King o' the Beach Part 34

Black Jack darted to his side, with eyes flas.h.i.+ng and nostrils distended.

"Boat," said the man, abruptly.

Black Jack shouted something incomprehensible, and three of the black fellows bounded to the side and disappeared into the whale-boat with their leader.

"Now then," said the beachcomber, "you stop aboard, cookey, and get something ready for dinner. Hi, Black Jack. Fish. Tell 'em."

"Tell boys kedgee fis'?"

The beachcomber nodded, and the black shouted again, with the result that six more of the blacks came running to the side and dropped over into the canoe.

"Hi, Jack, tell the others, if cookey here--"

"Dis cookey?" asked the black, touching Carey on the head.

"No, stupid. That one."

"Iss. Dat cookey," and he nodded and grinned at Bostock.

"Tell 'em if cookey tries to get away, mumkull."

"Iss. Mumkull," and the black darted forward, to return with the remaining ten, all grinning, to seat themselves in a row, spear in hand, upon the starboard bulwarks, staring hard at Bostock, who tried to appear perfectly calm and composed; but his face twitched a little.

"They'd better not try to mumkull me," he whispered to Carey. "Two can play at that game. But what's he going to do?"

"Now then," cried the beachcomber, "into the boat with you. I'm going to have those casks tapped and see what the stuff's like. Hi! Jack, take some buckets in the boat."

The black darted about and secured three buckets, which he tossed over the side into the boat.

"Now then, down with you," growled the beachcomber, and Carey and the doctor had to go, leaving Bostock with his eyes far more wide open than usual.

"I wish the doctor would talk to me," said Carey to himself as he took his seat in the well-formed whale-boat, which he rightly supposed must have come ash.o.r.e somewhere on this ocean king's dominions. "He is so horribly quiet."

Then the boy looked at Black Jack and his three companions, who as soon as their ruler was in his place, gun in hand, thrust out their oars and began rowing with the skill and jerk of men-o'-war's men.

A minute later he was watching the outrigger canoe being paddled along quickly, its occupants trailing mother-o'-pearl baits behind, and soon after he saw them hook and drag in a fish.

Then Carey turned to gaze at the sh.o.r.e they were approaching with a bitter feeling of resentment arising as he thought of all their labour in the hot suns.h.i.+ne, collecting and piling up the great pearl sh.e.l.ls, and more bitterly still as he dwelt upon the tubs of liquid and liquefying oysters which would, he did not doubt, now have quite a thick deposit of pearls at their bottoms.

"Oh, it does seem so hard for that ruffian to get them!" he said to himself, and he sat there with his teeth set, gazing straight before him, till he caught Black Jack's eyes twinkling laughingly at him as that individual shone like a well-polished pair of boots, and glistened in the sun, while he l.u.s.tily pulled stroke.

As soon as he caught Carey's eye he laughed loudly, and in the most perfectly good-humoured way, as if they were the very best of friends, and when the beachcomber was looking another way he raised one hand to go through the pantomime of licking treacle off his fingers and rubbing his front, to the delight of his toiling companions.

It did Carey good, and he smiled back, and nodded.

"I don't believe they'd hurt me," he said to himself. "They're just like a lot of schoolboys, only so much uglier."

The beachcomber made a movement, and the blacks' faces were in a flash like so much carved ebony, and they rowed on, choosing as if from old habit the way into the ca.n.a.l-like pa.s.sage among the rocks, and leaping out at the home-made wharf. Here they held the boat steady in a regular naval style, while their chief and his companions stepped out, the former using the black backs for support, for big and strong as he was his obese state made him far from active.

"That's the way I taught 'em," he said, with a grim smile at Carey, who nodded back, said nothing, but thought very deeply, his fancies taking the direction of wondering whether the wretched tyrant would ever go too far with his followers, and they would kill and eat him.

His thoughts took a fresh current directly, for the subject of them shouted the one word, "Buckets!" and after making the boat fast the crew came running with the buckets to where the beachcomber was now standing examining the first tub, which happened to be the last filled, and he growled, moved to the next, and then on and on to the last.

"Here you are, Jack; this first."

The black fellow nodded, looked in the tub, and then as if quite at home at the work, picked up the great bamboo lying ready for the purpose and set two of his followers to give all the other tubs a good stir-up, the result being a most horrible odour of such extent that, but for the breeze blowing and their getting on the windward side, it would have been unbearable.

But it had not the slightest effect upon the beachcomber, who stood looking on while Black Jack and a companion heaved together and tried to overturn the oldest tub, but without result.

A yell to the other two brought them up, and with their aid the tub of malodorous thick water was gradually overturned, and the foul water poured off, to sink at once into the thirsty sand.

"Hold hard," cried the beachcomber, when the bottom was nearly reached.

"Water."

Three black fellows ran off with a bucket each and returned to Jack, who poured one in and gave it a swirl round, handed the bucket to be refilled, allowed the contents of the tub to settle, and then began to pour out the top very gently.

Carey was so intensely interested that for the time being he forgot his painful position.

"I say," he cried, "these black chaps have done this sort of thing before."

"Hundreds of times," growled their chief, and then he was silent, while even the doctor began to feel that his eagerness to see the contents of the tub was mastering his misery and disappointment that the pearls should fall into such hands.

So they watched till half a dozen buckets had been severally poured in and emptied out, and then there was a hoa.r.s.e chuckle from the beachcomber.

"I'll forgive yer," he growled. "You aren't done so badly for me.

That's a nice take o' pearls, and there's some fine big uns among 'em.

Up higher, Jack, and let the sun dry them a bit. Next one."

The tub was tilted so that the last drops of water could run out while the next was being emptied.

Carey's eyes met the doctor's, and the boy ground his teeth softly as he gazed in at the soft l.u.s.trous pearls drying rapidly from the heat of the air.

There they lay along the side of the great cask, seed pearls, pearls of fair size, and here and there great almond-shaped ones, while fewest of all were the softly rounded perfectly shaped gems, running from the size of goodly peas to here and there that of small marbles, l.u.s.trous, soft, and of that delicate creamy tint that made them appear like solidified drops of molten moonlight, fallen to earth in the silence of some tropical night.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned away to watch the emptying of the next tub, which ended with even better result than the first.

"Bucket," said the beachcomber, when this second watering had come to an end, and Jack, who knew what was expected of him, took a bunch of gra.s.s to make a brush, crept into the first tub, and while one of his fellows held the bucket ready, the pearls, worth scores, perhaps hundred of pounds, were swept into it.

The next tub was served the same, and then after the other tubs had had a final stir the beachcomber cried abruptly:

"On board. That's enough for to-day. I'm dying for a drink."

"Oh," muttered Carey to himself, "I wish I could stop you drinking."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

The party which had been out with the canoe reached the vessel with a goodly supply of beautiful fish just at the same time as the whale-boat with the treasured-up pearls, over which Mallam had sat chuckling all the way back, pointing out to Carey the beauties of the large ones, and glancing furtively the while at the doctor in his delight over that gentleman's discomfiture.