“One can’t tell he didn’t merely go off into the bush,” I said. “I’d rather he had. A man who goes among a lot of pearlers with a rough diamond about him that he doesn’t know the value of, isn’t likely to keep it long—if he keeps his life, he’s fortunate.”
“We shall know on tomorrow, when the fleet comes in for Sunday. It seems to me that I haven’t always been thankful enough for Sunday. Flint, tell me, it is surely unusual that a great sorcerer like Mo should engage himself to work in a pearl fleet?”
“Not so very,” I said. “He bosses the other boys round a lot, as they’re all afraid of him, and he generally manages to get the best part of their wages. But I don’t think Mo would have come away if he hadn’t been scared. He certainly had a very good job where he was.”
“He is wonderful, that man,” said the Marquis, musingly. “I shall be glad to see him again, although he has done so much bad.”
“Don’t go asking after him,” I warned. “Best leave it to me. We’re playing for a big stake. My word, Marky, it is a big one! All the money for everything we want, all the rest of our lives—and we can’t afford to excite suspicion. These pearler folk keep their eyes skinned, I can tell you; they live by that.”
“A stitch in time is as good as a mile. I comprehend your warning, and leave it to you,” said the Marquis, with what one must call (for the want of a better term) his most Marquisatorial air. “I have all confidence in you. Do you think that they may perhaps have some excellent billiard-tables in those hotels?”
“I don’t think; I know they haven’t,” I said. “But they have something we can knock balls about on, if that will do.”
The next day was Saturday, and on Saturday afternoon, according to the customs of the pearling fleet, all the luggers were due to come in for Sunday. It was not a large fleet, there at Samarai. New Guinea has never been much of a pearling center; but Thursday and Broome Islands were temporarily exhausted, and a few of the fleet had run over to Samarai to try what they could do about China Strait.
It is a nasty place for pearling: the shell is none too plentiful, the depths are appalling; and the current in the straits is at all times exceedingly dangerous. Still, it is better than nothing when nothing better is to be had. The best class of pearler does not come to New Guinea, as a rule. I expected to see none but the riffraff of Thursday Island when the fleet came in.
There were signs of their presence already. Samarai had not been improved by the shelling. The hotels were prosperous, and, in consequence, rowdy; the Papuans, who had come over from various places in the Territory to take service with the fleet in different ways, were a nasty-looking lot. There was a new store, kept by a Greek named George. It had divers’ gear in it, also pearl-shell, curios, cards, dice, firearms, and knives. I had heard something of George himself, in my journeyings about the north coasts of Australia, and I didn’t think him an addition to the society of Samarai, doubtful as the latter was.