The wind meanwhile had freshened perceptibly, and was now blowing a ten- knot breeze, the effect of which soon became perceptible, for the lead- line had not been overboard five minutes when Saunders cried out that the ship was moving. At the same moment I distinctly felt a slight tremor in the hull, followed by a barely perceptible jerk, then another, another, and another, and she was once more afloat and driving astern.

I at once sprang to the wheel, and put it hard a-starboard, at the same time shouting to Gurney and Saunders to hoist the fore topmost staysail.

Then, leaving the wheel to take care of itself, I sprang to the main braces, throwing the port main and topsail braces off their pins, and rounding in on the starboard as well as I could unaided. The ship had now paid off on the port tack; and as soon as the starboard fore topmast staysail sheet was hauled aft, she began to forge ahead, whereupon I rushed back to the wheel, steadied it, and called to Gurney to stand by to let go the stream anchor, and to Saunders to take a cast of the lead.

The first cast gave us a bare four fathoms; the next, a trifle over four fathoms; the next, four and a half fathoms; and the next, five fathoms; whereupon I gave the word to let go the anchor and haul down the staysail, at the same time abandoning the wheel and springing to the main topsail halyard, which I let run. By the time that we had once more furled our canvas, breakfast was ready, and we all sat down to it with excellent appet.i.tes.

Having breakfasted, Gurney and I again betook ourselves aloft to the main topmast crosstrees, carrying the ship's telescope with us, our object being to subject the reef to a thorough scrutiny, in the hope that, with the sun now high in the heavens, and the light as good as it was likely to be, we might be fortunate enough to discover a way of escape from our extraordinary prison.

As a matter of fact we did now get a much clearer and, on the whole, more satisfactory view of the reef than upon the previous occasion; but although we perceived a perfect network of channels--some so narrow as scarcely to permit the pa.s.sage of a boat, while others were wide enough in places actually to allow a ship to work to windward in them--the inequalities in the surface of the reef were so great as to render it impossible for us to trace any of them for more than three or four miles at the utmost. There were four channels, wide enough to allow the pa.s.sage of the ship, branching out from the basin in which we lay, one trending toward the north-east; another running off toward the north- west, and then, apparently, by a zigzag course ultimately leading to open water on the west side of the reef; a third running west out of the basin for a distance of about three miles, beyond which its farther course became untraceable; and a fourth, broad on our starboard bow, which looked the most promising of all. We counted seven pools, or lakelets, in addition and similar to our own--three to the northward, one to the eastward, two to the southward, and one to the south-westward of our own; but the one in which the _Mercury_ floated seemed to be the largest of them all. The reef appeared to be composed wholly of rock, covered for the most part with weed, but with broad expanses of sand here and there, interspersed with mud banks; and its height above the ocean level seemed to vary from about a foot to ten or fifteen feet, with occasional isolated hummocks, rising perhaps as high in some cases as forty feet. With the aid of the telescope we were able to perceive that considerable quant.i.ties of fish had been stranded and left to perish by the sudden upheaval, and the appearance of them caused me a slight spasm of alarm on the score of our health, which was only partially dissipated by the fact, to which Gurney directed my attention, that already great flocks of sea birds had appeared and were busily devouring them.

We remained aloft for more than an hour, studying the reef and, so far as I was concerned, making copious notes and a rough sketch map of it in my notebook, and then descended to the deck, having come to the conclusion that the only thing to be done was to make a systematic exploration of the reef, and especially of the channels, by means of one of the boats.

For this purpose we selected the larger of the two quarter boats, a very handsomely modelled craft of twenty-six feet long by six feet beam, with a keel nearly eight inches deep in midships, and rigged as a fore-and- aft schooner. She had been the late captain's fancy boat, used by him for sailing ash.o.r.e from open roadsteads, and was fitted with air- chambers forward and aft and under each of the thwarts, thus being converted into a sort of unsinkable lifeboat. She was therefore in every respect eminently suitable for the duty upon which we proposed to employ her.

