The Popular Magazine/Volume 45/Number 5/The Bay of Pearls

APTAIN GADGETT came out of the Paris House with Bobby Tillman. The captain was a big man, broad of beam, slow of speech, and with a fixity of eye that spoke less of high intelligence than steadfastness of purpose. He stood for a moment watching Sydney passing by, then he took a red bandanna handkerchief from his pocket, and, removing his hat, wiped his forehead.

“Well, that's settled and done with,” said the captain.

He referred to the engagement just entered into with Tillman over a glass of gin and tonic water in the Paris House, an engagement to help in working Tillman's schooner, the Gleam, on a pearling venture to be conducted on grounds known to Tillman and lying close to Cape York, on terms of fifty dollars a month and ten per cent of the catch.

Tillman, whose father had been a wealthy ship's chandler of Sydney, was just then dissipating the last of his patrimony, or rather of his loose cash, for five hundred pounds a year had been tied up to him so tightly by a father with a fine knowledge of Sydney and its ways that his capital was, literally, secure for life.

He was a joyous and youthful-looking individual, with a hand on every one's shoulder. This gentleman, who is still remembered as partner with a certain Captain Hull in one of the most successful treasure-salving expeditions ever undertaken was, despite his horse-racing and money-spending propensities, no idler and looker-on at life. Bobby, to use the expression of his friends, was always “on the make.” Anything with excitement in it and a chance of money found him ready. With a flower in his coat, his straw hat on the back of his head, and his elbow on a bar counter, you never would have reckoned him as a man of imagination and resource, yet he was both resourceful and imaginative, dowered with that lust of the mind for adventure which distinguished the old Elizabethans and which they have handed down to us undamaged.

Martin Telfer had come to him a fortnight ago with a suggestion.

Telfer was a waterside character, a lean man, used to the sea and more used to all the shady ways of ports, more especially of the port of Sydney.

Nobody would have given more than a dollar for the clothes this gentleman stood in, yet it was darkly hinted that Telfer had money from all sorts of crooked dealings hid away somewhere, and a wife in San Francisco who ran a joint out of which he received the profits.

Telfer possessed a boat, and he had often taken Tillman out fishing for trevally, and one day, a fortnight before, taking advantage of their acquaintanceship, he had come to Tillman with his proposition. He was a free-speaking man with every one, and said he:

“Whats er use in your hummin' round Sydney with all them race sharks and sich? There's money to be made better'n that. I tell you, them race sharks is rotten; backin' horses is no game except for the bookies. Now if you have any money to burn, put it into a sure thing with some life in it. I can put you on. See here, I've got the location of a pearlin' bay south of Cape York, a bay that hasn't been used nor skinned. You and me, with some blacks to do the divin', and maybe another white man to help work the boat, might do a good stroke up there.”

Tillman became interested at once.

“Where did you get the news of the bay from?” asked he.

“You never mind,” replied the other. “I got it safe enough. All we want is a boat, and I know of one to be had cheap, some grub, a crew, and another chap to help us. I'm game to go on half profits, and I'll stand for half the grub. I'll put that much money in it.”

“There's something in it,” said Tillman. “Pearling is all right if you get a good pitch. I was reading somewhere the other day that a good diver will fish up seven ton of shell in a season.”

“You was readin',” said Telfer. “Some tinhorn was stringin' you. There isn't a diver will bring up more than one ton of shell, if that. Fifteen or twenty pairs of shell is a good day's take for one man. There's no use in gettin' away with things. It's not the shell, besides; it's the pearls. Pearls is a venture; you might pick up a ton of shell and get fifty dollars' worth of pearls, or you might get fifty thousan'. Get me? It's a venture. Just like gold minin'.”

Tillman understood, and it was the venture that appealed to him and held him, so that, meeting Captain Gadgett, a captain without a ship, as captains sometimes are, he found himself enlarging on Telfer's proposition with an enthusiasm that almost surprised himself.

