an imprecation. But the good man was not to be so easily put off. A third oyster was seized and savagely wrenched open, and this time three diminutive seed pearls rewarded his perseverance. Yet still he was not satisfied. A fourth oyster was opened, and proved a blank; a fifth was seized, and as the two shells were forced apart a magnificent pearl was revealed, together with some six or eight much smaller ones. A shout of triumph apprised us all of the fact that at last the search had proved successful; and the next moment up came the skipper, his face aflame with delight and excitement, to show all and sundry what a pearl looked like when fresh taken from the parent fish.

Meanwhile the process of filling, hoisting, and emptying the nets went steadily on for the best part of an hour, and then Cunningham signalled that he was coming to the surface, some three thousand oysters having by that time been secured. When Cunningham presently appeared, and the glass of his helmet was unscrewed, he informed us that his makeshift suit was perfectly watertight, and answered its purpose even better than he had dared to expect, and that he had come up simply because he felt fatigued with his unaccustomed work and needed a little rest. The skipper thought this a good opportunity to change boats, so he sent away the longboat with her load in charge of a couple of men, giving them instructions how to dispose of the oysters; and the gig was hauled up alongside in her place. Then the boatswain, who had all along manifested the utmost interest in the diving question, volunteered to change places with Cunningham and do a spell of shovelling: but the engineer explained that he could take another turn below quite easily, and proposed, as an amendment, that the boatswain should take on the afternoon shift; and, this being arranged, he again descended and resumed operations.

Then in due course there came a brief respite while everybody went to dinner, half an hour being allowed for the meal, at the expiration of which time operations went on uninterruptedly until about half an hour before sunset, when we were perforce obliged to cease work, in order to get the schooner back into the lagoon before nightfall. But we had done not at all badly; for I had kept a rough—a very rough—account of the number of oysters that had been brought to the surface that day, not counting them, of course, but just estimating the number that had come up in each net, and when I came to total up I found that, unless my calculations were a long way out, we must have secured at least twenty-five thousand oysters as a reward for our day’s work.

But this by no means ended with the mooring of the schooner in the lagoon, for when that was done there still remained the oysters to be laid out in rows upon the southern extremity of the island; and we soon found that the landing and laying of them out was a much more lengthy process than the getting of them up from the sea bottom. Very fortunately for us, we had arrived at the island when the moon was four days old, and in that exquisitely clear atmosphere a moon of even that age affords a very useful amount of light, of which we availed ourselves to empty the boats and make all ready for the next day before finally knocking-off work.

The next day was, with a rather notable exception, just a repetition of the day which had preceded it. The weather was as fine, and matters worked even more smoothly, for almost every hour revealed to us some little improvement that might be made in our methods of work, which we promptly adopted. Thus, for example, the boatswain having proved himself to be quite an expert diver, it was arranged that Cunningham and he should work spell and spell about, each man working two hours and then taking two hours’ complete rest. On this, our second day upon the bank, Cunningham and the boatswain had each been down once, the dinner hour had arrived and passed, and Cunningham was down again, working with tremendous energy—for a friendly rivalry had already arisen between him and the boatswain as to who could send up the most oysters—while I stood in the main chains, tending the signal line and intently watching the toiling figure diligently shovelling oysters away down below in the cool green shadow of the schooner’s hull. As on the previous day, we had a man aloft for the express purpose of keeping a lookout for sharks, but every time we hailed him his reply was that there were no sharks in sight.

Suddenly, as I stood watching Cunningham, a great greyish-brown object slid lazily along beneath me, and paused immediately above the toiling diver. A single glance sufficed me to identify it as a shark, full twenty feet in length; and I instantly sent down the pre-arranged danger signal, while the man at the masthead yelled: “Shark ho! right over the diver!” I sang out to the two men who were in the boat receiving the oysters as they came up to seize a couple of oars and violently splash the surface of the water with them, in the hope that the sound would drive the brute away—for, after all, the shark, voracious as it is, is a timid creature, easily frightened by any sudden or unaccustomed noise. And the attempt met with at least partial success, for the shark instantly darted away a few yards; but it as suddenly turned, and, apparently quite undismayed by the splashing, slowly came back.

Meanwhile, however, Cunningham had dropped his shovel, and, having drawn the sword bayonet with which he was armed, stood quite quietly on the defensive, alertly on the watch. Evidently the shark did not quite know what to make of the strange creature on the sea bottom, for he now began to swim rapidly to and fro, making short tacks each way of a few yards only, eyeing Cunningham intently all the while. Then, before we could do anything in the nature of intervention, the brute suddenly wheeled and made a dash straight for the engineer. So lightning swift was the onslaught that the only thing I distinctly saw was the quick whisk of the creature’s tail as it turned, and the sudden dart of the great body, followed by an equally sudden writhing movement; then in an instant the great fish appeared to be enveloped in a cloud of red, in which it almost disappeared; and the next thing I distinctly realised was that it was gone, while, the red cloud slowly dissipating, Cunningham was presently revealed in the very act of recovering his shovel for the purpose of resuming work. I signalled to him to come up at once, but he replied with a vigorous negative, and the next moment he was hard at work again.

A minute or two later the man aloft hailed: “I guess Mr Cunningham have give that there shark his gruel; for there he is, away out there on the starboard quarter, in his dyin’ flurry!” And, sure enough, there the brute was, on the surface, about a hundred and fifty yards away, twisting and splashing in the midst of a boil of pink foam; and a few minutes later the struggles ceased altogether, and the monster floated quiescent and awash, dead, one of its great pectoral fins and a narrow strip of its white belly just showing above the surface. I was terribly afraid that the smell of blood, and of the dead carcass, would attract other sharks to the neighbourhood, and so further imperil Cunningham’s safety—for sharks are reputed to possess an extraordinarily keen scent; but nothing of the kind happened. The dead shark slowly drifted away and was finally lost sight of, and we finished our day’s work without further interruption.

Thus matters went steadily on for a fortnight, by which time we had accumulated some three hundred and eighty thousand oysters, and had laid them out upon the island to undergo the process of decay in the scorching rays of the sun. And that they were undergoing that process at a very rapid rate our olfactory nerves soon informed us; for the odour of them became perceptible as early as the fourth day, while by the end of the fortnight it was so strong as to be scarcely endurable even on the oyster bank itself, which was about a mile to leeward of the island, although, by berthing the schooner every night right up in the weather corner of the lagoon, we managed to avoid getting more than an occasional whiff of it during the hours devoted to rest.

By the end of the fortnight, however, we discovered that even the accumulation of wealth by scooping up pearl-oysters from the bottom of the sea may become monotonous after a while, especially when the accumulation is for somebody else’s benefit; therefore, with one accord, we petitioned “Old Man” Brown to give us a change of occupation by allowing us to amuse ourselves searching for pearls among the rotting fish, which now covered a considerable portion of the leeward half of the island. And Brown gladly jumped at the proposal; for he was every day growing more anxious lest theKingfisherand her crew of “toughs” should heave in sight and become troublesome, and was more than willing to make sure of such spoil as we had already accumulated. Therefore, on a certain morning, instead of getting the schooner under way and proceeding to the oyster bank, as usual, the longboat was hauled alongside, and, attired in our very oldest clothes, armed with a ship’s bucket each, and provided with a plentiful supply of disinfectant cloths to fasten over our mouths and nostrils upon reaching the field of action, all hands of us, except the cook and the cabin boy, got into her and pulled away for the shore.