I was rather afraid that, upon learning our purpose, Grace Hartley might express a desire to accompany us; and this would be somewhat awkward, in view of the rough work which might possibly lie before us; but to my relief she expressed herself as perfectly content to remain aboard alone, upon being a.s.sured that no harm could possibly happen to the ship. We therefore bent the ensign on to the main signal halyards, showed her how to hoist it, and directed her to run it up to the main truck in the event of anything occurring to render our immediate return to the ship necessary. Then, having hastily stowed away a few biscuits and a piece of cold salt beef in the boat's stern locker, and placed a small breaker of fresh water in her for ballast, we lowered her to the water, brought her to the gangway, rigged her, and got away about six bells in the forenoon watch, Grace waving her farewells to us from the p.o.o.p.

We decided to begin our exploration by examining the channel which opened on the south side of the basin, as that was the widest and the most promising of the four. Accordingly, upon leaving the ship, we brought the boat close to the wind on the port tack--which just enabled her to point fair for the mouth of the channel--and at once proceeded to take soundings. But we had not been under way five minutes before we found that, under whole canvas, the boat travelled much too fast to enable us to sound with the frequency and accuracy that I considered necessary; we were consequently obliged to take in the foresail altogether, and sail the boat under the single-reefed mainsail and jib, at least during the outward journey.

Within ten minutes of leaving the ship we glided into the channel which it was our intention to explore, and found ourselves slipping along a waterway ranging from two hundred to a thousand feet in width, with an average depth of about five fathoms. The sides of the channel were very rough and irregular, its direction was also exceedingly erratic, varying from east-south-east to south by west. This irregularity of direction was the worst feature of the channel; for, with the prevailing direction of the wind at about due east, there were stretches of the channel looking so close into the wind's eye that the ship could never be sailed through them. True, some of these stretches were so short that Gurney believed the _Mercury_ could be carried through them by making a half- board; but this would be a somewhat hazardous experiment, unless the wind chanced to veer a point or two in our favour, while, even then, there were other stretches that could only be traversed by kedging.

But, apart from this disadvantage, there was nothing to find fault with, the channel being everywhere wide enough to permit the pa.s.sage of the ship, and the depth in it never less than twenty feet, with a fine sandy bottom.

We traversed this channel for a distance of about nine miles, during which the general trend of it might be said to be south-east, and then we arrived at a point where it not only widened out, but also abruptly took a south-south-west direction, to our great delight. For if the ship could by any means be coaxed as far as this, she could then proceed with a free wind. But, alas for our hopes, we had not traversed more than another mile and a half before we found ourselves in a cul-de-sac, the channel coming to an abrupt end.

This was a very severe disappointment to us, for after travelling so far, and meeting with so few difficulties, we were already beginning to congratulate ourselves upon having found a way of escape at the first attempt. However, there was no use in worrying about it, the only thing to be done was to retrace our steps and try one of the other channels.

It must not be supposed that the channel which we had thus traversed to its extremity was unbroken; on the contrary, there were several other channels branching out of it to right and left at various points in its length, two of which at least--one about three miles back, and another five miles back--had struck us as not altogether unpromising, and our idea was now to return and examine these. But before starting upon our return journey Gurney made a suggestion that was destined to exercise an extraordinary influence upon our future. As we lay hove-to in the cul- de-sac, discussing the question of what should next be done, our attention had been more than once attracted toward a large hummock of rock rising some thirty or forty feet above the general level of the reef, at no great distance from the margin of the channel; and Gurney's proposal was that, before attempting anything else, we should land, make our way to the hummock, climb it, and ascertain whether any observations of value were to be made from its summit. The proposal had so much to commend it that it was agreed to forthwith. Laying the boat alongside the rock at a convenient spot, we all three landed, and set out to walk across the reef. The hummock in question was only some two hundred yards from the margin of the channel; we therefore soon reached it, despite the difficulty of the going, the surface of the reef proving to be exceedingly rough, and covered for the most part with weed so terribly slippery that it was positively dangerous to attempt to walk upon it. When at length we reached the summit of the rock we were not much better off; for although we could see from thence a great deal more of the reef than was to be observed from the boat, we made no discoveries that were likely to facilitate our escape.

But while we stood upon the summit of this rock, staring about us, our attention was arrested by the sight of a great brown patch, some three or four acres in extent, showing up strongly against the dull black of the otherwise weed-covered rock. Although it obviously had nothing to do with channels, or extricating the ship from her extraordinary situation, our curiosity was aroused, and we determined to pay it a visit and ascertain its character before returning to the boat. It lay some three hundred yards to the south of the hummock, and we saw that, upon returning from it to the boat, we should only need to pa.s.s close to the eastward of the hummock to hit off the correct trail.