Gadgett, hard up, with a stained certificate and no prospect but the fo'c's'le before him, fell in with the idea. The pair had come to an agreement, and they were off now to inspect the Gleam, which Tillman had all but agreed to purchase for the expedition.

They- came down to the waterside, where Telfer was waiting, by arrangement, for Tillman. He was introduced to Gadgett, and they rowed off to inspect the prospective purchase, which was lying a little way out.

The Gleam was a fifty-foot schooner of forty-eight tons, an old pearling boat, broad-beamed, and with nothing gleaming about her with the exception of her name.

“She's not a beauty,” said Telfer, as they stood on her deck, Gadgett inspecting the spars with his nose uplifted like a sniffing dog.

“No, she ain't,” replied Gadgett; “there's no truer word than that.”

“But she's sound enough,” went on the other; “you couldn't break her, not on a reef. Her sticks are sound; not an inch of dry rot anywhere. I've examined them. There's many a likely looking boat rotten from truck to garboard strake on the market, painted and gayed up to look like new; the old Gleam's not that.”

Gadgett, without replying, put his head down the hatch and sniffed at the kerosene-oil-scented cabin. Then he went down the companionway and vanished:

They heard him poking about below.

“One might think that chap a passenger bookin' on a swell liner,” said Telfer, “instead of a chap that's broke and out of a job. I know him, though I didn't pretend to. There's not an owner would touch him except on a sinkin' job—and he's too well known for that.”

“Oh, he's all right,” said Tillman; “he says himself it's nothing but the booze that ails him, and he won't get any chance of that. If we were to start hunting for plaster saints, we'd be stuck here a year. Every man has his failing.”

The man with a failing appeared now, hoisting himself through the hatch opening and knocking the dust off his knees.

“I reckon she'll do,” said he, “but it'll be a fight for life with them cockroaches. Fumigation is what she wants.”

“I'll see to the cockroaches,” said Tillman. “Well, that's settled. I'll take her, and we'll begin getting the stores on to-morrow and looking after the crew.”

“I'll see to them,” said Telfer. “You leave that to me. I'll do the provisioning, too; save you half your money and won't charge no commission.”

They rowed ashore, sealed the bargain with drinks, and ten days later, one bright morning, with Telfer at the helm and Gadgett working the crew, the old Gleam picked her anchor out of Sydney mud and spread her frowsty sails to a wind blowing straight for the Heads.

They had fair weather and favorable winds till they reached the latitude of Port Macquarie, when a calm held them for two days, only to release them for head winds to play with so that the crawl to the latitude of Great Sandy Island was a slow one.

Here, however, the gods smiled upon them. Blue seas held them and following winds favored them till one morning, in a dawn tinted like the lips of a haliotis shell, Telfer, on the lookout, cried:

“That's her; that's the bay. Mark that there reef with the hump at the end of it; it's a deep-water passage by the hump. I reckon we'd better tow her in when we get her in closer. Mind your steerin', you black swab! Here, gimme the wheel!”

He pushed the black fellow at the helm aside and took the wheel, and Tillman put his head down the hatch and yelled for Gadgett, who came on deck attired in a wonderful yellow suit of pajamas with red stripes.

All to starboard lay a sea of gold, all to port a vast meadow of ruffled azure in which the darkness of night seemed still to linger; the foam on the reef showed to the sun, and a great white gull, passing shoreward, was the only sign of life in all that desolate scene.

The Gleam, turning her stern to the sunrise, drew in till, on the order of Telfer, the halyards were let go, the sails stowed away, and the boat lowered for towing.

It took them an hour before she was through the reef opening, and as the anchor fell in shallow water, Telfer, who had remained on board, shouted to the others in the boat:

“Its a shell bottom sure enough. This is the place. Hump yourselves an' get aboard so's we may get on to the work.”

At breakfast, half an hour later, he was in great feather.

