The Pearl Fishers

e shortly

the sunrise, fleeting like snowflakes across the blue sk

e water at the pierheads went like a mill race; at slack wate

o the outer beach, where the breakers were coming in-the eternal breakers of the Pacific, leisure

he island. You stood now facing a great lake, calm and colored with all the blues and greens of tropic

ed and dried himself in the sun, he returned to the camp, where he found Schumer ligh

nse of early morning, the sea breeze and the cryin

iastic to everything but trade,

want anchorage inside. This island isn't charted-at least it's not on the British admiralty charts. I have the Tonga charts in the tent, and they make it all cl

whalers haven't pushed their noses, and whalers are useless to us. We don't want any blubber tanks showing their dirty hulls here; if they took us aboard they would drop us again at any decent port till after, maybe, a three years' cr

tes were out in the lagoon, Isbel forward, Floy

red yards or so out. "Shove the mast up, and we'll take it easy. I want t

t, got the mast stepped. Then they shook the sail out, and the boat scarcely heeling to the gent

e whole western half of the lagoon was three fathoms and under. At several places in this shallow zone the coral floor rose sharply and nea

l and strange. Color dwells like a wizard in tropical and subtropical waters; it seems inherent in those seas. Shells, fish, and coral all are g

than the million art treasures eternally being formed in the depths and the shallows of the sea. Not only in the Pacific, but the Atlantic, not only in the A

luminous depths where flights of painted fish passed, their

g up for the moment by reflected light, and then vanishing like ghosts. Schumer, his battered old panama tilted back to protect his neck from the sun, seemed absorbed in the things below; he spoke scarcely a word, unless to give direction to the rower;

very difficult water; unless buoyed it would be u

nmost part of this zone, gave direct

. Schumer, leaning over the side and holding the thwart with his left hand, suddenly became rigid.

rned with

truck it!" Floyd, as excited as Schume

to left, ahead, and astern, the floor of the lagoon was an oyster bed; all beauty of coral had vanishe

er expected to strike. I fancied there might be shell, I was on the lookout for shel

e sculls and the

ern area of this the western portion of the lagoon was shell. There were three main beds with coral between, milli

g shelter from the sun under the shade of a little grove of artus a

tent, the wreck, and the opening in the reef all in the blue weather, and beyond the opening i

es as we can, but we want twenty men on the work, and I don't see how we're to do it without letting others into the secret. It's this way: Some time or another a vessel is sure to happen along here and take us off; well, if it does we

hip. To rig an expedition up at Frisco or Sydney will cost a lot, and you may be sure a

acceptance of our terms, and then we'd make him keep his bond with a pistol to his head. I

gainst the sky, noticed for the first time[Pg 35] the flatness o

rves of energy; and now for the first time, as though the thought of being robbed of his treasure had revealed it, there pe

f pearls, and it seems to me that we are very well placed for that. Suppose a ship comes into the lagoon; well, she can't come within a mile of this beach on account of the shoal water, and she won't be abl

camp. I'm going to fix up a dredge. Did I tell you I was a bit of an engineer? I've had to be a bit of everything this time or that. I once edited a paper and wrote it mostly, from the poetry column to

alms near the wreck; the hawk-like look had vanished,

n ragten am

alte C

eating, and Floyd, who did not k

k German?

half a dozen Polynesian dialects. One has to. Well, shall we get back?