Accordingly we descended to the surface of the reef, and headed for the mysterious brown patch, which we soon reached, some suspicion of its true character having dawned upon us, even before we arrived at the spot, from the circ.u.mstance that, as we approached, our nostrils became cognisant of a "most ancient and fish-like smell". The suspicion that we had formed was confirmed upon our arrival by the discovery that the object of our curiosity was a great bed of oysters, hove up and exposed to the air by the convulsion of the previous night. But, fond as I am of oysters, I did not care to tackle any of these; for, apart from the fact that many of them were already dead, I did not altogether like the appearance of them. They were very much larger than the ordinary edible oyster; and to my mind they did not look quite wholesome. Saunders, however, was far less fastidious than either Gurney or me; he found one or two that, being immersed in a shallow pool of salt water, were still alive, and announced his intention of trying them. Accordingly, producing a strong clasp knife, he contrived, with some difficulty, to open one; and no sooner had he forced the sh.e.l.ls apart than I guessed that we had all stumbled upon a fortune, in extent probably "beyond the dreams of avarice!" For as the sh.e.l.ls parted, exposing the fish, three or four small bead-like objects became revealed, that I instantly recognised as pearls. The oysters were undoubtedly pearl oysters; and the millions of sh.e.l.ls that lay at our feet doubtless contained gems enough to make us all rich for the remainder of our days!

Not to be behindhand with Saunders, I seized one of the bivalves, already dead and with the sh.e.l.ls gaping apart, and tore it open; but although the sh.e.l.l was lined with beautiful l.u.s.trous mother-o'-pearl, it was barren of gems. Flinging this away, I tried another, and a third and fourth, with a like result; a fifth yielded nine small pearls about the size of duck shot; numbers six and seven proved barren; but the eighth surrendered to my eager grasp a magnificent pearl, perfectly globular, quite half an inch in diameter, and, when cleaned, of exquisite l.u.s.tre and colour. Gurney and Saunders meanwhile had been as busily engaged as myself, and between them had secured three more gems not quite so large as mine, and about as much seed pearl as would half fill an ordinary winegla.s.s. One of the three smaller pearls, however-- secured by Gurney--amply made up in beauty what it lacked in size, for it was of a most exquisitely delicate yet rich rose colour.

"My friends," said I, as soon as I was able to collect my scattered senses and speak intelligibly, "it is said that the darkest cloud has a silver lining, and the extraordinary accident by which we have become imprisoned in the meshes of this reef--let us hope only temporarily--has at the same time presented us with a treasure of incalculable value. I think we should be almost criminally negligent if we failed to make the utmost of our marvellous good fortune, and I therefore propose that, before we proceed further with the exploration of the reef, we take steps to secure the wealth that lies spread so lavishly at our feet.

Let us take these oysters and spread them--or at least a portion of them--in rows, so that the sun may get at them and speedily bring about that state of decomposition which I understand is necessary to enable the gems they contain to be secured uninjured. And I further propose that, whatever be the value of the wealth we may ultimately secure, it be equally divided between all four of us; for it would be manifestly unfair that Miss Hartley should not equally partic.i.p.ate in our good as in our ill fortune. What say you?"

My companions cheerfully agreed with my proposal, and, this point settled, we forthwith proceeded to collect the oysters indiscriminately from the enormous heap and lay them out singly upon the seaweed in long rows, taking care to place each bivalve quite flat, in order that, as the process of decomposition proceeded, the precious contents should not roll out and be lost. So absorbed were we in our occupation that we did not desist until the sun hung upon the very verge of the western horizon, by which time we had placed in position very nearly three thousand oysters. And not until then did we find time to remember that we had eaten nothing since leaving the ship!

Then, returning to the boat, we cleansed our hands in the water alongside, shook out our reef, set all our canvas, and headed the boat back to the ship, s.n.a.t.c.hing a hasty meal as we went.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE PEARLS.