“Its the only pearlin' bay on this coast,” said he, “and it's known to none but us and the chap who let out the location to me. Y'see, the warm water from Torres Straits sweeps right roun' here; at least I expect's that's the reason. My hat! They set up a shoutin' you could hear from Sydney to Brisbane when pearls were found at Port Darwin. Wonder what they'd say if they knew of this traverse.”

“Well, we haven't touched the shell yet,” said Gadgett.

“You wait,” said Telfer.

The Gleam had two boats, and at half past seven they put out, Telfer in command of one and Gadgett of the other.

Telfer was not wrong. The first black fellow to go down—Jupiter was the name he went by—brought up at his second dive a tremendous pair of shells, true pearl oyster and of the second best kind—golden tipped.

In ten minutes the water was dotted with bobbing black heads, and the shells were coming in, being flung into the boat, while the divers hung on to the gunnels between dives to rest and to take breath.

Tillman, who was in Gadgett's boat, looked on at the work, charmed and surprised at the apparent easiness and swiftness of the whole business. Here was a going concern started right off, an hour and a half after dropping anchor, pearl oysters being picked up as people pick mushrooms and no one to let or hinder, and nothing to pay with the exception of the pearling license. He forgot the expenses of the Gleam, the dangers of the voyage, everything but the fascination of the business before him.

Pearl oysters are found right down to fifty fathoms. Here the depth ran only from five to eight fathoms, the water was clear and warm, and the work was easy, or rather comparatively easy.

Four of the crew of the Gleam had been on this business before as divers; the rest of the party, with the exception of Telfer, were new to it and required coaching. Even the old hands this first morning were not in full working trim, their lungs, eyes, and ears not being fully salted to the work.

When working in excessive depths earache is the greatest enemy of the pearl diver. After the first day or two the diver all at once has a bursting sensation in the ears, something seems to break, and from that moment the earache vanishes. But in these shallow depths the men worked untroubled even by the fear of sharks, and when work was knocked off that evening three hundred and twelve pairs of shells was the result of the day's work.

They were placed on deck in a heap, and after supper they were handled by the whole crew under the light of a full moon heaving up over the reef. Every oyster was cleaned and scraped on the outside, and then they were stacked in a huge heap for opening on the morrow.

Next morning after daybreak the crew were sent off to do the diving under the presidency of Jupiter, and the three white men, with a black boy to help, attacked the pile of shells.

Opening a pearl oyster is a delicate business; injury to the shell and to any possible pearl inside it has to be avoided, but the invaluable Telfer was able to direct them. They were large shell, averaging eight hundred or a thousand to the ton, and Telfer and Gadgett, who proved the handiest at the business, opened them and passed them on to Tillman and the black boy.

But before they were passed the openers searched each oyster in case of a large free pearl being there. It was Tillman's duty to hunt for seed pearls and to explore the body of the oyster thoroughly in the hope of finding a pearl embedded in it.

He started on this work with enthusiasm, but after an hour or so this fit passed. Of all the cold and disagreeable businesses in the world hunting for seed pearls is perhaps the worst.

Telfer and Gadgett were absorbed, the gambling instinct was aroused in each of them, and they worked without talking, opening the shells, feeling the bodies of the oysters, moving their fingers under the mantels, and then passing the shells on to Tillman and the boy for further search. Tillman found a good many seed pearls, but nothing of any size.

That find was reserved for Gadgett, who, at the end of an hour and a half, running his thumb under the mantel of a newly opened oyster, gave a sudden jump, as though some one had run an awl into him through the deck planking, at the same moment a pearl hopped into his hand like a pea from a pod.

It was smaller than a pea, but of perfect color, and absolutely spherical—a valuable find. So valuable that work was knocked off while they smoked and discussed it, passing it from hand to hand.

“What is it worth?” asked Tillman. :

“Maybe two hundred dollars,” replied Telfer. “Maybe a bit more or less; it depends where you market it. It's not big, but it's the shape and color makes the price.”

They had a tin box full of cotton wool ready for the takings, and they put the pearl in and went on with the work.

