The breeze freshened with the disappearance of the sun beneath the
horizon, and the boat, under whole canvas and in the perfectly smooth
water of the canal-like channel, fairly flew along, careening almost
gunwale-to, with a merry buzzing of water at her sharp stem, as she
sheared through it with a sound like the rending of silk. In about an
hour and a half, favoured with a free wind, and a sufficiency of
starlight to enable us to see our way, we found ourselves once more
alongside the ship, tired with the fatigues of the day, but excited and
happy at the amazing good fortune that had befallen us. For the moment
we could neither think nor talk of anything but pearls; the precarious
situation of the ship and the consideration of what might happen to her
should a gale spring up were entirely lost sight of, and already
Saunders, if not Gurney and myself, was anxiously considering what he
should do with his wealth when he had conveyed it safely home. Grace
Hartley, woman-like, fairly gloated over the sight of the lovely gems
that we had brought back with us, and earnestly besought us that she
might be allowed to accompany us on our next visit to the oyster-bed, in
order that she might have the delight of securing a few with her own
hands; and after some demur we promised that she might do so on the
following day, by the end of which she would probably have had quite
enough of it; for decomposition of animal matter is speedy under a
tropical sun, and our experience even of a single day led us all to
conclude that another twenty-four hours would reduce the stranded
oysters to a condition sufficiently revolting to tax even male endurance
pretty severely.
The following morning found us all early astir, and the moment that
breakfast was over the boat was brought alongside and our provisions for
the day passed down into her. Then Gurney descended and assisted his
sweetheart down the side, Saunders following, and I bringing up the
rear. The boat's sails were set, and under whole canvas we pushed off
on our way to the oyster-bed; for the craving for wealth was upon us
all, and we felt that every moment spent otherwise than in gathering it
was so much wasted time.
The breeze was still blowing fresh, and, although for the greater part
of the distance the boat was jammed close upon a wind, we made excellent
time between the ship and our point of destination, arriving there after
a pleasant sail of less than two hours. But long before we arrived I
began to wish that I had thought of putting a gun into the boat; for
while we were still a good two miles from the oyster-bed we saw the
birds hovering over it in thousands, and I strongly suspected that upon
arrival we should find that those same birds had played havoc with our
previous day's work. And so we did; for when we reached the spot we
found our neatly arranged rows of oysters turned topsy-turvy by the
birds in their endeavours to get at the fish, while the odour that
emanated from the millions of dead bivalves was already powerful enough
to upset any but a strong stomach.
Although the birds had completely disarranged our labours of the
preceding day, they did not appear to have otherwise done any very
serious damage. It is true that every single oyster that we had laid
out so carefully had been attacked, dragged out of place, and the fish
extracted; but nearly a hundred pearls of value were found between the
otherwise empty shells, while a careful examination of the ground
revealed fully as many more, together with as much seed pearl as would
rather more than fill a half-pint measure. Grace Hartley accompanied us
from the boat to the oyster-bed, and remained long enough to actually
find for herself two very fine pearls; but that sufficed. She confessed
that the effluvium was altogether too powerful for her, and beat a hasty
retreat to the boat, where she spent the remainder of the day in
comparative comfort, only an occasional faint whiff of odour reaching
her there. As for us males, we had taken the precaution to bring along
with us a ship's bucket, which we filled with salt water upon leaving
the boat, and every pearl found, whether large or small, was dropped
into this as soon as found.
Our first task was to go very carefully over the ground upon which we
had laid out our oysters on the previous day, retrieving the pearls that
had been thrown out of the shells by the birds in their endeavours to
extract the fish; and when we had satisfied ourselves that no more were
to be found there, we turned our attention to the bed itself, where also
the birds had been, and still remained, exceedingly busy. But we did
not then attempt to look for spilled pearls, for the bulk of the oysters
were by this time dead, and had been so long enough to render the
opening of the shells quite an easy matter. We therefore wandered about
the bed examining such of the shells as happened to be gaping open,
extracting any pearls that might happen to be therein, and then flinging
fish and shell as far away to leeward as we could. We had done with
those, and now tossed them aside, in order that we might not
inadvertently find ourselves handling them a second time. We toiled
assiduously throughout the whole of that day, my two companions smoking
steadily all the time in order to counteract, as far as might be, the
sickening odour of the fast-decaying fish.