The breeze freshened with the disappearance of the sun beneath the horizon, and the boat, under whole canvas and in the perfectly smooth water of the ca.n.a.l-like channel, fairly flew along, careening almost gunwale-to, with a merry buzzing of water at her sharp stem, as she sheared through it with a sound like the rending of silk. In about an hour and a half, favoured with a free wind, and a sufficiency of starlight to enable us to see our way, we found ourselves once more alongside the ship, tired with the fatigues of the day, but excited and happy at the amazing good fortune that had befallen us. For the moment we could neither think nor talk of anything but pearls; the precarious situation of the ship and the consideration of what might happen to her should a gale spring up were entirely lost sight of, and already Saunders, if not Gurney and myself, was anxiously considering what he should do with his wealth when he had conveyed it safely home. Grace Hartley, woman-like, fairly gloated over the sight of the lovely gems that we had brought back with us, and earnestly besought us that she might be allowed to accompany us on our next visit to the oyster-bed, in order that she might have the delight of securing a few with her own hands; and after some demur we promised that she might do so on the following day, by the end of which she would probably have had quite enough of it; for decomposition of animal matter is speedy under a tropical sun, and our experience even of a single day led us all to conclude that another twenty-four hours would reduce the stranded oysters to a condition sufficiently revolting to tax even male endurance pretty severely.

The following morning found us all early astir, and the moment that breakfast was over the boat was brought alongside and our provisions for the day pa.s.sed down into her. Then Gurney descended and a.s.sisted his sweetheart down the side, Saunders following, and I bringing up the rear. The boat's sails were set, and under whole canvas we pushed off on our way to the oyster-bed; for the craving for wealth was upon us all, and we felt that every moment spent otherwise than in gathering it was so much wasted time.

The breeze was still blowing fresh, and, although for the greater part of the distance the boat was jammed close upon a wind, we made excellent time between the ship and our point of destination, arriving there after a pleasant sail of less than two hours. But long before we arrived I began to wish that I had thought of putting a gun into the boat; for while we were still a good two miles from the oyster-bed we saw the birds hovering over it in thousands, and I strongly suspected that upon arrival we should find that those same birds had played havoc with our previous day's work. And so we did; for when we reached the spot we found our neatly arranged rows of oysters turned topsy-turvy by the birds in their endeavours to get at the fish, while the odour that emanated from the millions of dead bivalves was already powerful enough to upset any but a strong stomach.

Although the birds had completely disarranged our labours of the preceding day, they did not appear to have otherwise done any very serious damage. It is true that every single oyster that we had laid out so carefully had been attacked, dragged out of place, and the fish extracted; but nearly a hundred pearls of value were found between the otherwise empty sh.e.l.ls, while a careful examination of the ground revealed fully as many more, together with as much seed pearl as would rather more than fill a half-pint measure. Grace Hartley accompanied us from the boat to the oyster-bed, and remained long enough to actually find for herself two very fine pearls; but that sufficed. She confessed that the effluvium was altogether too powerful for her, and beat a hasty retreat to the boat, where she spent the remainder of the day in comparative comfort, only an occasional faint whiff of odour reaching her there. As for us males, we had taken the precaution to bring along with us a ship's bucket, which we filled with salt water upon leaving the boat, and every pearl found, whether large or small, was dropped into this as soon as found.

Our first task was to go very carefully over the ground upon which we had laid out our oysters on the previous day, retrieving the pearls that had been thrown out of the sh.e.l.ls by the birds in their endeavours to extract the fish; and when we had satisfied ourselves that no more were to be found there, we turned our attention to the bed itself, where also the birds had been, and still remained, exceedingly busy. But we did not then attempt to look for spilled pearls, for the bulk of the oysters were by this time dead, and had been so long enough to render the opening of the sh.e.l.ls quite an easy matter. We therefore wandered about the bed examining such of the sh.e.l.ls as happened to be gaping open, extracting any pearls that might happen to be therein, and then flinging fish and sh.e.l.l as far away to leeward as we could. We had done with those, and now tossed them aside, in order that we might not inadvertently find ourselves handling them a second time. We toiled a.s.siduously throughout the whole of that day, my two companions smoking steadily all the time in order to counteract, as far as might be, the sickening odour of the fast-decaying fish.