The air was literally darkened by the immense numbers of birds that had returned to the island, attracted by the odour, after having been driven off, and we soon saw that a few of the bolder of them had summoned up courage to settle among our oysters, despite the scarecrow which we had set up; but they took to flight immediately upon our approach, and hovered over us all day, uttering their melancholy cries with such persistency, and creating such a volume of sound, that we could scarcely hear our own voices.

However, we were there not to talk but to work. Upon stepping ashore the first thing we did, after securing the boat, was to fill our buckets with clean salt water, in which to wash and deposit any pearls that we might find; next we swathed our mouths and nostrils with the disinfecting cloths; and then, told off by the skipper, each of us took a row of the decaying fish and proceeded to search carefully the putrid matter for what many people regard as the most lovely gems in the world.

There is no need for me to dilate upon the disagreeable, not to say disgusting nature of the task upon which we now found ourselves engaged; it may safely be left to the imagination of the reader, and I will content myself with merely placing upon record the fact that it was infinitely worse than even Cunningham or I had anticipated—and we believed that we had gauged the objectionable character of the work pretty accurately. But, so far at least as I was concerned, I soon forgot the sickeningly offensive nature of my work in the interest attaching to it, for I had not been five minutes engaged upon it when I came upon a most superb pearl, perfectly globular in shape, with the exquisite sheeny lustre peculiar to gems of what are termed the first water, and, as nearly as might be, an inch in diameter. Such a find as this was more than enough to make me forget all the disagreeableness of the work upon which I was engaged, and to stimulate my curiosity to its highest pitch. Accordingly I proceeded with zest, and within an hour had secured a round dozen of good-sized pearls—although none of them approached the first in size—together with a sufficient quantity of smaller pearls to fill about one-third of an ordinary half-pint tumbler. Nor was this first hour of mine an exceptionally fortunate one, for when we knocked off work at the end of the day my total find amounted to no less than one hundred and seven pearls, ranging in size from half an inch in diameter up to a monster that measured just over an inch and a quarter, while of smaller gems I had more than sufficient to fill two tumblers. And when we all came to compare notes together upon our return on board I found that I was by no means the most fortunate one of the party, the skipper’s total and those of three of the forecastle hands considerably exceeding mine in quantity.