When we knocked off work shortly before sunset we found that altogether
we had gathered during the day five hundred and nineteen pearls varying
in size from a large pea to a marble, and nearly a quart measure full of
seed pearl. Our prizes were, generally speaking, of the usual soft,
sheeny, white colour; but there were exceptions to this, two more pink
pearls being found, as well as one of a deep rich exquisite rose colour,
one of a very delicate shade of sea-green, and seven of so very dark a
smoke colour that they were almost black. We did not think very much of
these last, believing that their extremely dark colour was against them;
but we ultimately discovered that this was very far from being the case,
that precise shade of colour being exceedingly rare.
None of us had much appetite for food that night when we got back to the
ship; and when we turned out next morning we were even less desirous of
food than we had been on the previous evening. We were all suffering
from violent headaches, accompanied by great nausea, and were fain to
confess that we had had quite enough of the oyster-bed for the present.
We therefore soon agreed to let that part of the reef very severely
alone for at least a week, and to devote the interval to the prosecution
of our survey of the channel. Accordingly, after making an ineffectual
attempt to do justice to the excellent meal which Grace Hartley had
provided for us, we three males hauled the boat alongside, descended
into her, and got under way.
Our course, for the first seven and a half miles, lay along the canal
leading to the oyster-bed, our purpose being to examine two promising-
looking channels that branched out of it, and that we had already
noticed and commented upon. On reaching the more distant--and, as we
thought, the more promising--of the two we bore up and, with the wind
over our starboard quarter, ran away on a west-south-west course for
about five miles, next hauling up to about south. But by the time that
we had run some four miles in this new direction we saw clearly that
this channel could be of no possible service to us, for it began to
shoal, and ultimately became too shallow to float the ship; therefore
as, simultaneously with this discovery, we caught a strong whiff of
tainted wind from our oyster-bed, some four miles to windward, we put
down our helm, tacked, and retraced our steps, going back a couple of
miles along the oyster-bed channel to the other channel which we desired
to examine.
It was by this time about noon, and the purer air of the reef
generally--although even that was not wholly innocent of a suggestion of
decaying fish--had so far restored our appetites that we decided to pipe
to dinner; accordingly, upon entering the new channel we opened out the
package that Grace had prepared for us, and fell to. The channel in
which we now found ourselves trended generally about north-east by east
for a distance of some four and a half miles, there were therefore short
stretches in it here and there where the wind came too shy to allow the
boat to lay her course, and we consequently had to beat to windward, a
long leg and a short one, in those stretches.
At length we reached a point where the channel took a due northerly
trend, when away we went with flowing sheets, but under short canvas,
sounding industriously all the way. Then, after we had traversed some
ten miles in all of this new channel, we quite suddenly and unexpectedly
found ourselves in a basin, very similar to that in which the _Mercury_
lay peacefully at anchor, but not quite so large. We coasted along the
weather side of this basin for a distance of about two miles, and then
found another channel, which we at once entered. This channel trended
north-east, but we had not sailed above four miles before it narrowed so
much that we saw it would be useless to us, and we therefore bore up and
returned to the newly-discovered basin. Continuing our progress round
this, we found another channel, branching out of its north-western
extremity, and as it had a rather promising appearance we plunged into
it. It trended away to the northward and westward for the first seven
miles, then turned abruptly toward the southward for a distance of some
five miles, when we found ourselves in another channel trending about
north-north-west and south-south-east.
This channel was even more promising than the one which we had just
emerged from, being almost double the width; but we were puzzled for the
moment as to which direction to take, whether to head to the northward
or the southward. The northerly-trending channel might lead anywhere;
the southerly portion, on the other hand, looked as though it might
possibly take us back to the ship, the spars of which were visible some
nine miles away. We decided to try the latter, as the day was by this
time well advanced, and, should we ultimately find ourselves obliged to
retrace our steps, it would make us very late in getting back to the
ship. Fortunately, however, we were not driven to this latter
alternative, for after following the winding course of the southerly
channel for a distance of some twelve miles we arrived at the north-
eastern extremity of the basin in which the _Mercury_ lay at anchor, and
safely arrived alongside half an hour later, having spent the day in
circumnavigating a portion of the reef which we thus discovered to be
entirely surrounded by channels of a width and depth of water sufficient
to allow of the passage of the ship. This discovery, however, was of no
practical service to us; for it still left us in our original state of
uncertainty regarding the existence of a channel through which the ship
might be taken into open water.