When we knocked off work shortly before sunset we found that altogether we had gathered during the day five hundred and nineteen pearls varying in size from a large pea to a marble, and nearly a quart measure full of seed pearl. Our prizes were, generally speaking, of the usual soft, sheeny, white colour; but there were exceptions to this, two more pink pearls being found, as well as one of a deep rich exquisite rose colour, one of a very delicate shade of sea-green, and seven of so very dark a smoke colour that they were almost black. We did not think very much of these last, believing that their extremely dark colour was against them; but we ultimately discovered that this was very far from being the case, that precise shade of colour being exceedingly rare.

None of us had much appet.i.te for food that night when we got back to the ship; and when we turned out next morning we were even less desirous of food than we had been on the previous evening. We were all suffering from violent headaches, accompanied by great nausea, and were fain to confess that we had had quite enough of the oyster-bed for the present.

We therefore soon agreed to let that part of the reef very severely alone for at least a week, and to devote the interval to the prosecution of our survey of the channel. Accordingly, after making an ineffectual attempt to do justice to the excellent meal which Grace Hartley had provided for us, we three males hauled the boat alongside, descended into her, and got under way.

Our course, for the first seven and a half miles, lay along the ca.n.a.l leading to the oyster-bed, our purpose being to examine two promising- looking channels that branched out of it, and that we had already noticed and commented upon. On reaching the more distant--and, as we thought, the more promising--of the two we bore up and, with the wind over our starboard quarter, ran away on a west-south-west course for about five miles, next hauling up to about south. But by the time that we had run some four miles in this new direction we saw clearly that this channel could be of no possible service to us, for it began to shoal, and ultimately became too shallow to float the ship; therefore as, simultaneously with this discovery, we caught a strong whiff of tainted wind from our oyster-bed, some four miles to windward, we put down our helm, tacked, and retraced our steps, going back a couple of miles along the oyster-bed channel to the other channel which we desired to examine.

It was by this time about noon, and the purer air of the reef generally--although even that was not wholly innocent of a suggestion of decaying fish--had so far restored our appet.i.tes that we decided to pipe to dinner; accordingly, upon entering the new channel we opened out the package that Grace had prepared for us, and fell to. The channel in which we now found ourselves trended generally about north-east by east for a distance of some four and a half miles, there were therefore short stretches in it here and there where the wind came too shy to allow the boat to lay her course, and we consequently had to beat to windward, a long leg and a short one, in those stretches.

At length we reached a point where the channel took a due northerly trend, when away we went with flowing sheets, but under short canvas, sounding industriously all the way. Then, after we had traversed some ten miles in all of this new channel, we quite suddenly and unexpectedly found ourselves in a basin, very similar to that in which the _Mercury_ lay peacefully at anchor, but not quite so large. We coasted along the weather side of this basin for a distance of about two miles, and then found another channel, which we at once entered. This channel trended north-east, but we had not sailed above four miles before it narrowed so much that we saw it would be useless to us, and we therefore bore up and returned to the newly-discovered basin. Continuing our progress round this, we found another channel, branching out of its north-western extremity, and as it had a rather promising appearance we plunged into it. It trended away to the northward and westward for the first seven miles, then turned abruptly toward the southward for a distance of some five miles, when we found ourselves in another channel trending about north-north-west and south-south-east.

This channel was even more promising than the one which we had just emerged from, being almost double the width; but we were puzzled for the moment as to which direction to take, whether to head to the northward or the southward. The northerly-trending channel might lead anywhere; the southerly portion, on the other hand, looked as though it might possibly take us back to the ship, the spars of which were visible some nine miles away. We decided to try the latter, as the day was by this time well advanced, and, should we ultimately find ourselves obliged to retrace our steps, it would make us very late in getting back to the ship. Fortunately, however, we were not driven to this latter alternative, for after following the winding course of the southerly channel for a distance of some twelve miles we arrived at the north- eastern extremity of the basin in which the _Mercury_ lay at anchor, and safely arrived alongside half an hour later, having spent the day in circ.u.mnavigating a portion of the reef which we thus discovered to be entirely surrounded by channels of a width and depth of water sufficient to allow of the pa.s.sage of the ship. This discovery, however, was of no practical service to us; for it still left us in our original state of uncertainty regarding the existence of a channel through which the ship might be taken into open water.