Chapter Eight.The “Kingfisher” of Nantucket.It was on the third day of our repulsive work among the decaying oysters that the expected happened. We were all assiduously at work as usual, groping with our fingers among the rotting fish for the sudden sensation of hardness which proclaimed the presence of the gems, when one of the party, straightening himself up for a moment to take the kinks out of his backbone, let out a sudden yell of: “Sail ho!”“Where away?” demanded the skipper, starting to his feet and staring about him; and in a moment all hands of us were standing up and following the “Old Man’s” example. There was no need for a reply to the skipper’s question, for we had but to look to see the stranger instantly—a topsail-schooner, about five miles distant, coming up from the southward, close-hauled, under a press of sail.Brown stood staring intently at her for a full minute or more; then he shouted:“Yes, that’s the gol-darnedKingfisher, right enough, ne’er a doubt of it! All hands to the boat, and let’s get off to theMarthy. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that Slocum and his crowd tries to make trouble when they find us here before ’em.”“Why do you think so, Captain?” demanded Cunningham. “Surely there are enough oysters here for both of us, aren’t there?”“Well, yes, I reckon there are,” agreed Brown, somewhat doubtfully. “But I guess Slocum won’t think so; he’ll want the whole blamed lot.”I thought this rather good, remembering, as I did, that previous to our arrival, and before we knew how extensive was the bed, the skipper had been straining every nerve to reach the island before his rival, with the avowed intention of sweeping the shoal clean if he could before the arrival of theKingfisher. I said nothing, however, but, seizing the bucket containing the pearls which I had gathered during the morning, hastened away with the others toward where the longboat was moored. The moment that the last man was in we cast off, threw out our oars, and gave way for our own vessel, for the stranger was coming up hand over fist, and Brown was very anxious to be on board before the arrival of theKingfisher, in order that he might be fully prepared for all eventualities.We reached theMarthaa few minutes before the stranger hove in stays to fetch the passage through the reef; and Brown at once went below, taking with him a couple of hands, routed out the arms and ammunition chests, and served out to each man a gun, a brace of Colt revolvers, and a cutlass, together with a liberal supply of ammunition for the firearms, at the same time instructing us to load our weapons and have them ready for instant use, but to keep them out of sight until it became apparent that they would be required.By the time that our preparations were complete, the stranger—now identifiable beyond all question as theKingfisher, since she carried her name legibly painted in white letters upon her head-boards—had passed through the reef and, taking in her canvas as she came, was steering for a berth about a cable’s length from where theMarthalay; and a few minutes later she put down her helm, came head to wind, and presently let go her anchor. Meanwhile the skipper, Cunningham, and I had been diligently taking stock of her through our glasses, with the object of ascertaining how many hands she carried, and we agreed that there were but eight in sight, which, counting also the cook and steward, gave her a complement of ten all told against fourteen of us, which fact caused our skipper to chuckle with satisfaction.That we were not to be kept long in suspense with regard to the intentions of the newcomers soon became sufficiently evident, for theKingfisherhad scarcely swung to her anchor when a dory was launched, and, with three people in her, two at the oars and the third sitting in the sternsheets, came pulling toward theMartha Brown.Five minutes later the little craft swept up alongside, one of our people hospitably dropped a rope’s end into her to hang on by, and the man in the sternsheets—a long, angular, big-boned individual, about six feet three inches in height, apparently about thirty-four years of age, with a thick thatch of reddish-brown hair, and an equally thick beard and moustache of the same colour, and attired, despite the intense heat, in a heavy pilot cloth jacket and trousers, a blue worsted jersey, a fur cap, and sea-boots reaching above his knees—uncoiling his long limbs, rose in the boat, and, with a nimbleness strangely at variance with his ungainly appearance, climbed the side, swung himself in over our low rail, and flung a quick, enquiring glance round the deck.“Mornin’!” he remarked briefly in a surly tone of voice to the skipper, Cunningham, and myself, as we stepped forward to meet him. “I see this here schooner’s theMarthy Browno’ Baltimore. Which o’ you ’uns is the cap’n of her?”“I am,” answered our “Old Man,” stepping forward. “Name of Ephraim Brown. This here is my first officer, Mr Mark Temple, and this is Mr Cunnin’ham, my second officer.”“Jerushy! First and second officers, eh?” exclaimed the stranger in a fine tone of irony. “My, but you air puttin’ on style, Cap’n, and no mistake! I’m plain Abner Slocum, cap’n and owner of the schoonerKingfisher, sailin’ out o’ Nantucket; and my first, second, third, and fourth mate is all rolled into one under the name o’ Dan’l Greene. That’s him—the red-headed feller in the Scotch cap helpin’ t’other ’un to roll up my schooner’s mains’l. Well, Cap’n Brown, I’ve took the liberty to come aboard your ship to ask what you happens to be doin’ here, if I ain’t presumin’ too much.”“May I ask what business that is of your’n, Cap’n—eh—um—Slocum?” demanded Brown blandly.“Cert’nly you may,” retorted Slocum, with elaborate politeness, which, however, vanished the next instant. “An’ it won’t take me half a second to answer ye,” he continued truculently. “It’s business o’ mine because this ’ere island, and everything in the sea for three mile round it, happens to belong to me—left me by my deceased brother-in-law, Abr’am Johnson. And I don’t want, and won’t have—you hear me!—won’t have nobody trespassin’ on my property. So the sooner you ’uns gits, the better it’ll be for all parties. And now I hopes you understan’s. And there’s another thing. By the all-fired smell o’ that island I reckon that you’ve been poachin’ on my pearl-’yster bank. Now, I dunno whether you knows it or not, but by the laws of the United States of Ameriky pearl poachin’ is felony, and the poacher is liable to be put away for ten years or so in Sing Sing. But I don’t want to be hard upon nobody; so if you’ll just hand over to me the pearls that you’ve poached, I’m agreeable to let ye all go free, and say nothin’ more about it.”“You don’t say!” ejaculated Brown, apparently overwhelmed by such royal clemency. “Well, then, I guess— But stop a minute; I sure was very near forgettin’ something. You say that this here island’s yours, eh? Well, then, I s’pose you’ve got your title deeds and all that to prove it, eh?”“Title deeds be—” began Slocum, with an ugly snarl. Then he pulled himself up sharp. “I sure have, to hum,” he answered. “But natchrally I didn’t bring sich vallyable papers along with me, for fear of losin’ ’em. And then again I didn’t expect to find nobody here to dispute my title. See?”“No,” said Brown, “I don’t see; and that’s a solid fact. What I do see is somethin’ like this here. I’m cruisin’ in the Pacific in this here schooner o’ mine, and one day we sights this here island, and comes in to have a look at it. We lowers a boat and pulls ashore, and what do we find? We finds that the place is uninhabited, with nary a sign that anybody’s ever set eyes on it before. Anyway, it’s uninhabited, and it’s miles and miles away from any other land; therefore it don’t belong to nobody, and accordin’ly I takes possession of it. So you see, Cap’n, you’re all wrong about it bein’ your’n. It’s mine; and if I was measly and cantankerous I’d prob’ly order you to take your schooner outer my harbour at once. But I ain’t that sorter man: I’m lib’ral and free-handed to a fault; I ain’t no greedy grab-all, not by a long chalk, so you may stay in this here harbour o’ mine so long as you’ve a mind to. But, you understan’, you ain’t none of yer to go ashore without my leave; an’—”“Oh, shucks!” interrupted Slocum in sudden fury. “What d’ye mean by givin’ me that sort o’ mush? I tell ye that this island is mine, and I means to have it. And I means to have all the pearls that you’ve poached, too; and look ’e here, Mister, if you ain’t out o’ sight before nightfall, I’ll—I’ll—”“Yes; you’ll—what?” demanded the skipper calmly, seeing that the other hesitated.“Why, I’ll—I’ll blow you and your blamed schooner and all hands of you to blazes!” exploded Slocum.“You will, eh?” retorted Brown, slipping his right hand casually into his jacket pocket. “Then—hands up, you skunk! hands up; and look spry about it, or by the living Jingo I’ll shoot! Up with ’em, I say. Ah! that’s better, a good deal!” as Slocum slowly and reluctantly raised his hands above his head in response to our skipper’s command, emphasised by a levelled revolver which the “Old Man” had produced so rapidly that it was quite like a conjuring trick.“Now, Mr Temple,” continued Brown, addressing me but keeping his eye unwaveringly upon his prisoner, “just you go to the rail and persuade them two in the dory to come up on deck; persuade ’em with yer gun if you can’t do it any other way. I guess we’ll have to go on usin’ force, now that this cantankerous cuss have obliged us to begin. And you, Mr Cunnin’ham, be good enough to pass the word for the carpenter to lay aft wi’ three sets of irons.”“Here, I say, you monkey-faced old pirate, whatcher givin’ us? Whatcher mean by callin’ for irons? You don’t mean ter say you’re goin’ to make a prisoner of me, do yer?” demanded Slocum, dropping his hands in his fury.“Hands up!” snapped the skipper, quick as lightning. Then, as Slocum threw them up again, he replied:“Not goin’ to make a prisoner of ye, eh? You bet I sure am, then, you and the hull of your crowd, since you’ve come here spoilin’ for trouble. But I don’t want no trouble myself, I ain’t that sorter man; so I’m goin’ to keep you ’uns safe in irons until I’ve finished my business here, a’ter which I’ll release ye, and you can do what yer like.”“The fust thing I’ll do when you release me is to blow the blamed head off your shoulders, ye all-fired pirate,” snapped Slocum viciously.“Put this man in irons,” ordered Brown, as the carpenter came along, and the next minute Slocum was fettered and Chips was overhauling him to make sure that he had no concealed weapons about him. Meanwhile I had succeeded in “persuading” the two men who constituted the crew of the dory to leave their boat and come up on deck, and they, too, were promptly clapped in irons. Thus we already had in our power three of theKingfisher’scomplement of ten men all told, leaving seven, as opposed to our own fourteen.“Take ’em away and confine ’em below in the fore peak,” ordered Brown. And when this was done, “I guess there’s no sense in makin’ two bites at a cherry,” observed the skipper. “We can’t spare the time to fool around watchin’ those fellers; so have the longboat hauled alongside, and let all hands except the cook and the cabin boy take their guns and cutlasses and get down into her. We’ll just meander across and take that thereKingfisherright away, so savin’ a heap o’ trouble in the long run. And while we’re doing that, ‘the Doctor’ and the boy’ll stay here and keep an eye on the chaps down below.”So said, so done; we secured possession of theKingfisherwithout any difficulty, for although her crew guessed our errand the moment that they saw us coming, they could not very well help themselves, such weapons as the Nantucket craft was provided with being stowed away and locked up in Slocum’s own cabin, where the crew could not get at them except by breaking down the door. But apart from that, they had no stomach for fighting in the absence of Slocum, and they surrendered immediately upon being ordered to do so, although, it must be confessed, with not too good a grace. Having thus secured possession of theKingfisher, the next thing that we did was to give her another fifty fathoms of cable, so that she would ride easily and without being watched in any weather that we were likely to have; after which her crew, having previously been searched and deprived of everything that could by any chance be utilised as a weapon, were ordered down into the longboat, taken aboard theMartha, clapped in irons, and put down below into the fore peak along with Slocum and the two men out of the dory, one of our own men being detailed each day afterwards to mount guard over them while the rest of us resumed operations ashore.It cost us three weeks of strenuous work to complete the examination of, and extract the pearls from the oysters that it had taken us a fortnight to fish up from the bottom of the sea, and when we had finished even the skipper confessed himself satisfied, so great had been our success. Yet, although Brown was so far satisfied that he was content to leave the remainder of the oysters to Slocum, he could not bring himself to leave behind the empty shells from which we had extracted the pearls; pearl shell, he informed us, was worth so many dollars—I forget how many—per ton in New York, and it would pay him well to take in all that we had—discarding an equal weight of ballast—and carry it there. The task of cleaning, carrying on board, and storing this shell—including the turning out of cargo and the discharge of ballast to make room for it—occupied us another fortnight; consequently by the time that all was done and we were ready to sail again we had been close upon two months at the island. Then, upon a certain lovely morning, we loosed and set our canvas and hove short; after which the crew of theKingfisher, Slocum included, were brought up on deck, ordered over the side into the longboat, and transferred to their own vessel, one man being released from his irons as soon as the transfer had been effected, in order that he in turn might release the others. And while this was being done the longboat returned to theMartha Brownand was hoisted in; after which we tripped our anchor, hove it up to the bows, and stood out to sea.The ensuing three months were more or less pleasantly and uneventfully spent in cruising hither and thither among the various groups of islands, seeking sandalwood, some of the natives proving exceedingly friendly and agreeable to deal with, while others were very much the reverse. By the end of that time we had accumulated a very fair quantity of the wood, and Brown had arrived at the conclusion that one more call would about suffice to