It had been arranged that Tillman should act as honorary treasurer, he being financier of the expedition, and that night the treasury, when he put it away in his locker, contained three pearls—the perfect one and two others, one a baroque worth maybe twenty-five dollars, the other a black pearl fairly large, but of irregular shape, worth, Telfer considered, fifty dollars or maybe a bit less.

Tillman was in high feather. He reckoned that twenty-five dollars a day would soon make them rich men. Telfer was not so jubilant; he did not consider that the luck would hold like that. He was right. For the next seven days not an oyster showed a pearl bigger than a seed. Then, as is the way with pearling, the luck changed, and the following week brought them in a catch reckoned by Telfer as worth fifteen hundred dollars. There was one great point about this bay: The white pearls, however irregular in size, were splendid in quality—that is to say, in purity of color, luster, and translucency, or rather the power of returning some light from the layers immediately below the surface. Another fact, though this is common to all grounds, the size of the oyster had nothing to do with the size of the pearl.

This was startlingly proved at the end of the first six weeks. It was after a run of bad luck that had lasted for some days, and Gadgett, seated on the deck, was engaged in opening quite a small oyster. He was abusing luck when, the shells coming apart, he saw under the mantel something like a big bubble. In a moment it was in his dirty palm, a loose white pearl, absolutely spherical, perfect in color, and weighing over a hundred grains.

Tillman and Telfer were so astonished that for a moment they said nothing; the contrast between the grimy palm of Gadgett and the purity and loveliness of the thing that lay in it struck Tillman like a touch of the uncanny.

The thing was passed from hand to hand, weighed and discussed; but there was a curious reservation in their words, an absence of jubilation accounted for by the fact that each man was facing a problem that had suddenly confronted all of them.

Gadgett had found the pearl, but he had signed on for only ten per cent of the takings and a salary.

Of course he had found the thing only in the execution of his duty. Still, he had found it.

He intimated the fact frankly.

“Look here,” said he, “where do I come in?”

“What d'you mean?” asked Telfer.

“Well, I found the thing; how about my share in it?”

“You signed on for ten per cent,” said Telfer. “What more do you expect? It's only part of the takings. I might have found it just as easy as you, or Tillman might have found it.”

Tillman cut in.

“How much is it worth?” asked he of Telfer.

“Ten thousand dollars,” said Telfer, “or maybe more. It's worth all that.”

“Well,” said Tillman, “let's leave the thing over till we get back to Sydney. I'll see you don't lose by it, Gadgett. It's true you signed on only for ten per cent, but this is no—shipping office; we are all partners in a way, and you found the thing. I'll work the thing out in my head, and I promise you won't grumble at your pull.”

Telfer seemed about to dissent; then all at once he acquiesced.

“Maybe you are right,” said he. “I don't want to be no dog in a manger; what's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. I don't want to wrong no man out of his dues. Leave it over till we get to Sydney, and let's push on with the work.”

Gadgett agreed. They put the pearl away with the others and went on with the work.

But the finding of the big pearl seemed to have exhausted the luck of the bay, for during the next fortnight the catch proved extraordinarily poor, and so it went on with a few lucky finds till at the end of two and a half months they reckoned their takings at roughly twenty-five hundred dollars, exclusive of the big pearl. This was the sum, as set out by Tillman:

Against that had to be set the purchase of the Gleam, bought for twenty-five hundred dollars, and which could be sold again, Tillman reckoned, for the same amount, the pearling license, provisions, and pay of the crew.

With the big pearl the venture would prove profitable to each man; without it the takings would have proved scarcely worth the trouble and danger.

Just that one lucky find had made the business a success, and in that fact lies the whole business of pearling as conducted in these waters and with a limited supply of labor.

The little bay was now fairly skinned, and one bright morning, ten weeks and a day after dropping anchor, the windlass was manned and the Gleam towed out from the bay.

Outside, the sails were set and a course laid for Brisbane, where they had settled to call and pick up fresh provisions for the homeward run.