The narrative of our efforts to find such a channel has been given thus far with considerable detail, in order to bring home to the reader some idea of the extreme awkwardness of our situation, and the difficulties and perplexities with which we found ourselves confronted; but there is no need to continue the story further in quite so detailed a form, since the progress of our researches was unaccompanied by anything in the nature of adventure. Let it suffice, therefore, to say that we traversed the mult.i.tudinous ca.n.a.l-like channels of that labyrinthine reef continuously for ten days longer before we found a pa.s.sage of sufficient width, and with a sufficient depth of water in it everywhere, to enable the _Mercury_ to go through it to the open sea. This pa.s.sage, when found, proved to be a continuation of the channel originating in the north-eastern angle of what we had now come to speak of as the Mercury Basin, from the fact that the ship lay anch.o.r.ed in it. Although it was an undoubted fact that we had actually found a channel leading from this basin to open water, the difficulties in the way of successfully carrying the ship through it were so great that we had very grave doubts of our ability to accomplish it. In the first place, the course of the channel was of so winding a character that, according to a very careful estimate, the ship would have to traverse no less than a hundred and ten miles of waterway before clearing the reef; consequently it would be impossible to accomplish the whole distance during the hours of daylight of a single day; while to attempt the navigation of any portion of it during the hours of darkness was altogether too hazardous an undertaking to be calmly thought of. But, as though this difficulty were not in itself sufficient, there was a stretch of twelve miles of channel running in a north-easterly direction which the ship could not possibly negotiate under sail unless a change of wind should occur--of which there seemed to be absolutely no prospect. The only alternative, therefore, would be to kedge those twelve miles; truly a most formidable undertaking for four persons--one of them being a girl--to attempt.

Fortunately, however, for us all, the problem of how to overcome these tremendous difficulties was solved for us by accident, and quite unexpectedly. For, upon going over this long and intricate channel again, in order thoroughly to familiarise ourselves with it, and to become better acquainted with its many danger-points, it happened that on the return journey--which was being made by moonlight--we missed our way, continuing along what appeared to be the main channel, instead of diverging into a branch trending to the eastward; and by the time that we discovered our mistake we were so favourably impressed with the appearance of this new, strange channel--which seemed to be running almost straight toward Mercury Basin--that we determined to follow it up and see whither it led.

Not to dilate unnecessarily upon this portion of our adventures, we discovered, to our infinite satisfaction and delight, that it did indeed ultimately conduct us back to the ship; and that, too, by a route which reduced the distance to be travelled to about forty-five miles, or very considerably less than half that of the other channel. Moreover, while the original channel first ran north, then north-east, for the twelve miles that were only to be covered by kedging--before it ultimately changed its course to south--in which direction the point of ultimate egress lay, the new channel left Mercury Basin at its western, or leeward, extremity, running first west, then south-west, and ultimately south, straight out to sea. Thus the whole distance could be traversed under sail and with a free wind. The three following days and nights were devoted to a most careful re-examination of this new channel, with the result that we thoroughly satisfied ourselves as to its absolute practicability.

With our minds thus relieved of a tremendous load of anxiety, we felt ourselves once more able to turn our thoughts in the direction of our pearl harvest. A full fortnight had been devoted to the exploration of the reef since our last visit to the oyster-bed, and we were of opinion that it ought by this time to be in such a condition as to afford us a very handsome return for our labours.

Accordingly, after allowing ourselves a day's rest to enable us to recover from the fatigues of our recent arduous boat duty, we once more repaired to the oyster-bed--Grace Hartley preferring on this occasion to remain "at home", as she put it, rather than again face the disgusting sights and odours that had met her on the occasion of her visit. But upon our arrival at the scene of operations we soon found that a fortnight had made a vast amount of difference in the condition of the oysters. For whereas when we had last visited the oyster-bed the process of putrefaction had only just begun, it had now advanced so far that the fish were not only completely decayed but had also in many cases so completely dried up under the influence of the sun's rays as to have, to a very great extent, lost their odour. Furthermore, the birds had been so busy that more than half the sh.e.l.ls had been completely emptied; our task, therefore, although still excessively disagreeable, promised to be far less revoltingly offensive and disgusting than it had been before. Even such offensiveness as still remained we contrived to mitigate to a very considerable extent, by adopting the simple plan of starting work on the windward edge of the bed, whereby the acc.u.mulated odours were blown away from us, instead of directly in our faces, as on the previous occasion.