complete our cargo. The question which then arose was, where should that call be made? for we had pretty well completed the round of the islands and exhausted their capabilities of supply, sandalwood happening to be rather scarce that year, while the demand for it had been unusually brisk, a frequent experience of ours being that other traders had been beforehand with us and had taken all that the islanders had for disposal. Finally, while ashore one day on the island of Tahiti, the skipper happened to overhear two men discussing sandalwood together, one of whom remarked to the other that there was still some wood to be obtained at the island of Roua Poua, one of the Marquesas group; and two hours later we were under weigh, bound for that same island.Now at that time the Marquesas natives bore a somewhat shady character, it being said of them that they were rather inclined to be treacherous when the opportunity to be so was afforded them; therefore when, on our fourth day out from Tahiti, we sighted Roua Poua, we approached the island with all due precaution, every man of us being fully armed, with orders to use his weapons freely upon the slightest provocation. It was dusk when we arrived and let go our anchor under the lee of the island, and by the skipper’s order the sails were merely hauled down or brailed up, as the case might be, all ready for setting again at a moment’s notice, while the twenty-five fathom shackle of the cable was kept just inside the hawse pipe, with the pin loosened and ready to be knocked out instantly, in case it should become necessary to slip.The anchor had scarcely splashed into the placid waters of the bay when, as in the case of most of the other islands visited, the schooner was surrounded by a round dozen or more canoes, manned by from two to five men, all anxious to be allowed to come alongside and barter the fruit or fish which they had brought off from the shore. They appeared to be fine stalwart fellows, and were unarmed, so far as we could see; but the skipper would not allow any of them to come alongside that night, and they returned good-humouredly enough to the shore after they had received permission to come off again the next morning. A strict anchor watch was maintained that night, but no canoes came near us, nor did anything occur to lead us to suppose that the natives meditated treachery toward us.When they again came off at daylight on the following morning, although there were something like thirty canoes surrounding the schooner, each manned, as before, by from two to five men, they made no attempt to force their way alongside, but lay off at a distance of two or three fathoms, the men holding up their wares for our inspection and shouting their merits in that singular “pidgin” which passes for English among the Polynesians. And when at length Brown selected a particular canoe, the assortment of fruit in which appeared to be of a temptingly varied character, and ordered her owner to come alongside, the rest, instead of exhibiting anger or jealousy, simply pelted the fortunate competitor with good-natured chaff, and, taking to their paddles, headed for the shore, well knowing that the crew of so small a craft as theMartha Brownwould have no custom to spare for more than one well-laden canoe. And even when the selected canoe came alongside, only two out of her crew of four offered to board us, the other two remaining in the canoe to pass up, as ordered by the owner, the various commodities which he had for sale. These commodities, by the way, consisted of fruits of various descriptions, eggs, chickens of astounding skinniness, and a half-grown porker, and the prices demanded, in what the skipper termed “truck”, were so ridiculously low that in the course of an hour’s lively bargaining we completely emptied the canoe of her contents.When at length the bargaining was concluded, and the savage salesman was about to depart, he turned to the skipper and asked, in particularly good English:“You stop it here long, Cap’n?”“What business is that of your’n, sonny?” retorted Brown, his suspicions suddenly awakened again.“Name it me Oahika, not ‘sonny’, Cap’n,” returned the savage. “If schooner stop it here, Oahika like it come off every day, bring it plenty fine fruit fresh fis’ chicken-an-egg.”“Oh, that’s your game, is it?” observed Brown, reassured. “Want the app’intment of bumboat man in or’nary to this here schooner, eh?”Oahika’s reply consisted merely of a good-humoured grin, which exhibited a remarkably fine set of teeth, deeply stained with betel nut. Probably his comprehension of “Old Man” Brown’s question was of the slenderest. The skipper, however, accepted the grin as an affirmative, and graciously remarked:“Very well, then; you can come off again to-morrow, and see if we wants anything else. And say, the next time that you brings off chickens, let ’em be chickens, not livin’ skelintons. You sabby?”Again Oahika smiled, the smile of the man who wishes to convey the impression that he “sabbys” perfectly, while in reality he does nothing of the kind.“That’s all right, then,” continued Brown. “Now you can git away ashore agin as fast as you like, for we’re goin’ to be busy here.”The native, who probably comprehended the skipper’s gestures better than he did his words, at once turned and made toward the rail, but was recalled by Brown, who enquired, in an offhand, casual sort of way:“Say, you, Oah—what’s-your-name—you don’t happen to have no sandalwood ashore there, I s’pose?”“Sandalwood!” repeated the savage. “I think it some mans got a leetle. You want it sandalwood, Cap’n?”“Well, I guess I could do with a little, if there was any goin’ cheap,” returned the skipper.“You like it me ask them mans come see you, Cap’n?” demanded Oahika.“Well, yes, I guess you may,” replied the skipper. “Ask ’em to come off to-morrow mornin’, bringin’ the wood with ’em, and tell ’em that if they’re willin’ to let it go cheap I’ll buy it off ’em.”The savage intimated in his own peculiar fashion that it would afford him much pleasure to perform this trifling service for his esteemed friend and patron, and then took his leave, grinning with apparent satisfaction at the result of his morning’s work. The skipper stood watching the progress of the canoe until she had nearly reached the shore, and then he turned to me and remarked:“I guess there’s been a mistake somewhere about these here Marquesas natives. They don’t seem to me to be so very partic’lar treacherous. How do they strike you?”“Why,” said I, “I have been amusing myself by very closely watching those two who were aboard, and I am bound to admit that their behaviour seemed quite unexceptionable. I mean,” I continued, noticing a slightly puzzled look on my companion’s face, “they seemed to behave pretty much like the natives of most of the other islands which we have visited, except that they did not attempt to steal anything.”“Yep, I guess I noticed that too,” observed the skipper. “Well,” he continued, “we’ll just go on keepin’ our eyes open for a bit, but I don’t reckon upon our findin’ ourselves up agin anything so very serious in this here island.”Brown had given our chocolate-coloured visitors to understand that we were to have a busy day aboard the schooner; but as a matter of fact that statement was merely an attempt to “bluff” the natives, “bluffing” having latterly become almost an instinctive act with the skipper. However, although we had nothing very particular to do we at least made a show of great industry, easing up and overhauling rigging, renewing chafing mats, and so on, Brown’s notion being to convey to the natives the idea that we had called in to overhaul and refit, rather than that we were in quest of sandalwood; by which ruse I think he hoped to get the wood at a somewhat cheaper rate than usual.On the following morning Oahika and his crew came off to us again, bringing more fruit, a small quantity of vegetables, about a dozen eggs, and two animated barn-door skeletons which the skipper positively refused to purchase at any price. And with them came four other canoes, each of which had some eight or ten sticks of sandalwood in her.“Hullo!” exclaimed the skipper, when he saw this display, “what in the nation do they mean by bringin’ off them scraps? Is it to show us the sort o’ stuff that they have to sell, I wonder? Hi, you!”—to Oahika—“what have them fellers brought off that wood for?”“Sandalwood, that,” explained the savage. “They want it sell dem wood you.”“Sell!” ejaculated the skipper; “sell! Why, there ain’t enough wood there to light a fire with. Is that all that they’ve got?—because there ain’t enough there to make it worth my while to open out my ‘truck’. I wouldn’t give one bandanner handkercher for the whole measly lot!”Oahika conferred with his friends for a while, and then turned to the skipper.“Mans say,” he explained, “that dem wood all it got cut. Plenty more yonder,” pointing generally toward the shore. “They say s’pose you want it more wood, you go ’shore and show it dem how much you want, and mans cut it for you.”“Well, I’m jiggered!” exclaimed the skipper explosively. “If I’d ha’ knowed that them few twigs was all that the lazy skunks had got cut, d’ye think I’d ha’ brought theMarthyall this way out of her road to buy it? No, sirree, not by a jugful! But,” he continued, his wrath subsiding as rapidly as it had blazed up, “seein’ that we’re here I s’pose the best thing for me to do’ll be to go ashore, have a look at that there wood, and see if I kin strike a bargain on it. ’T all events, if I do that I’ll be able to choose the best wood they have, ’nstead of buyin’ just any blamed stuff that they like to bring off to me.”“Do you think it will be wise to trust yourself ashore alone with those fellows?” I asked. “You must remember that we have seen very little of them, thus far; and it will be well to keep in mind, too, the fact that they have rather an unenviable reputation for treachery. Why not order so many canoe-loads of wood from them, and let it go at that?”“Well—no—I guess not,” answered the skipper. “If I do that they’ll work off all their worst stuff on me, and I’ll just have to take it or go without. No; I reckon I’ll go ashore and pick my own wood: then I shall know that I’m gettin’ full vally for my money. But I won’t go alone; I guess I’ll take two hands with me, and we’ll go fully armed. I don’t believe in takin’ no unnecessary risks.”“No,” I agreed; “there is no sense in that sort of thing. Who will you take with you? Would you care to have Mr Cunningham and myself with you?”“No, I guess not,” answered Brown with decision. “I’ll take Mr Cunnin’ham and one o’ the foremast hands with me; but you’ll stay here, Mr Temple, and look a’ter the ship. And I guess I’ll go right now; then we shall be able to get back in time for dinner. Now, let’s see; I’ll have Mr Cunnin’ham for one, as I said, and—yes, Joe Maybury’ll do very well for t’other. Just give them two their instructions, Mr Temple, will ye. I’ll be ready to go in ten minutes; and I guess we’ll go in the jollyboat.”I found Cunningham and explained the situation to him, and he was, naturally, delighted at the idea of having a run ashore; but I warned him to keep his weather eye lifting, and to take a couple of fully loaded revolvers with him, as well as plenty of cartridges, and a cutlass. Then I found Maybury, and gave him similar instructions, winding up by telling off three more men to go in the jollyboat and bring her back as soon as she had landed her passengers. Ten minutes later the little expedition started, and I stood and watched them as they pulled away for the beach, accompanied by the five canoes which had come off to us half an hour earlier.As they drew in toward the shore I perceived, with a momentary qualm of uneasiness, that quite a considerable number of natives was turning out to meet them; but upon bringing the ship’s telescope to bear upon the beach my uneasiness was to a considerable extent dissipated, for I then saw that the crowd was largely composed of women and children, while, so far as I could see, none of the men carried anything resembling a weapon. Also I was unable to detect any sign of hostility or excitement on the faces of the natives; on the contrary, they all appeared to be smiling with the utmost good humour, and as Cunningham stepped out of the boat I saw onecafé au laitcoloured young minx dart forward and laughingly throw a garland of gay-tinted flowers round his neck. The screech of delight with which this achievement was greeted reached my ears even where I was, a good half mile from the beach. The laughing, shouting crowd then closed in upon the newcomers, and once again I became a trifle anxious; but presently I caught a glimpse of Cunningham’s smiling countenance in the midst of the crowd, and a minute or two later the skipper and his bodyguard emerged, and, accompanied by the sandalwood merchants, walked off up a footpath that vanished among the trees within fifty yards of the shore.Then, to my annoyance, the natives gathered round the boat, and the crew, instead of returning forthwith, as I had instructed them to do, laid in their oars, stepped out of her on to the sand, and proceeded interestedly to inspect various articles which the savages seemed to be urging them to purchase. As I continued to watch them through the glass I saw first one of our men and then another emerge from the crowd, go to the boat, and carefully deposit something—probably a “curio” of some kind—in her sternsheets, and then rejoin the laughing, gesticulating throng. This went on for something like twenty minutes, by the end of which time my patience was quite exhausted; and I directed one of the hands to get out the ensign and bend it on to the main signal halyards while I went below to get a gun, intending to hoist the ensign and at the same time fire the gun in the air as a signal of recall to the recalcitrant boat’s crew. But when I returned on deck with the loaded weapon I was just in time to see the entire crowd retiring up the pathway, leaving the boat abandoned on the shore, with about a foot of her forefoot hauled up on the beach and her painter made fast to one of her stretchers, which had been thrust like a peg for about half its length into the sand!The man who was standing by to hoist the ensign grinned as he caught my eye. “I guess them three jokers have toddled off up to the village,” he said.But I had my doubts, and did not like the appearance of things at all; my former suspicions rushed back with redoubled force, and—“Hoist away that ensign,” I said curtly; and as the man began to pull upon the halyards I lifted the gun to my shoulder, and, pointing it well out to seaward, pulled the trigger. By the time that the smoke cleared away not a native was to be seen!