One morning, two days out from the bay, Tillman came bursting on deck, where Gadgett and Telfer were smoking and yarning. A light, favorable wind was blowing, and the sea was flat calm but for a vague, underrunning swell.

Tillman's face was a picture.

“The pearl's gone!” cried he.

“What's that you say?” cried Gadgett.

“Gone! The big pearl's gone! It's not in the box with the others; some one has taken it.”

They all went down below.

Tillman showed the box; everything was there but the pearl of price. They took the cotton wool out carefully and examined. it; they hunted about the cabin, in the lockers, on the floor. Then they sat down to hold a consultation.

“Its either one of us three,” said Gadgett, “which ain't likely, or it's one of the blacks. Jim is the only one that comes here; let's have him in.”

Jim was called below and cross-questioned. He knew nothing. It was quite evident to them, from his manner and their knowledge of the aborigines, that he was speaking the truth. Then they searched him for form's sake, even to his wool. They found nothing.

That was the beginning of the business. Every one of the crew was searched in turn. The fo'c's'le was turned out, the galley, every pot, pan, and pannikin was inspected, every hole and corner explored.

The fine weather held fortunately, for if a squall had struck the schooner in the disordered condition of the after guard no man knows what might have happened.

The search lasted on and off for three days, and then one morning a luminous idea struck Telfer.

“Look here,” said he, “we've hunted everywhere. There's one more thing to be done; we've got to search ourselves. No offense. I'm willin' to strip; how about you?”

Gadgett flew into a temper.

“D'you mean to suspect me?” said he.

“I'm not suspectin' no one,” replied the lean man. “I say we've searched the blacks, we've turned the ship inside out, and to complete the bizziness we've got to search ourselves. Where's your objection? I ain't objectin'.”

“He's right,” said Tillman. “Each of us three is under suspicion. There's no doubt about that, and it's due to every one of us to be sure that the other two are all right. It's a question of ten thousand dollars. Come on. I'll start.”

Gadgett could say nothing to this, and they went below, where Tillman began the business by divesting himself of every article of clothing.

In half an hour it was demonstrated that wherever the pearl might be it was not on the person of either of the three adventurers.

The thing had vanished, and, though the search was never entirely given up, when they reached Brisbane the fact still remained. Here they watered and took in more provisions, starting ten days after their arrival with a fair wind for Sydney.

It was not a happy ship. Distrust was everywhere, in the fo'c's'le no less than in the cabin.

The thing had been stolen; there could be no doubt at all of that or of the fact that some one of them was the thief.

Tillman was the most aggrieved party. He had put the money into the adventure. He was vaguely conscious now of the fact that the Gleam, put to auction, would not return him his twenty-five hundred, and there were few private buyers likely to bid for the old tub. She was a good boat, but your buyer, not in a hurry, and unstimulated by fantastic dreams of a fortune to be made out of pearling, would pick a hundred holes in her canvas and find a hundred objections in the general neglect that spoke loud in paintwork, spars, and standing and running rigging.

Telfer had been the tempter in the business. Only for Telfer's urgent representations and subtle suggestions he would never have gone into the venture.

After everything was paid and settled, and supposing he only got fifteen hundred for the Gleam, which was quite possible, he stood to lose money over the business.

He said all this the day they anchored in Sydney harbor, and Telfer, to whom he addressed all his remarks, flew into a temper.

“That's as bad as to say I chowsed you,” said he. “I'm not a man without a repitation to lose, and I won't listen to that talk. I tell you she's worth three thousand dollars—six hundred British pounds—any day. I know a man was able and willin' to give twenty-five hundred dollars for her, and is still. Don't you go round the town sayin' Martin Telfer has put you up to lose money, for he hasn't. I'll get you twenty-five hundred for her in a wink soon as ever we've divided up the profits.”

“Who's your man?” asked Tillman, with a sneer.

“Never you mind. I'll bring him aboard when all's settled and done, and I'll guarantee you your twenty-five hundred. I'm no poor man myself, you mark that, but I'm not goin' to have no one goin' about Sydney sayin' I chowsed him. I told you when you bought the boat she were worth twenty-five, hundred and more. Well, you'll see.”

