Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/100

88 sorry you should ask me that; you are one of my best skippers, and if I have to double your pay to keep you, I am ready to do it.'

"'You are very kind,' I replied, 'but, look you, I am Breton by race, with a strain of Dutchman thrown in; when a thing once gets into my head, it sticks there so tight I can't drive it out, even if I want to. I have got it into my head to fish for pearls, and fish for pearls I will, that and nothing else.'

"'Can you dive, anyway?'

"'Oh! I was born in Denmark, the land of seals,'

"'Well, let's see what you can do. '

"'Oh, if that's all,' said I, 'I will soon show you.'

"In a jiffy I had stripped naked, tied a ten-pound stone round my ankles, and taken a net in my left hand, as I had seen the other divers do. Nor did I forget to slip a good stout knife into my belt and tied my life-line in the place poor little Abel used to occupy. Then I said to myself, 'My word! if the Buchold is there, I cannot help it; we shall see what we shall see,' and sprang into the sea.

"The depth was about seven fathoms. I sank quickly to the bottom, then opened my eyes and looked about me. It was a terrible moment! But there was no Buchold, and there were pearl oysters in shovelfuls. I failed my net and pulled the line for them to haul me up. I had stayed, this first try, for ten seconds under water.

"I poured out the contents of my net at the great man's feet.

"'There,' said I, ' what do you say to that?'

"'I say that you are a handy diver; no doubt about it. You can make your fortune, and I have no right to hinder you.'

"His readiness to do what I wished made me feel a bit ashamed of myself. I compared his behaviour with my own, and recognised he was the better man.

"'However,' I told him, ' since you engaged me as skipper and not as diver, you have a right to ask more of me than of the others.'

"'No,' said he, ' we will settle it differently, I hope, to everybody's satisfaction. You are a good skipper, and a good diver; be skipper for me and diver for yourself. The divers are entitled to one-tenth of their take; as you are doing work for me, I will give you an eighth of yours; that is to say, you shall be skipper seven days and the eighth day diver. It is understood, of course, that all you take on the eighth day will be your own. Does that suit your book?'

"'I should just think it did.'

"'Well now, as the season is already begun some while ago, let's suppose our bargain was struck a week ago, and call to-morrow the eighth day.'

"There was nothing more to be said, except to thank him; so I took his hand and kissed it, which is the way they have of thanking people in that country.

"I awaited the morrow with impatience."

{{center|{{larger|CHAPTER X}}

{{center|{{smaller|NAHI-NAVA-NAHINA}}}}} {{fqm|"{{di|I}} HAD done quite right," went on Père Olifus after exchanging the schnapps for the rum. "The fishing proved excellent; during the six days I devoted myself to this employment, I collected pearls to the value of something like seven thousand francs, and I saw no sharks and no Buchold.

"The season came to an end. I thanked my Cingalese, offering him my services for the following year, and after turning my pearls into cash, I retired to Negombo, a charming little village lying amidst meadows and plantations of cinnamon trees. My intention was to utilise the whole space of time that must intervene between the two fishing seasons, by trading either in cinnamon wood or Indian shawls or precious stuffs. This was an easy matter, the population of Colombo, one of the capitals of the island and only a few leagues distant from Negombo, being still preponderatingly Dutch.

"I began by buying a house at Negombo. This was no very heavy expense; for three hundred francs I secured one of the prettiest in the place. It was a charming cottage built of bamboos bound together with cocoanut fibre; it had only one storey of three rooms, but three rooms was quite as many as I wanted. For a hundred and