It was on the third day of our repulsive work among the decaying oysters that the expected happened. We were all assiduously at work as usual, groping with our fingers among the rotting fish for the sudden sensation of hardness which proclaimed the presence of the gems, when one of the party, straightening himself up for a moment to take the kinks out of his backbone, let out a sudden yell of: “Sail ho!”

“Where away?” demanded the skipper, starting to his feet and staring about him; and in a moment all hands of us were standing up and following the “Old Man’s” example. There was no need for a reply to the skipper’s question, for we had but to look to see the stranger instantly—a topsail-schooner, about five miles distant, coming up from the southward, close-hauled, under a press of sail.

Brown stood staring intently at her for a full minute or more; then he shouted:

“Yes, that’s the gol-darnedKingfisher, right enough, ne’er a doubt of it! All hands to the boat, and let’s get off to theMarthy. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that Slocum and his crowd tries to make trouble when they find us here before ’em.”

“Why do you think so, Captain?” demanded Cunningham. “Surely there are enough oysters here for both of us, aren’t there?”

“Well, yes, I reckon there are,” agreed Brown, somewhat doubtfully. “But I guess Slocum won’t think so; he’ll want the whole blamed lot.”

I thought this rather good, remembering, as I did, that previous to our arrival, and before we knew how extensive was the bed, the skipper had been straining every nerve to reach the island before his rival, with the avowed intention of sweeping the shoal clean if he could before the arrival of theKingfisher. I said nothing, however, but, seizing the bucket containing the pearls which I had gathered during the morning, hastened away with the others toward where the longboat was moored. The moment that the last man was in we cast off, threw out our oars, and gave way for our own vessel, for the stranger was coming up hand over fist, and Brown was very anxious to be on board before the arrival of theKingfisher, in order that he might be fully prepared for all eventualities.

We reached theMarthaa few minutes before the stranger hove in stays to fetch the passage through the reef; and Brown at once went below, taking with him a couple of hands, routed out the arms and ammunition chests, and served out to each man a gun, a brace of Colt revolvers, and a cutlass, together with a liberal supply of ammunition for the firearms, at the same time instructing us to load our weapons and have them ready for instant use, but to keep them out of sight until it became apparent that they would be required.

By the time that our preparations were complete, the stranger—now identifiable beyond all question as theKingfisher, since she carried her name legibly painted in white letters upon her head-boards—had passed through the reef and, taking in her canvas as she came, was steering for a berth about a cable’s length from where theMarthalay; and a few minutes later she put down her helm, came head to wind, and presently let go her anchor. Meanwhile the skipper, Cunningham, and I had been diligently taking stock of her through our glasses, with the object of ascertaining how many hands she carried, and we agreed that there were but eight in sight, which, counting also the cook and steward, gave her a complement of ten all told against fourteen of us, which fact caused our skipper to chuckle with satisfaction.

