So strenuous is his desire for one smile on the part of Fortune that Hamed's favourite topic is pearls, and of the good old days when, if a man found a patch where the grass was not too thick, he might pick up as many as a hundred shells in a day. Under conditions and circumstances all in favour, the diver relies upon an inevitable infirmity on the part of the oyster for the revelation of its whereabouts.
"When man he dibe," says Hamed, "that go'lip quick he shut 'em mout. Carn see 'em. Subpose open mout, man quick he see 'em—shove-em alonga beg."
At the peril of its life the oyster gapes.
Hamed cherishes thoroughly Oriental theories, too, for the wooing of Chance, who (for Chance is very real and personal to him), he declares, presides over the fortune and the fate of divers.
"Last night I bin drim. My word—good drim. Subpose you gibe one fowl he make lucky—we get good pearl. Must be white fowl. Black fow!"—(and here he lowered his voice to a mysteriously confidential whisper) "no good; spoil 'em lucky!"
Months have elapsed since the sacrifice of the white fowl and the pouring of its blood to the accompaniment of droning supplications on the face of the contemptuous sea, and albeit the divination was cheerfully suspicious, the sulky jade still look askance, and Hamed is still far from Jeddah.
HAMED PREACHES
When Hamed of Jeddah left just before Christmas with four "begs" of over-mature oysters, intended for the tickling of European palates, he was not elated by the nearness of the hallowed time. Indeed, his state of mind was quite contrary. He had none of that peace and goodwill towards men with which those of us who are not Mohammedans adulate the approach of the season.
His one-time partner, the fair and fleet-footed "Dorphy," had deserted him for good and sufficient cause, and his hard old heart rebelled against priggish Christians and their superior ways. Some of the tardiness of age has come upon him. Though he had "worked" the oysters with all the resourcefulness of the lone hand, the marketable results were less in bulk than formerly. "Dorphy" had been wont to re-sort and classify Hamed's gleanings, for Hamed's eyes are misty; also his desire to emulate "Dorphy's" quickness was so ingenuous that in lieu of oysters he would frequently stow away flat stones and pieces of coral. Such things may be abomination in the eyes of the conscientious oyster-getter, but with Hamed they helped to fill the "beg." Vain old Arab! He deceived no one—in the end not even himself, for none of his fakes passed the final inspection of clear-sighted "Dorphy," with whom the moralities of the firm rested, but who in Hamed's eyes was a finicking precisian.
For weeks after his partner's withdrawal from the business Hamed was perplexed. The swing of the seasons set the tides adversely. Hence his complaint—"Water no much dry. Carn dry long. No good one man work himself. Subpose have mate he give hand along nother man. One man messin' abeaut. One small beg oyster one day. My word, 'Dorphy' smart boy—good-for-working boy!"