The gulls1 were shouting and flying against the blaze of the sunrise, fleeting2 like snowflakes across the blue sky beyond the reef opening, and fishing at the pierheads.
When the great lagoon3 was emptying or filling to the tide, the water at the pierheads went like a mill race; at slack water it lay gently flowing to the swell4 of the outside sea as now.
Floyd came from under the tent, glanced round him, stretched himself, and then crossed the reef to the outer beach, where the breakers were coming in—the eternal breakers of the Pacific, leisurely5, monotonous6, rhythmical7, filling the air with their sound and spindrift, their ozone8 and life.
Nothing could be more extraordinary than the contrast between the inner beach and the outer beach of the island. You stood now facing a great lake, calm and colored with all the blues9 and greens of tropical water that varies in depth, and now, crossing the reef, you stood on the shore of a thunderous sea.
Floyd stripped himself of his clothes and went into[Pg 30] the surf. When he had bathed and dried himself in the sun, he returned to the camp, where he found Schumer lighting10 the fire and Isbel preparing breakfast. They greeted him and he fell to to help.
He felt for the moment gay; the brightness, the sense of early morning, the sea breeze and the crying gulls all raised his spirits to the highest pitch.
Even Schumer, older and unenthusiastic to everything but trade, seemed more cheerful than usual.
"We'll take the boat now," said he, when breakfast was finished, "and prospect11 the lagoon. We want to get soundings, anyhow, in case a ship should come and may 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 clear water from the spot where the hurricane took us to three hundred miles south, and we didn't run more than a hundred and fifty before we tripped over the reef.
"South of the three-hundred-mile limit there's a group of small islands, but they are not atolls. Now we're clear out of trade tracks and unknown, though you may be sure whalers have been here, for there's nowhere in the Pacific that whalers haven't pushed their noses, and whalers are useless to us. We don't want any blubber tanks showing their dirty hulls12 here; if they took us aboard they would drop us again at any decent port till after, maybe, a three years' cruise, and then they'd land us God knows where, crippled with work and tuppence in our pockets. No, sir, if any dirty whalers show their faces here they'll get bullets before they get us on board. Well, come on and help float the boat."
[Pg 31]They got the boat off, and in a few minutes were out in the lagoon, Isbel forward, Floyd at the sculls, and Schumer in the stern sheets.
"There's breeze enough for the sail," said Schumer, when they were a hundred yards or so out. "Shove the mast up, and we'll take it easy. I want to have a full look at the floor of this lagoon, and take my time over it."
Floyd took in the sculls, and, helped by Isbel, who seemed to have a good knowledge of boat craft, got the mast stepped. Then they shook the sail out, and the boat scarcely heeling to the gentle breeze, they made straight across the stretch of water between them and the northernmost beach.
The floor of the lagoon was not of equal depth; near the break in the reef it was thirty-fathom water, shoaling swiftly to ten and five. The whole western half of the lagoon was three fathoms13 and under. At several places in this shallow zone the coral floor rose sharply and nearly reached the surface. It was necessary, indeed, to unstep the mast and take to the sculls, while Isbel, leaning over the bow, conned14 them.
The water was so clear that the shadow of the boat showed hard on the sand patches; looking down, the eye was held by a thousand things beautiful and strange. Color dwells like a wizard in tropical and subtropical waters; it seems inherent in those seas. Shells, fish, and coral all are gorgeous, and more than gorgeous—exquisite. Here seem to lie the remnants of a world more beautiful than any world we know—the ruins of a paradise.
Coral alone presents to us a whole world of art; its colors and its forms are infinite, and the artists of Paris[Pg 32] or Tokyo make nothing more beautiful 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 Atlantic, but the Indian Ocean, from three-fathom water to a mile deep the construction of the beautiful is eternally in progress, unviewed and almost unknown.
Floyd, resting on his oars15 now and then, looked over into the luminous16 depths where flights of painted fish passed, their shadows following them over the sand patches and brain coral.
Here and there were streaks17 of dead and rotten coral of a seaweed brown, and here and there veritable gardens of color. Great shells moved about on the sand patches, crabs18 scurried19 hither and thither20, globe-shaped jellyfish passed clear as glass, showing up for the moment by reflected light, and then vanishing like ghosts. Schumer, his battered21 old panama tilted22 back to protect his neck from the sun, seemed absorbed in the things below; he spoke23 scarcely a word, unless to give direction to the rower; Isbel, heedless of the sun, was equally absorbed. Always on the lookout24 for the shoal water, she said nothing except to give the direction "To the right," "To the left," and on the heaving of a sudden rock up through the brilliant water, "Ah, stop hard!"
The whole of this western part of the lagoon was very difficult water; unless buoyed25 it would be utterly26 unnavigable by a ship even of small tonnage.
Schumer, having explored the northernmost part of this zone, gave directions to Floyd to pull farther south.