That we were not to be kept long in suspense with regard to the intentions of the newcomers soon became sufficiently evident, for theKingfisherhad scarcely swung to her anchor when a dory was launched, and, with three people in her, two at the oars and the third sitting in the sternsheets, came pulling toward theMartha Brown.

Five minutes later the little craft swept up alongside, one of our people hospitably dropped a rope’s end into her to hang on by, and the man in the sternsheets—a long, angular, big-boned individual, about six feet three inches in height, apparently about thirty-four years of age, with a thick thatch of reddish-brown hair, and an equally thick beard and moustache of the same colour, and attired, despite the intense heat, in a heavy pilot cloth jacket and trousers, a blue worsted jersey, a fur cap, and sea-boots reaching above his knees—uncoiling his long limbs, rose in the boat, and, with a nimbleness strangely at variance with his ungainly appearance, climbed the side, swung himself in over our low rail, and flung a quick, enquiring glance round the deck.

“Mornin’!” he remarked briefly in a surly tone of voice to the skipper, Cunningham, and myself, as we stepped forward to meet him. “I see this here schooner’s theMarthy Browno’ Baltimore. Which o’ you ’uns is the cap’n of her?”

“I am,” answered our “Old Man,” stepping forward. “Name of Ephraim Brown. This here is my first officer, Mr Mark Temple, and this is Mr Cunnin’ham, my second officer.”

“Jerushy! First and second officers, eh?” exclaimed the stranger in a fine tone of irony. “My, but you air puttin’ on style, Cap’n, and no mistake! I’m plain Abner Slocum, cap’n and owner of the schoonerKingfisher, sailin’ out o’ Nantucket; and my first, second, third, and fourth mate is all rolled into one under the name o’ Dan’l Greene. That’s him—the red-headed feller in the Scotch cap helpin’ t’other ’un to roll up my schooner’s mains’l. Well, Cap’n Brown, I’ve took the liberty to come aboard your ship to ask what you happens to be doin’ here, if I ain’t presumin’ too much.”

“May I ask what business that is of your’n, Cap’n—eh—um—Slocum?” demanded Brown blandly.

“Cert’nly you may,” retorted Slocum, with elaborate politeness, which, however, vanished the next instant. “An’ it won’t take me half a second to answer ye,” he continued truculently. “It’s business o’ mine because this ’ere island, and everything in the sea for three mile round it, happens to belong to me—left me by my deceased brother-in-law, Abr’am Johnson. And I don’t want, and won’t have—you hear me!—won’t have nobody trespassin’ on my property. So the sooner you ’uns gits, the better it’ll be for all parties. And now I hopes you understan’s. And there’s another thing. By the all-fired smell o’ that island I reckon that you’ve been poachin’ on my pearl-’yster bank. Now, I dunno whether you knows it or not, but by the laws of the United States of Ameriky pearl poachin’ is felony, and the poacher is liable to be put away for ten years or so in Sing Sing. But I don’t want to be hard upon nobody; so if you’ll just hand over to me the pearls that you’ve poached, I’m agreeable to let ye all go free, and say nothin’ more about it.”

“You don’t say!” ejaculated Brown, apparently overwhelmed by such royal clemency. “Well, then, I guess— But stop a minute; I sure was very near forgettin’ something. You say that this here island’s yours, eh? Well, then, I s’pose you’ve got your title deeds and all that to prove it, eh?”

“Title deeds be—” began Slocum, with an ugly snarl. Then he pulled himself up sharp. “I sure have, to hum,” he answered. “But natchrally I didn’t bring sich vallyable papers along with me, for fear of losin’ ’em. And then again I didn’t expect to find nobody here to dispute my title. See?”

“No,” said Brown, “I don’t see; and that’s a solid fact. What I do see is somethin’ like this here. I’m cruisin’ in the Pacific in this here schooner o’ mine, and one day we sights this here island, and comes in to have a look at it. We lowers a boat and pulls ashore, and what do we find? We finds that the place is uninhabited, with nary a sign that anybody’s ever set eyes on it before. Anyway, it’s uninhabited, and it’s miles and miles away from any other land; therefore it don’t belong to nobody, and accordin’ly I takes possession of it. So you see, Cap’n, you’re all wrong about it bein’ your’n. It’s mine; and if I was measly and cantankerous I’d prob’ly order you to take your schooner outer my harbour at once. But I ain’t that sorter man: I’m lib’ral and free-handed to a fault; I ain’t no greedy grab-all, not by a long chalk, so you may stay in this here harbour o’ mine so long as you’ve a mind to. But, you understan’, you ain’t none of yer to go ashore without my leave; an’—”

“Oh, shucks!” interrupted Slocum in sudden fury. “What d’ye mean by givin’ me that sort o’ mush? I tell ye that this island is mine, and I means to have it. And I means to have all the pearls that you’ve poached, too; and look ’e here, Mister, if you ain’t out o’ sight before nightfall, I’ll—I’ll—”

“Yes; you’ll—what?” demanded the skipper calmly, seeing that the other hesitated.

“Why, I’ll—I’ll blow you and your blamed schooner and all hands of you to blazes!” exploded Slocum.

“You will, eh?” retorted Brown, slipping his right hand casually into his jacket pocket. “Then—hands up, you skunk! hands up; and look spry about it, or by the living Jingo I’ll shoot! Up with ’em, I say. Ah! that’s better, a good deal!” as Slocum slowly and reluctantly raised his hands above his head in response to our skipper’s command, emphasised by a levelled revolver which the “Old Man” had produced so rapidly that it was quite like a conjuring trick.

“Now, Mr Temple,” continued Brown, addressing me but keeping his eye unwaveringly upon his prisoner, “just you go to the rail and persuade them two in the dory to come up on deck; persuade ’em with yer gun if you can’t do it any other way. I guess we’ll have to go on usin’ force, now that this cantankerous cuss have obliged us to begin. And you, Mr Cunnin’ham, be good enough to pass the word for the carpenter to lay aft wi’ three sets of irons.”

“Here, I say, you monkey-faced old pirate, whatcher givin’ us? Whatcher mean by callin’ for irons? You don’t mean ter say you’re goin’ to make a prisoner of me, do yer?” demanded Slocum, dropping his hands in his fury.

“Hands up!” snapped the skipper, quick as lightning. Then, as Slocum threw them up again, he replied:

“Not goin’ to make a prisoner of ye, eh? You bet I sure am, then, you and the hull of your crowd, since you’ve come here spoilin’ for trouble. But I don’t want no trouble myself, I ain’t that sorter man; so I’m goin’ to keep you ’uns safe in irons until I’ve finished my business here, a’ter which I’ll release ye, and you can do what yer like.”

“The fust thing I’ll do when you release me is to blow the blamed head off your shoulders, ye all-fired pirate,” snapped Slocum viciously.

“Put this man in irons,” ordered Brown, as the carpenter came along, and the next minute Slocum was fettered and Chips was overhauling him to make sure that he had no concealed weapons about him. Meanwhile I had succeeded in “persuading” the two men who constituted the crew of the dory to leave their boat and come up on deck, and they, too, were promptly clapped in irons. Thus we already had in our power three of theKingfisher’scomplement of ten men all told, leaving seven, as opposed to our own fourteen.

“Take ’em away and confine ’em below in the fore peak,” ordered Brown. And when this was done, “I guess there’s no sense in makin’ two bites at a cherry,” observed the skipper. “We can’t spare the time to fool around watchin’ those fellers; so have the longboat hauled alongside, and let all hands except the cook and the cabin boy take their guns and cutlasses and get down into her. We’ll just meander across and take that thereKingfisherright away, so savin’ a heap o’ trouble in the long run. And while we’re doing that, ‘the Doctor’ and the boy’ll stay here and keep an eye on the chaps down below.”