Now we went to work systematically, roughly dividing the bed into three nearly equal portions, one of which was to be gone over very carefully by each of us. Also we each had a bucket, into which to drop our spoils, so that there might be no time lost and no unnecessary fatigue incurred in pa.s.sing to and fro. Our system of working was simplicity itself, and merely consisted in starting operations on the extreme weather side of the bed, examining the fish just as they came to hand, extracting such pearls as they contained, dropping the gems into the bucket of water with which each of us was provided, and then throwing the sh.e.l.ls out on the reef apart from those still untouched. We toiled on thus all day, with a pause of half an hour about midday, when we retired to the boat, cleaned ourselves as well as we could, and s.n.a.t.c.hed a hasty meal, concluding our labours about half an hour before sunset.

When, during the run back to the ship at the end of the day, we proceeded to compare notes and take stock of the results of our labour, we came to the conclusion that either the bed was an enormously rich one, or that we had had an exceedingly lucky day, for our combined booty consisted of over fourteen hundred pearls--sixty-three of which were of quite exceptional value from their size or colour--and a full quart measure of seed pearl. I was of opinion, at the time--and am so still-- that we might have obtained considerably more than we did of the last, but for the eagerness with which we prosecuted our search for the larger gems, which caused our search for the smaller seed pearls to degenerate into a very perfunctory operation.

The story of one day's work at the oyster-bed is the story of all; it is therefore unnecessary to say more upon the subject than that we spent a full fortnight upon the task of gathering pearls, by the end of which time we had acquired so much dexterity at the work that we did more in one day than we did in two at the beginning of our labours. Then, although at the expiration of the fortnight we seemed to have made scarcely any perceptible inroad upon that enormous deposit, we grew tired of our self-imposed task and mutually agreed that we had acc.u.mulated as much wealth as we required. Moreover, as we watched the increase of that wealth day by day, our anxiety grew lest perchance anything should happen to prevent our escape from the reef and our return to that civilisation, where alone our wealth could be of any real value to us. The reader may reasonably ask what grounds of justification we had for the fear that anything could possibly happen to prevent our escape, seeing that we had been fortunate enough to discover a channel through which the ship might be easily taken out to sea; but I think we all still carried a vivid recollection of the terrific natural convulsion that had placed us in the extraordinary situation which we then occupied; and I believe the others shared with me the feeling that, such a thing having once happened, it might possibly happen again. The reef that had held us prisoners for so long might sink again to the ocean depths, perchance carrying the ship with it in the terrific turmoil that must ensue; or it might be hove up still higher, leaving the ship stranded and immovable; and then what would be our plight?

Therefore, when on the evening of a certain day Gurney ventured to voice the suggestion that it would now be well to think seriously of making good our escape, while yet the opportunity to do so remained to us, neither of the others raised so much as a single word of protest, but on the contrary agreed to the proposal with an eagerness which clearly showed how welcome it was to us all.

"As for me," said Gurney, when walking the p.o.o.p with me that night and discussing the matter, "my way is now clear; Gracie and I will get married as soon as we arrive in Sydney; and then I think I may venture to return home and once more hope to find a welcome beneath the roof- tree which shelters those to whom I have given so much sorrow."

"Indeed," remarked I, scarcely knowing what to say, for my companion had spoken those last words in a tone of such intense feeling that I felt convinced a story must lie behind them.

"Yes," he said, and was silent for a minute or two, apparently plunged in deep and painful thought. Then, suddenly throwing up his head, he continued: "I belong to the genus Prodigal Son. Would you care to hear my story? I think I should rather like to tell it you; for you are a good lad, high-spirited, full of generous impulses, eager to excel, and full of pluck. You are bound to make a success of your life if you will only steadfastly follow the path that your feet are now treading. But-- forgive me for saying so--the qualities that you possess, excellent as they are, are precisely those that, unless you are very careful, are likely to betray you.

