The Pearl Fishers

The little boat, moving gently to the vast and tremorless heaving of the sea, seemed abandoned in that world where nothing moved save the swell, and, far away, a frigate bird dr...

About an hour before noon Floyd, relinquishing the tiller, stood up and, supporting himself by the mast, looked around. Then, sheltering his eyes with his hand, he fixed his gaz...

When the great lagoon 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 swell of the outside sea...

Schumer had seemed to him at first a simple trader bound up in trade, one of a class that swarms in the Pacific. Bound up in trade he undoubtedly was, but there was all the diff...

There was condensed milk for the coffee, ship's bread and salt pork fried over the fire. Isbel had collected some plantains; they went into the frying pan to help the pork. She...

"You can't get pearls from oysters till the oysters are rotten," said Schumer next morning, as they sat after breakfast consulting on the day's work. "Of course, you could take...

The next morning they started for the oyster ground. There had been strong winds blowing for the last week and big seas tumbling along the reef, the spray finding the oysters th...

They seemed quarreling all along the western side of the reef. The voice of the gulls was one of the familiar sounds of the island, but not after dark. To-night they were clamor...

"If we had hands enough," said Schumer, "all that stuff might come in useful to build a house with, or some sort of shanty that would give more protection than the tent. We'll w...

They started for the fishing ground next morning immediately after breakfast, and set to work at once. They had bad luck for the first hour, and then, as if popped into their ha...

A murmur went up from the crowd, the sort of murmur that would have followed the exhibition of a conjuring trick, while Schumer, taking his man by the arm, led him apart from th...

During it all Floyd had kept his eyes turned away. When the men had come running aft with the halyard line they had knocked against him, making him shift his position, and now,...

It would be impossible to bring home to your mind, unless you had experienced it, the vast change which the presence of the _Southern Cross_ made in the picture of the lagoon. N...

Joe proved himself an invaluable worker, with initiative enough to oversee the others, so that both Schumer and Floyd could leave him and give their attention to the fishery and...

One evening, a fortnight later, Schumer, who had just come back from the fishing camp, found Floyd seated on the sand near the house and engaged in mending some tackle. He took...

They got the water on board next day, and the day following they were up before dawn to catch the slack of the tide which was due an hour after sunrise. It would then be still w...

Schumer had left him two boats, the dinghy and the boat of the _Cormorant_. They were both on the beach, and as the dinghy was the easiest to launch single-handed, he used it an...

He went to the seaward side of the reef; the breakers were falling and the gulls flying, but there was no sign of Isbel. She had vanished as completely as though she had never b...

Timau made a good recovery. In a couple of days he was hobbling about with the aid of a stick, and in a week, but for the bandage on his foot and leg, he seemed a well man.

He asked Sru where she was, and Sru cast his yellow-whited eyes about as if in search of her. He opined she might be somewhere in the grove that lay to the right of the camping...

That night he made her sleep in the house, while he took his place outside. He arranged to call her when half the night was over, so that she might keep watch while he slept, an...

Floyd remained at the lookout post while Isbel, returning to the house, put everything in order and gave a last touch to the defenses and a last look around. Then she returned a...

Even as she spoke the words, and as though in answer to the question he had asked, a faint smell of burning filled the air of the room, and through one of the chinks, like a lit...

The mutineers had destroyed nothing. All the shell that had been taken since the beginning of the work was intact, and the oysters that lay awaiting search when the revolt broke...

"Hakluyt is well pleased with the work here," said he. "He thinks the prospects even better than I made them out to him, and now he wants to go back."

All that morning and all that day Schumer kept the hands busy at work bringing the shell across the lagoon and storing it aboard the _Southern Cross_. Some of it was rafted over...

Hakluyt, despite his appearance, was a very efficient schooner captain, and as day followed day, Floyd's respect for him as a sailor rose more and more. As a man, he disliked hi...

Floyd was not in a temper to take them, and indicated as much. Then they fell to discussing stores and the sailing of the _Southern Cross_. The stores were all on board, and the...

"I can't make it out," said Floyd; "I've said good-by to him, and I'm to start to-morrow morning at sunup, and not a word did he say about Luckman or anyone else, not a hint tha...

Cardon got into the upper bunk at about eleven o'clock and went promptly to sleep. As for Floyd, he could neither sleep nor lie still. During his stay in Sydney, he had been res...

Next morning early, Floyd was on deck and aloft with a glass. He knew it was impossible, at their rate of sailing, that the island could show up before noon. They might not even...