So said, so done; we secured possession of theKingfisherwithout any difficulty, for although her crew guessed our errand the moment that they saw us coming, they could not very well help themselves, such weapons as the Nantucket craft was provided with being stowed away and locked up in Slocum’s own cabin, where the crew could not get at them except by breaking down the door. But apart from that, they had no stomach for fighting in the absence of Slocum, and they surrendered immediately upon being ordered to do so, although, it must be confessed, with not too good a grace. Having thus secured possession of theKingfisher, the next thing that we did was to give her another fifty fathoms of cable, so that she would ride easily and without being watched in any weather that we were likely to have; after which her crew, having previously been searched and deprived of everything that could by any chance be utilised as a weapon, were ordered down into the longboat, taken aboard theMartha, clapped in irons, and put down below into the fore peak along with Slocum and the two men out of the dory, one of our own men being detailed each day afterwards to mount guard over them while the rest of us resumed operations ashore.

It cost us three weeks of strenuous work to complete the examination of, and extract the pearls from the oysters that it had taken us a fortnight to fish up from the bottom of the sea, and when we had finished even the skipper confessed himself satisfied, so great had been our success. Yet, although Brown was so far satisfied that he was content to leave the remainder of the oysters to Slocum, he could not bring himself to leave behind the empty shells from which we had extracted the pearls; pearl shell, he informed us, was worth so many dollars—I forget how many—per ton in New York, and it would pay him well to take in all that we had—discarding an equal weight of ballast—and carry it there. The task of cleaning, carrying on board, and storing this shell—including the turning out of cargo and the discharge of ballast to make room for it—occupied us another fortnight; consequently by the time that all was done and we were ready to sail again we had been close upon two months at the island. Then, upon a certain lovely morning, we loosed and set our canvas and hove short; after which the crew of theKingfisher, Slocum included, were brought up on deck, ordered over the side into the longboat, and transferred to their own vessel, one man being released from his irons as soon as the transfer had been effected, in order that he in turn might release the others. And while this was being done the longboat returned to theMartha Brownand was hoisted in; after which we tripped our anchor, hove it up to the bows, and stood out to sea.

The ensuing three months were more or less pleasantly and uneventfully spent in cruising hither and thither among the various groups of islands, seeking sandalwood, some of the natives proving exceedingly friendly and agreeable to deal with, while others were very much the reverse. By the end of that time we had accumulated a very fair quantity of the wood, and Brown had arrived at the conclusion that one more call would about suffice to complete our cargo. The question which then arose was, where should that call be made? for we had pretty well completed the round of the islands and exhausted their capabilities of supply, sandalwood happening to be rather scarce that year, while the demand for it had been unusually brisk, a frequent experience of ours being that other traders had been beforehand with us and had taken all that the islanders had for disposal. Finally, while ashore one day on the island of Tahiti, the skipper happened to overhear two men discussing sandalwood together, one of whom remarked to the other that there was still some wood to be obtained at the island of Roua Poua, one of the Marquesas group; and two hours later we were under weigh, bound for that same island.

Now at that time the Marquesas natives bore a somewhat shady character, it being said of them that they were rather inclined to be treacherous when the opportunity to be so was afforded them; therefore when, on our fourth day out from Tahiti, we sighted Roua Poua, we approached the island with all due precaution, every man of us being fully armed, with orders to use his weapons freely upon the slightest provocation. It was dusk when we arrived and let go our anchor under the lee of the island, and by the skipper’s order the sails were merely hauled down or brailed up, as the case might be, all ready for setting again at a moment’s notice, while the twenty-five fathom shackle of the cable was kept just inside the hawse pipe, with the pin loosened and ready to be knocked out instantly, in case it should become necessary to slip.

The anchor had scarcely splashed into the placid waters of the bay when, as in the case of most of the other islands visited, the schooner was surrounded by a round dozen or more canoes, manned by from two to five men, all anxious to be allowed to come alongside and barter the fruit or fish which they had brought off from the shore. They appeared to be fine stalwart fellows, and were unarmed, so far as we could see; but the skipper would not allow any of them to come alongside that night, and they returned good-humouredly enough to the shore after they had received permission to come off again the next morning. A strict anchor watch was maintained that night, but no canoes came near us, nor did anything occur to lead us to suppose that the natives meditated treachery toward us.

When they again came off at daylight on the following morning, although there were something like thirty canoes surrounding the schooner, each manned, as before, by from two to five men, they made no attempt to force their way alongside, but lay off at a distance of two or three fathoms, the men holding up their wares for our inspection and shouting their merits in that singular “pidgin” which passes for English among the Polynesians. And when at length Brown selected a particular canoe, the assortment of fruit in which appeared to be of a temptingly varied character, and ordered her owner to come alongside, the rest, instead of exhibiting anger or jealousy, simply pelted the fortunate competitor with good-natured chaff, and, taking to their paddles, headed for the shore, well knowing that the crew of so small a craft as theMartha Brownwould have no custom to spare for more than one well-laden canoe. And even when the selected canoe came alongside, only two out of her crew of four offered to board us, the other two remaining in the canoe to pass up, as ordered by the owner, the various commodities which he had for sale. These commodities, by the way, consisted of fruits of various descriptions, eggs, chickens of astounding skinniness, and a half-grown porker, and the prices demanded, in what the skipper termed “truck”, were so ridiculously low that in the course of an hour’s lively bargaining we completely emptied the canoe of her contents.

When at length the bargaining was concluded, and the savage salesman was about to depart, he turned to the skipper and asked, in particularly good English:

“You stop it here long, Cap’n?”

“What business is that of your’n, sonny?” retorted Brown, his suspicions suddenly awakened again.

“Name it me Oahika, not ‘sonny’, Cap’n,” returned the savage. “If schooner stop it here, Oahika like it come off every day, bring it plenty fine fruit fresh fis’ chicken-an-egg.”

“Oh, that’s your game, is it?” observed Brown, reassured. “Want the app’intment of bumboat man in or’nary to this here schooner, eh?”

Oahika’s reply consisted merely of a good-humoured grin, which exhibited a remarkably fine set of teeth, deeply stained with betel nut. Probably his comprehension of “Old Man” Brown’s question was of the slenderest. The skipper, however, accepted the grin as an affirmative, and graciously remarked:

“Very well, then; you can come off again to-morrow, and see if we wants anything else. And say, the next time that you brings off chickens, let ’em be chickens, not livin’ skelintons. You sabby?”

Again Oahika smiled, the smile of the man who wishes to convey the impression that he “sabbys” perfectly, while in reality he does nothing of the kind.

“That’s all right, then,” continued Brown. “Now you can git away ashore agin as fast as you like, for we’re goin’ to be busy here.”

The native, who probably comprehended the skipper’s gestures better than he did his words, at once turned and made toward the rail, but was recalled by Brown, who enquired, in an offhand, casual sort of way:

“Say, you, Oah—what’s-your-name—you don’t happen to have no sandalwood ashore there, I s’pose?”

“Sandalwood!” repeated the savage. “I think it some mans got a leetle. You want it sandalwood, Cap’n?”

“Well, I guess I could do with a little, if there was any goin’ cheap,” returned the skipper.

“You like it me ask them mans come see you, Cap’n?” demanded Oahika.

“Well, yes, I guess you may,” replied the skipper. “Ask ’em to come off to-morrow mornin’, bringin’ the wood with ’em, and tell ’em that if they’re willin’ to let it go cheap I’ll buy it off ’em.”