"When I was your age I was just such another lad as you are, and my father was as proud of, and as hopeful for, me as any parent can possibly be of an only son. He gave me a first-cla.s.s education, and finally procured me an excellent post under Government. My duties took me abroad--there is no need to say where--and I at once found myself the a.s.sociate and companion of a lot of young fellows who had somehow imbibed the idea that it was inc.u.mbent upon them, as Government officials, to adopt a smart, bold, dashing, reckless demeanour, a kind of modern edition of the swashbucklers of the Stuart regime; and they did their best to live up to that idea. This sort of thing was quite new to me; for you must remember that I was fresh from school at the time, and had never seen anything of the kind before, my father being an exceptionally quiet and sober-minded individual, a.s.sociating only with men of similar temperament to himself. With my new companions, however, 'respectability' was voted old-fashioned and out of date, sobriety of conduct a bore. They were fine, dashing, high-spirited young fellows, fearing nothing and n.o.body, and they didn't care who knew it. They drank freely, const.i.tuted themselves authorities on all kinds of sport, gambled, and did many other things that at first distinctly frightened me, but which, a little later on, I rather admired, and--like the young fool that I was--soon began to humbly emulate. _Facilis descensus Averni_! The reverence for truth, and purity, and uprightness that had come to me in the atmosphere of home soon died. I recognised that those virtues belonged to a bygone period, but I was going to be up-to-date, in the forefront: n.o.body should surpa.s.s me! I dare say--ay, and I very fervently hope--that all this sounds the most incredible folly to you; but I give you my word that, so imperceptible were the steps by which I descended the down-grade that, looking back upon it all, I am even now not astonished at what I did. I believe that it was inevitable, under the circ.u.mstances, for, mark you this, I had never been warned against it! My parents had such implicit faith in me that the possibility of such a warning being necessary never occurred to them! Of course there could only be one end to this sort of thing, and in two years it came.

Two years sufficed to convert me, from such a lad as you are now, into an utterly worthless, disreputable blackguard, a confirmed drunkard, a hardened liar, and--a contemptible thief! With my const.i.tution completely shattered, I was obliged to resign my post, to avoid being kicked out, and I returned home a moral and physical wreck. But, even then, my poor father and mother had no suspicion of the truth, for I told them that my condition was due to fever contracted in the discharge of my duty. It was, however, impossible for me to conceal the truth from them very long after I had once more come under their roof; and the grief and shame that overwhelmed them when at length their eyes were opened might have melted the heart of a stone. But it did not melt mine, for I was by that time so completely the slave of my vices that I had lost every vestige of natural feeling. I continued my drunken habits as long as I had money to spend on liquor; and when finally I had exhausted my own resources I stole from my parents the means to still continue in the indulgence of my degrading vice. It broke my poor mother's heart, and she died; and on the day of her funeral I was unable to follow her body to its last resting-place, because I was too drunk to stand or speak! That was the crowning act of my disgraceful career; for on that very day my father gave me twenty pounds and turned me out of his house, forbidding me ever again to darken his door. I went to London, spent my twenty pounds in a wild life, got into a street fight, and was carried to a hospital with a knife-wound between my ribs; and there I lingered between life and death for nearly a month before I took a turn for the better and began to mend; and it was three months before I was up and out again. But during that three months the hospital chaplain contrived to gain my confidence. He induced me to tell him my story; and in return he told me some home truths that had the eventual effect of opening my eyes to the enormity of my guilt, the effect being helped, perhaps, by the fact that during my stay in the hospital I had been cured of my cursed craving for drink. When at length I was ready to leave the hospital my friend the chaplain offered to communicate with my father and endeavour to effect a reconciliation; but I refused. I had vowed that I would never return home until I could do so as a thoroughly reformed character; I therefore made my way down to the docks, took the first berth that offered, and, under the a.s.sumed name of George Gurney, became a common sailor. You will think, perhaps, that to go to sea, and in such a capacity, was not quite the best possible method whereby to effect my reformation, and may be it was not, but I was determined that nothing--nothing--should stand in my way; and I think I may now say, without undue confidence, that I have succeeded.

Gracie, to whom I have told my story, a.s.sures me that I need no longer fear to face my father, and I believe her, for a woman can see more deeply than a man. So now I shall return home, to be a comfort, as I devoutly hope, to my dear father's declining years; and perhaps, with the aid of my wealth, I may be able to do enough good to obliterate the memory of all the grief and shame that I have caused him to suffer.

That is my story, Troubridge; and all that I will add to it is this: If ever you feel tempted to stray, though ever so slightly, from the path of rect.i.tude, think of the man whom you once knew as George Gurney; and let his history serve as a warning to you. And now I will say good night; for we must be stirring early to-morrow."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

ONCE MORE IN OPEN WATER.