They had scarcely entered this area when Floyd's[Pg 33] attention became attracted to his companion. Schumer, leaning over the side and holding the thwart27 with his left hand, suddenly became rigid28. The muscles of his neck stood out stiff, and his hand seemed trying to crush the wood of the thwart.
Then he turned with a great cry:
"Shell! Acres of shell—pearls! We've struck it!" Floyd, as excited as Schumer, drew in his sculls and looked over.
Fortune wears many cloaks, but her ugliest is formed of oysters29. As far as Floyd could see, to right, to left, ahead, and astern, the floor of the lagoon was an oyster30 bed; all beauty of coral had vanished, and the water seemed deserted31 even by the colored fish that haunted the deeper parts of the lagoon.
"Row on," said Schumer; "let's see how far it stretches. It is the biggest find I ever expected to strike. I fancied there might be shell, I was on the lookout for shell, but it was only an idea of mine, and now it's here, a fortune right in our hands."
Floyd got out the sculls and the boat moved south.
Schumer was right when he had said "acres of shell." An hour's prospecting32 gave them the fact that the whole southern area of this the western portion of the lagoon was shell. There were three main beds with coral between, millions and millions of oysters, tons upon tons of shell, and no man could say the possibilities in the way of pearls.
When they had finished prospecting they beached the boat, and taking shelter from the sun under the shade of a little grove33 of artus and pura trees, set to on the provisions they had brought with them.
Right across the lagoon from where they sat they[Pg 34] could see their camping place and the tent, the wreck34, and the opening in the reef all in the blue weather, and beyond the opening in the reef a glimpse of the great Pacific and the fringe of pearl-white clouds on the horizon.
"Well," said Schumer, as they finished their meal, "the stuff is there right enough, and it only comes now to the question of lifting it. We have no labor35, or none to speak of. Of course, we'll dredge and dive so as to get as much samples 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 vessel36 is sure to happen along here and take us off; well, if it does we must keep mum. Our object will be to get to Frisco or Sydney, and there get hold of some chap with money and form a little syndicate. That'll water the profits considerable; he'll want half at least. But there you are—what's to be done?"
"Nothing," said Floyd; "we can't move without labor, and even that's no use without a ship. To rig an expedition up at Frisco or Sydney will cost a lot, and you may be sure any speculator who puts his money into the thing will want to gobble most of the profits."
"Before we'd let him into the know we'd make him sign a paper," said Schumer, "stating his acceptance of our terms, and then we'd make him keep his bond with a pistol to his head. I don't trust the law alone, but the law backed by a derringer makes a pretty good security."
As Schumer spoke, Floyd, who was watching his profile cut hard against the sky, noticed for the first time[Pg 35] the flatness of the cheek bones and the relationship between the nose and chin.
Schumer was a very quiet man in his speech and manner, yet there was about him an assured confidence speaking of great reserves of energy; and now for the first time, as though the thought of being robbed of his treasure had revealed it, there peeped out a new man; something of the bird of prey37 showed in that profile, something of the desperado found echo in his voice.
"Well," said Floyd, "there's no use in making plans till we have something to go on. Let's settle on our immediate38 business; we'll have to get oysters up and rot them in the sun to see if there's any show of 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 able to see our work. I propose we stick to our old camp by the wreck, and come here every day to work. We can leave Isbel on guard at the camp, and if she sights a ship she can light a fire to give us warning."
"That's sense," replied Schumer, who had become himself again. "We can rot the oysters on the weather side of the reef, and we'll set to work on the business to-morrow morning. Let's get back now to the 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 the produce. I guess I'd have written books if my lines had been cast in quiet waters. Trade has always kept me going, and here where there's palm trees and blue water enough trade turns up in oysters."
[Pg 36]His eyes were fixed39 across the lagoon on the palms near the wreck; the hawk-like look had vanished, and he murmured half to himself the verse of Scheffel:
"Zw?lf Palmen ragten am Meeresstrand
Um eine alte Cisterne."
It was "Dun Tode Nah" he was repeating, and Floyd, who did not know the verse, knew the language.
"You speak German?" said he.
"My father was a German," replied Schumer. "I speak four languages and half a dozen Polynesian dialects. One has to. Well, shall we get back? There is nothing more to be done here for the present."
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1
gulls
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| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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2
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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lagoon
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| n.泻湖，咸水湖 | |
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4
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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7
rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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8
ozone
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| n.臭氧，新鲜空气 | |
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9
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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10
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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12
hulls
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| 船体( hull的名词复数 )； 船身； 外壳； 豆荚 | |
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13
fathoms
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| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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14
conned
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| adj.被骗了v.指挥操舵( conn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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16
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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17
streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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18
crabs
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| n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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19
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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21
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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22
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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23
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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24
lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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25
buoyed
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| v.使浮起( buoy的过去式和过去分词 )；支持；为…设浮标；振奋…的精神 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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thwart
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| v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的) | |
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28
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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29
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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30
oyster
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| n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人 | |
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31
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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32
prospecting
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| n.探矿 | |
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33
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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34
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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35
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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36
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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37
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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38
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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39
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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