The savage intimated in his own peculiar fashion that it would afford him much pleasure to perform this trifling service for his esteemed friend and patron, and then took his leave, grinning with apparent satisfaction at the result of his morning’s work. The skipper stood watching the progress of the canoe until she had nearly reached the shore, and then he turned to me and remarked:

“I guess there’s been a mistake somewhere about these here Marquesas natives. They don’t seem to me to be so very partic’lar treacherous. How do they strike you?”

“Why,” said I, “I have been amusing myself by very closely watching those two who were aboard, and I am bound to admit that their behaviour seemed quite unexceptionable. I mean,” I continued, noticing a slightly puzzled look on my companion’s face, “they seemed to behave pretty much like the natives of most of the other islands which we have visited, except that they did not attempt to steal anything.”

“Yep, I guess I noticed that too,” observed the skipper. “Well,” he continued, “we’ll just go on keepin’ our eyes open for a bit, but I don’t reckon upon our findin’ ourselves up agin anything so very serious in this here island.”

Brown had given our chocolate-coloured visitors to understand that we were to have a busy day aboard the schooner; but as a matter of fact that statement was merely an attempt to “bluff” the natives, “bluffing” having latterly become almost an instinctive act with the skipper. However, although we had nothing very particular to do we at least made a show of great industry, easing up and overhauling rigging, renewing chafing mats, and so on, Brown’s notion being to convey to the natives the idea that we had called in to overhaul and refit, rather than that we were in quest of sandalwood; by which ruse I think he hoped to get the wood at a somewhat cheaper rate than usual.

On the following morning Oahika and his crew came off to us again, bringing more fruit, a small quantity of vegetables, about a dozen eggs, and two animated barn-door skeletons which the skipper positively refused to purchase at any price. And with them came four other canoes, each of which had some eight or ten sticks of sandalwood in her.

“Hullo!” exclaimed the skipper, when he saw this display, “what in the nation do they mean by bringin’ off them scraps? Is it to show us the sort o’ stuff that they have to sell, I wonder? Hi, you!”—to Oahika—“what have them fellers brought off that wood for?”

“Sandalwood, that,” explained the savage. “They want it sell dem wood you.”

“Sell!” ejaculated the skipper; “sell! Why, there ain’t enough wood there to light a fire with. Is that all that they’ve got?—because there ain’t enough there to make it worth my while to open out my ‘truck’. I wouldn’t give one bandanner handkercher for the whole measly lot!”

Oahika conferred with his friends for a while, and then turned to the skipper.

“Mans say,” he explained, “that dem wood all it got cut. Plenty more yonder,” pointing generally toward the shore. “They say s’pose you want it more wood, you go ’shore and show it dem how much you want, and mans cut it for you.”

“Well, I’m jiggered!” exclaimed the skipper explosively. “If I’d ha’ knowed that them few twigs was all that the lazy skunks had got cut, d’ye think I’d ha’ brought theMarthyall this way out of her road to buy it? No, sirree, not by a jugful! But,” he continued, his wrath subsiding as rapidly as it had blazed up, “seein’ that we’re here I s’pose the best thing for me to do’ll be to go ashore, have a look at that there wood, and see if I kin strike a bargain on it. ’T all events, if I do that I’ll be able to choose the best wood they have, ’nstead of buyin’ just any blamed stuff that they like to bring off to me.”

“Do you think it will be wise to trust yourself ashore alone with those fellows?” I asked. “You must remember that we have seen very little of them, thus far; and it will be well to keep in mind, too, the fact that they have rather an unenviable reputation for treachery. Why not order so many canoe-loads of wood from them, and let it go at that?”

“Well—no—I guess not,” answered the skipper. “If I do that they’ll work off all their worst stuff on me, and I’ll just have to take it or go without. No; I reckon I’ll go ashore and pick my own wood: then I shall know that I’m gettin’ full vally for my money. But I won’t go alone; I guess I’ll take two hands with me, and we’ll go fully armed. I don’t believe in takin’ no unnecessary risks.”

“No,” I agreed; “there is no sense in that sort of thing. Who will you take with you? Would you care to have Mr Cunningham and myself with you?”

“No, I guess not,” answered Brown with decision. “I’ll take Mr Cunnin’ham and one o’ the foremast hands with me; but you’ll stay here, Mr Temple, and look a’ter the ship. And I guess I’ll go right now; then we shall be able to get back in time for dinner. Now, let’s see; I’ll have Mr Cunnin’ham for one, as I said, and—yes, Joe Maybury’ll do very well for t’other. Just give them two their instructions, Mr Temple, will ye. I’ll be ready to go in ten minutes; and I guess we’ll go in the jollyboat.”

I found Cunningham and explained the situation to him, and he was, naturally, delighted at the idea of having a run ashore; but I warned him to keep his weather eye lifting, and to take a couple of fully loaded revolvers with him, as well as plenty of cartridges, and a cutlass. Then I found Maybury, and gave him similar instructions, winding up by telling off three more men to go in the jollyboat and bring her back as soon as she had landed her passengers. Ten minutes later the little expedition started, and I stood and watched them as they pulled away for the beach, accompanied by the five canoes which had come off to us half an hour earlier.

As they drew in toward the shore I perceived, with a momentary qualm of uneasiness, that quite a considerable number of natives was turning out to meet them; but upon bringing the ship’s telescope to bear upon the beach my uneasiness was to a considerable extent dissipated, for I then saw that the crowd was largely composed of women and children, while, so far as I could see, none of the men carried anything resembling a weapon. Also I was unable to detect any sign of hostility or excitement on the faces of the natives; on the contrary, they all appeared to be smiling with the utmost good humour, and as Cunningham stepped out of the boat I saw onecafé au laitcoloured young minx dart forward and laughingly throw a garland of gay-tinted flowers round his neck. The screech of delight with which this achievement was greeted reached my ears even where I was, a good half mile from the beach. The laughing, shouting crowd then closed in upon the newcomers, and once again I became a trifle anxious; but presently I caught a glimpse of Cunningham’s smiling countenance in the midst of the crowd, and a minute or two later the skipper and his bodyguard emerged, and, accompanied by the sandalwood merchants, walked off up a footpath that vanished among the trees within fifty yards of the shore.

Then, to my annoyance, the natives gathered round the boat, and the crew, instead of returning forthwith, as I had instructed them to do, laid in their oars, stepped out of her on to the sand, and proceeded interestedly to inspect various articles which the savages seemed to be urging them to purchase. As I continued to watch them through the glass I saw first one of our men and then another emerge from the crowd, go to the boat, and carefully deposit something—probably a “curio” of some kind—in her sternsheets, and then rejoin the laughing, gesticulating throng. This went on for something like twenty minutes, by the end of which time my patience was quite exhausted; and I directed one of the hands to get out the ensign and bend it on to the main signal halyards while I went below to get a gun, intending to hoist the ensign and at the same time fire the gun in the air as a signal of recall to the recalcitrant boat’s crew. But when I returned on deck with the loaded weapon I was just in time to see the entire crowd retiring up the pathway, leaving the boat abandoned on the shore, with about a foot of her forefoot hauled up on the beach and her painter made fast to one of her stretchers, which had been thrust like a peg for about half its length into the sand!

The man who was standing by to hoist the ensign grinned as he caught my eye. “I guess them three jokers have toddled off up to the village,” he said.

But I had my doubts, and did not like the appearance of things at all; my former suspicions rushed back with redoubled force, and—

“Hoist away that ensign,” I said curtly; and as the man began to pull upon the halyards I lifted the gun to my shoulder, and, pointing it well out to seaward, pulled the trigger. By the time that the smoke cleared away not a native was to be seen!

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