The narrative of our efforts to find such a channel has been given thus
far with considerable detail, in order to bring home to the reader some
idea of the extreme awkwardness of our situation, and the difficulties
and perplexities with which we found ourselves confronted; but there is
no need to continue the story further in quite so detailed a form, since
the progress of our researches was unaccompanied by anything in the
nature of adventure. Let it suffice, therefore, to say that we
traversed the multitudinous canal-like channels of that labyrinthine
reef continuously for ten days longer before we found a passage of
sufficient width, and with a sufficient depth of water in it everywhere,
to enable the _Mercury_ to go through it to the open sea. This passage,
when found, proved to be a continuation of the channel originating in
the north-eastern angle of what we had now come to speak of as the
Mercury Basin, from the fact that the ship lay anchored in it. Although
it was an undoubted fact that we had actually found a channel leading
from this basin to open water, the difficulties in the way of
successfully carrying the ship through it were so great that we had very
grave doubts of our ability to accomplish it. In the first place, the
course of the channel was of so winding a character that, according to a
very careful estimate, the ship would have to traverse no less than a
hundred and ten miles of waterway before clearing the reef; consequently
it would be impossible to accomplish the whole distance during the hours
of daylight of a single day; while to attempt the navigation of any
portion of it during the hours of darkness was altogether too hazardous
an undertaking to be calmly thought of. But, as though this difficulty
were not in itself sufficient, there was a stretch of twelve miles of
channel running in a north-easterly direction which the ship could not
possibly negotiate under sail unless a change of wind should occur--of
which there seemed to be absolutely no prospect. The only alternative,
therefore, would be to kedge those twelve miles; truly a most formidable
undertaking for four persons--one of them being a girl--to attempt.
Fortunately, however, for us all, the problem of how to overcome these
tremendous difficulties was solved for us by accident, and quite
unexpectedly. For, upon going over this long and intricate channel
again, in order thoroughly to familiarise ourselves with it, and to
become better acquainted with its many danger-points, it happened that
on the return journey--which was being made by moonlight--we missed our
way, continuing along what appeared to be the main channel, instead of
diverging into a branch trending to the eastward; and by the time that
we discovered our mistake we were so favourably impressed with the
appearance of this new, strange channel--which seemed to be running
almost straight toward Mercury Basin--that we determined to follow it up
and see whither it led.
Not to dilate unnecessarily upon this portion of our adventures, we
discovered, to our infinite satisfaction and delight, that it did indeed
ultimately conduct us back to the ship; and that, too, by a route which
reduced the distance to be travelled to about forty-five miles, or very
considerably less than half that of the other channel. Moreover, while
the original channel first ran north, then north-east, for the twelve
miles that were only to be covered by kedging--before it ultimately
changed its course to south--in which direction the point of ultimate
egress lay, the new channel left Mercury Basin at its western, or
leeward, extremity, running first west, then south-west, and ultimately
south, straight out to sea. Thus the whole distance could be traversed
under sail and with a free wind. The three following days and nights
were devoted to a most careful re-examination of this new channel, with
the result that we thoroughly satisfied ourselves as to its absolute
practicability.
With our minds thus relieved of a tremendous load of anxiety, we felt
ourselves once more able to turn our thoughts in the direction of our
pearl harvest. A full fortnight had been devoted to the exploration of
the reef since our last visit to the oyster-bed, and we were of opinion
that it ought by this time to be in such a condition as to afford us a
very handsome return for our labours.
Accordingly, after allowing ourselves a day's rest to enable us to
recover from the fatigues of our recent arduous boat duty, we once more
repaired to the oyster-bed--Grace Hartley preferring on this occasion to
remain "at home", as she put it, rather than again face the disgusting
sights and odours that had met her on the occasion of her visit. But
upon our arrival at the scene of operations we soon found that a
fortnight had made a vast amount of difference in the condition of the
oysters. For whereas when we had last visited the oyster-bed the
process of putrefaction had only just begun, it had now advanced so far
that the fish were not only completely decayed but had also in many
cases so completely dried up under the influence of the sun's rays as to
have, to a very great extent, lost their odour. Furthermore, the birds
had been so busy that more than half the shells had been completely
emptied; our task, therefore, although still excessively disagreeable,
promised to be far less revoltingly offensive and disgusting than it had
been before. Even such offensiveness as still remained we contrived to
mitigate to a very considerable extent, by adopting the simple plan of
starting work on the windward edge of the bed, whereby the accumulated
odours were blown away from us, instead of directly in our faces, as on
the previous occasion.
