Coral Sands/Chapter 11

ERNAND was not deceived when he thought that he saw Yakoff being rowed off to the California that morning. The dealer had determined on a visit to the yacht to see whether any business could be done with the owner. He took some pearls with him on the chance of a sale. Now sales of this sort are very ticklish affairs. Generally good prices can be got from a yacht owner in a foreign port, a monkey, a parrot or a pearl often fetching more under these circumstances than in London or Paris, but the difficult part of the business is the payment of any large sum. Gold or dollar notes must be paid, unless the seller is a fool, and it is not often that a yacht carries with her more than the necessary ship money.

However, one never could tell, and Yakoff, when he clawed alongside the California, had hopes of a good deal.

He didn't ask for the owner—he wasn't such a fool—but got his canoeman to bring the canoe along the stage, and, before the quartermaster on duty could run down, he came up the grated steps and onto the deck.

The deck of the California intrigued Yakoff; it was white as the beach, showing on either side the rails and the the boats swung at their davits.

Why, the man who owned this must be a millionaire many times over! The deck house took his eye with its polished paneling, and beyond the deck house he could see just the top of the jackstaff from which the Stars and Stripes was curling and uncurling on the breeze.

“I want to see the owner,” said Yakoff to the Yankee quartermaster.

“And what do you want to see the owner about?” asked the latter, looking the newcomer up and down and not with favor.

“Pearls,” said Yakoff. “Tell the owner that Mr. Yakoff Abrahamovitch has come on board with some pearls to show him, and you'd better be moving quick, mister, for my time is not my own this morning. Your owner expects me.”

“What's that?” said Cyrus Hardanger, who was writing a letter in the deck house and who looked up as the quartermaster delivered the message. “Guy come on board to sell pearls by appointment? I never made any appointment. No, keep him; I'll be out when I've finished this letter and have a talk to him.”

When he came out he found Yakoff meekly waiting.

“Well,” said Cyrus, “what can I do for you?”

Yakoff at the full sight of the other—he had only glimpsed him at a distance till now—started slightly. He had seen Cyrus before, but where, for the moment, he could not tell. His vulturelike mind was for a moment at fault. He had seen Cyrus years ago, surely, but where?

“I have come,” said Yakoff, “to show you some Araffura pearls.”

“You said you came by appointment?”

“You see,” replied Yakoff, “I am a salesman.”

The impudence of the other amused Cyrus.

“That is to say, a liar.”

“The truth is the pearls are very fine and a bargain. I was only pushing the truth,” said Yakoff. “Moreover, they will be a memento of your visit to Araffura island. Will you not look at them?”

“Come in,” said Cyrus. He led the way into the deck house, and Yakoff, putting his hand into his pocket, produced a small white box. He opened it and, raising a layer of cotton wool, exposed two pearls, perfect rounds, one pure white, one pink.

Now ninety per cent of pink pearls are irregular in shape. Yakoff stated this fact which Cyrus already knew, then he went on:

“This pearl was not taken from an oyster but from a great conch; that is the true home of the pink pearl, and to get the conch out of its shell without injuring the pearl is a difficult matter. We hang the shell up and fasten a weight by a hook to the meat and it is slowly drawn out”

“How much do you want for the two?” cut in Cyrus.

“Four hundred for the pink, two hundred for the white.”

“Dollars?”

“Pounds.”

Cyrus replaced the cotton wool and closed the box, handing it back. As he did so Yakoff saw that the last phalanx of the little finger of Cyrus' left hand was missing. It was not a noticeable mutilation, the finger being nearly always bent into the palm, but it was enough for Yakoff. He knew now where he had seen Cyrus before and under what tragic circumstances—twenty years and more ago when he, Yakoff, was a young man, thin and cadaverous and utterly unlike the Yakoff of to-day, while Cyrus had altered, but not so much altered, and become a millionaire.

Yakoff hugged the suddenly found remembrance that might be worth so much to him if properly exploited, but he showed no sign either in face or manner.

“Take them,” said Cyrus. “I can't trade at that price.”

The other took the box.

“What price, then, would you be prepared to offer for these pearls?”

“Two thousand dollars,” said Cyrus; “not a cent more. I don't want the things, specially. Still, I'll give you two thousand. You won't get more in the market; they're good grade, but they're small.”

“I'll think about it,” said the dealer, putting the box in his pocket.

“Or I'll toss you double or quits,” said Cyrus. “Four thousand or nothing.” He meant what he said and produced a coin to prove it, but the other only smiled.