When the port arrangements were finished they went down to the cabin to arrange about the shares and profits.

On a rough calculation the takings were under twenty-five hundred; on an equally rough calculation Tillman and Telfer's shares, after Gadgett's money was deducted and the crew paid off and the provisions settled for, would not amount to more than five hundred dollars apiece.

When next day they sold shell and pearls to a dealer they found they had overshot the mark, and that the actual sum to be divided between Tillman and Telfer was only seven hundred dollars—three hundred and fifty dollars apiece.

But Tillman was recompensed by the fact that Telfer made good his word, introducing him to a gentleman named Alonzo Perirez, who, after extraordinary haggling, took over the Gleam for twenty-two hundred dollars, cash down.

Perirez also took the remains of the provisions at a hundred dollars, that sum being divided between Tillman and Telfer.

When the money passed hands, and when Gadgett was paid his bit, the three adventurers shook hands and parted, Tillman going off to the Paris House to meet friends and tell of his “lucky stroke,” Gadgett making for the nearest saloon, and Telfer returning to the waterside with Perirez.

Perirez was a bearded gentleman with a skin like old parchment and an eternal cigarette between his lips.

He was really a partner of Telfer's, and when he got the word to pay twenty-five hundred for the Gleam he had gone into the business absolutely certain that everything was all right. He knew that the Gleam was not worth more than fifteen hundred, but he had absolute trust in the rascality of his partner.

“Well,” said he, when they had reached the waterside, “what is it?”

“Wait till we are aboard,” said Telfer, with a chuckle.

They rowed off.

The dealer had finished unloading the cargo, and the schooner was deserted except by the old shellback they had put on board as caretaker.

The cabin hatch was fastened. Telfer opened it, and they went below. They could hear the sea gulls crying through the half-open skylight as they took their seats, while Telfer proceeded to unfold a piece of the blackest rascality that ever had disgraced a user of the sea.

He told of the expedition and of the finding of the pearl. He described it so that the eyes of his listener glistened.

“Tillman, he put it in the box with the others,” said he. “I nicked it and hid it. They searched the very wool of the niggers, they searched the whole blessed ship; we turned out our pockets, we stripped. I tell you, if that thing had been anywhere to be found they'd 'a' found it.”

“Where did you put it?” asked the other, blowing smoke through his nose and gloating on his partner.

“I always had a far eye for things,” said Telfer, going to the lazaret and opening it. “I planned all this out from the first in case of comin' across any big pearl. D'you remember when I ordered the stores from you I got a jar of water and told you to mark it 'olive oil?' Well, look!”

He fished out the jar.

“It's in this,” said he. “They never had ideas enough in their heads to think of it. Look!”

He drew the cork, clapped his hand over the opening, and inverted the jar. A gush of yellow liquid came as he withdrew his hand, holding in its palm a thing like a boiled cod's eye.

“Its vinegar—you blazing idiot!” cried Perirez.

The smell told that—and the pearl. The once lovely pearl, corroded and eaten away, and worth now not one brass farthing.

In the scene that ensued Telfer drove home with his tongue into the head of Perirez the fact that the latter's storekeeper had served the Gleam with a jar of vinegar instead of a jar marked “olive oil” and filled with water.

Also that they had paid twenty-five hundred dollars for the Gleam, and stood to lose a thousand just for the sake of making absolutely sure of obtaining possession of a thing that was worthless.

Perirez tried to argue the point, but Telfer had him at once.

“Them two would never have let me take more than my own belongin's off the ship,” said he, “unless she'd changed hands. It was gettin' his money back on her that made Tillman let up with his suspicions and watchfulness. You're outpointed. You've put us both in the soup, you and your fool man. Here, take your pearl and put it in your pocket and let's get off the hooker. Sick I feel.”

He looked it, and so did Perirez, sitting in the stern of the boat that rowed him ashore and counting up his losses.