Now we went to work systematically, roughly dividing the bed into three
nearly equal portions, one of which was to be gone over very carefully
by each of us. Also we each had a bucket, into which to drop our
spoils, so that there might be no time lost and no unnecessary fatigue
incurred in passing to and fro. Our system of working was simplicity
itself, and merely consisted in starting operations on the extreme
weather side of the bed, examining the fish just as they came to hand,
extracting such pearls as they contained, dropping the gems into the
bucket of water with which each of us was provided, and then throwing
the shells out on the reef apart from those still untouched. We toiled
on thus all day, with a pause of half an hour about midday, when we
retired to the boat, cleaned ourselves as well as we could, and snatched
a hasty meal, concluding our labours about half an hour before sunset.
When, during the run back to the ship at the end of the day, we
proceeded to compare notes and take stock of the results of our labour,
we came to the conclusion that either the bed was an enormously rich
one, or that we had had an exceedingly lucky day, for our combined booty
consisted of over fourteen hundred pearls--sixty-three of which were of
quite exceptional value from their size or colour--and a full quart
measure of seed pearl. I was of opinion, at the time--and am so still--
that we might have obtained considerably more than we did of the last,
but for the eagerness with which we prosecuted our search for the larger
gems, which caused our search for the smaller seed pearls to degenerate
into a very perfunctory operation.
The story of one day's work at the oyster-bed is the story of all; it is
therefore unnecessary to say more upon the subject than that we spent a
full fortnight upon the task of gathering pearls, by the end of which
time we had acquired so much dexterity at the work that we did more in
one day than we did in two at the beginning of our labours. Then,
although at the expiration of the fortnight we seemed to have made
scarcely any perceptible inroad upon that enormous deposit, we grew
tired of our self-imposed task and mutually agreed that we had
accumulated as much wealth as we required. Moreover, as we watched the
increase of that wealth day by day, our anxiety grew lest perchance
anything should happen to prevent our escape from the reef and our
return to that civilisation, where alone our wealth could be of any real
value to us. The reader may reasonably ask what grounds of
justification we had for the fear that anything could possibly happen to
prevent our escape, seeing that we had been fortunate enough to discover
a channel through which the ship might be easily taken out to sea; but I
think we all still carried a vivid recollection of the terrific natural
convulsion that had placed us in the extraordinary situation which we
then occupied; and I believe the others shared with me the feeling that,
such a thing having once happened, it might possibly happen again. The
reef that had held us prisoners for so long might sink again to the
ocean depths, perchance carrying the ship with it in the terrific
turmoil that must ensue; or it might be hove up still higher, leaving
the ship stranded and immovable; and then what would be our plight?
Therefore, when on the evening of a certain day Gurney ventured to voice
the suggestion that it would now be well to think seriously of making
good our escape, while yet the opportunity to do so remained to us,
neither of the others raised so much as a single word of protest, but on
the contrary agreed to the proposal with an eagerness which clearly
showed how welcome it was to us all.
"As for me," said Gurney, when walking the poop with me that night and
discussing the matter, "my way is now clear; Gracie and I will get
married as soon as we arrive in Sydney; and then I think I may venture
to return home and once more hope to find a welcome beneath the roof-
tree which shelters those to whom I have given so much sorrow."
"Indeed," remarked I, scarcely knowing what to say, for my companion had
spoken those last words in a tone of such intense feeling that I felt
convinced a story must lie behind them.
"Yes," he said, and was silent for a minute or two, apparently plunged
in deep and painful thought. Then, suddenly throwing up his head, he
continued: "I belong to the genus Prodigal Son. Would you care to hear
my story? I think I should rather like to tell it you; for you are a
good lad, high-spirited, full of generous impulses, eager to excel, and
full of pluck. You are bound to make a success of your life if you will
only steadfastly follow the path that your feet are now treading. But--
forgive me for saying so--the qualities that you possess, excellent as
they are, are precisely those that, unless you are very careful, are
likely to betray you.