“I'll consider that, too,” said he. “If you will permit me, I'll come on board again to talk it over.”

“Oh, you can come on board,” replied the owner of the California, “but don't come unless you are prepared to trade on my terms. A glass of wine? No? Well, good day to you.”

“Good day,” said Yakoff.

He went out on deck, got into the canoe and pushed off for shore.

On the beach he turned and looked back at the graceful white yacht. Wealth at last. Wealth at last, if he could only work this new-found knowledge without making a slip. No more trade without sufficient capital to trade with, no more scraping about the world for a living. No more work, and nothing to do for it all but just take Cyrus Hardanger by the throat and squeeze him.

Yakoff's house was set back a bit from the others, roofed with palmetto leaves and with only two rooms. It was less a house than a habitation. It just did him for the trading season, and he paid Nari the owner ten dollars for the rent and Nari's daughter did the cooking and kept the place clean. A case of gin, a native-made bed, an old table and a couple of chairs were the chief movables. There was no strong box. He kept all his money and wealth on him.

Going in and shutting the door, he lay down on the bed to think this matter over and gloat on it, and as he lay he became aware of the fact that Nari's daughter, careful though she might be in household matters, was careless of the outside. Everything went onto the rubbish heap by the side wall, and he could hear now the rustle of the robber crabs and the click of them exploring old tins and pulling them about; also he could hear the wind and the rainy patter of palm fronds and behind all the speaking of the reef, that eternal voice which is the background of all other sounds at Araffura.

Lying on his back and listening to these things, Yakoff contemplated the business before him. Was he certain that the man he met to-day was the man of long ago? Certain. The name was changed, but that was nothing; the man was the same. The very fact that the name was changed was, if anything, an additional proof, for the man of years ago had evidently been going under an alias. No, there was no doubt as to the quarry; the only doubt was as to the hunting.

Yakoff was one of those cowards who become savagely brave when cornered or in extremity. The idea of tackling this man in cold blood and threatening him with his past frightened him, now that he came to consider it as a working proposition and a thing that had to be done.

It was most unpleasant.

He had been party to all sorts of swindles in his life, but this was blackmail. He felt as a cur dog would feel, used to rabbit poaching and petty theft but suddenly required to tackle a badger in a barrel.

Would Cyrus bite?

How could he bite to hurt? Alone on the reef with him there was no saying, but on board the yacht violence was out of the question. There were too many witnesses about—the sailors, the stewards, to say nothing of the canoemen who were always paddling round. There was no danger unless Cyrus went suddenly mad and drew a six-gun or used a knife, but that was absurd. He was sane and not the type of man to go wild; he didn't drink, by the look of him. No, the thing was safe.

And yet Yakoff did not feel happy.

In fact, he felt so unhappy that he determined to pull another man into the job to help him.

It was too big for one man.

He got off the bed, poured himself out a gin. Then he started out to find Chales.

Chales did not live in the village; he lived beyond the canoe beach in a house at the end of the second line of palms. He was married to a native woman and he was a fixture, not one of the floating population that came and went with the pearling seasons.

He was a small, sun-dried, quiet man, gone native; content to live on fish and bananas, and all he seemed to demand of life was native food, a wife to do the little work that was to be done, and an occasional drunk. He often. went fishing—he liked fishing, but he did no pearling. For one thing, he was too lazy to dive, for another, not being a native born, he was debarred from it.

He did jobs for Yakoff in return for gin. Yakoff, like many another scoundrel, had defects of vision as regards the character of other men. Chales had always seemed to him a “poor fish,” a man ready and fit for any dirty job, but a man with no backbone or bite about him. A gin soaker and without initiative.

He felt safe in pulling Chales into this business. He wanted help; it was too big and dangerous a burden for one man to carry. Chales would come off with him in the canoe when the hour had struck for the tackling of Cyrus. Without coming on board, even he could render moral if not material support. Chales need not be told too much, and at worst he could always be silenced.

This last sinister thought slipped into Yakoff's mind and out again as he crossed from the village to the canoe beach and on to the palm grove beyond which lay Chales' house.

The native wife was at home, but Chales was fishing. Not in the lagoon where the fish just then were unfit for food, but beyond the reef. He would not be back till evening.

“Tell him,” said Yakoff, “that I wish to see him on a matter that will not wait. Let him come to me directly on his return.”

“I will tell him,” replied the woman.