"When I was your age I was just such another lad as you are, and my
father was as proud of, and as hopeful for, me as any parent can
possibly be of an only son. He gave me a first-class education, and
finally procured me an excellent post under Government. My duties took
me abroad--there is no need to say where--and I at once found myself the
associate and companion of a lot of young fellows who had somehow
imbibed the idea that it was incumbent upon them, as Government
officials, to adopt a smart, bold, dashing, reckless demeanour, a kind
of modern edition of the swashbucklers of the Stuart regime; and they
did their best to live up to that idea. This sort of thing was quite
new to me; for you must remember that I was fresh from school at the
time, and had never seen anything of the kind before, my father being an
exceptionally quiet and sober-minded individual, associating only with
men of similar temperament to himself. With my new companions, however,
`respectability' was voted old-fashioned and out of date, sobriety of
conduct a bore. They were fine, dashing, high-spirited young fellows,
fearing nothing and nobody, and they didn't care who knew it. They
drank freely, constituted themselves authorities on all kinds of sport,
gambled, and did many other things that at first distinctly frightened
me, but which, a little later on, I rather admired, and--like the young
fool that I was--soon began to humbly emulate. _Facilis descensus
Averni_! The reverence for truth, and purity, and uprightness that had
come to me in the atmosphere of home soon died. I recognised that those
virtues belonged to a bygone period, but I was going to be up-to-date,
in the forefront: nobody should surpass me! I dare say--ay, and I very
fervently hope--that all this sounds the most incredible folly to you;
but I give you my word that, so imperceptible were the steps by which I
descended the down-grade that, looking back upon it all, I am even now
not astonished at what I did. I believe that it was inevitable, under
the circumstances, for, mark you this, I had never been warned against
it! My parents had such implicit faith in me that the possibility of
such a warning being necessary never occurred to them! Of course there
could only be one end to this sort of thing, and in two years it came.
Two years sufficed to convert me, from such a lad as you are now, into
an utterly worthless, disreputable blackguard, a confirmed drunkard, a
hardened liar, and--a contemptible thief! With my constitution
completely shattered, I was obliged to resign my post, to avoid being
kicked out, and I returned home a moral and physical wreck. But, even
then, my poor father and mother had no suspicion of the truth, for I
told them that my condition was due to fever contracted in the discharge
of my duty. It was, however, impossible for me to conceal the truth
from them very long after I had once more come under their roof; and the
grief and shame that overwhelmed them when at length their eyes were
opened might have melted the heart of a stone. But it did not melt
mine, for I was by that time so completely the slave of my vices that I
had lost every vestige of natural feeling. I continued my drunken
habits as long as I had money to spend on liquor; and when finally I had
exhausted my own resources I stole from my parents the means to still
continue in the indulgence of my degrading vice. It broke my poor
mother's heart, and she died; and on the day of her funeral I was unable
to follow her body to its last resting-place, because I was too drunk to
stand or speak! That was the crowning act of my disgraceful career; for
on that very day my father gave me twenty pounds and turned me out of
his house, forbidding me ever again to darken his door. I went to
London, spent my twenty pounds in a wild life, got into a street fight,
and was carried to a hospital with a knife-wound between my ribs; and
there I lingered between life and death for nearly a month before I took
a turn for the better and began to mend; and it was three months before
I was up and out again. But during that three months the hospital
chaplain contrived to gain my confidence. He induced me to tell him my
story; and in return he told me some home truths that had the eventual
effect of opening my eyes to the enormity of my guilt, the effect being
helped, perhaps, by the fact that during my stay in the hospital I had
been cured of my cursed craving for drink. When at length I was ready
to leave the hospital my friend the chaplain offered to communicate with
my father and endeavour to effect a reconciliation; but I refused. I
had vowed that I would never return home until I could do so as a
thoroughly reformed character; I therefore made my way down to the
docks, took the first berth that offered, and, under the assumed name of
George Gurney, became a common sailor. You will think, perhaps, that to
go to sea, and in such a capacity, was not quite the best possible
method whereby to effect my reformation, and may be it was not, but I
was determined that nothing--nothing--should stand in my way; and I
think I may now say, without undue confidence, that I have succeeded.
Gracie, to whom I have told my story, assures me that I need no longer
fear to face my father, and I believe her, for a woman can see more
deeply than a man. So now I shall return home, to be a comfort, as I
devoutly hope, to my dear father's declining years; and perhaps, with
the aid of my wealth, I may be able to do enough good to obliterate the
memory of all the grief and shame that I have caused him to suffer.
That is my story, Troubridge; and all that I will add to it is this: If
ever you feel tempted to stray, though ever so slightly, from the path
of rectitude, think of the man whom you once knew as George Gurney; and
let his history serve as a warning to you. And now I will say good
night; for we must be stirring early to-morrow."