The fact was, the two had arranged the matter beforehand, so as to go together in this business––somewhat on the same principle that their employers entered into partnership. They were both serving under assumed names, and were obliged to take no little 51 precaution to keep their identity concealed, for they were “wanted” for serious crimes in more than one port.
Redvig was a small, swarthy, muscular man, with coal-black, curling hair, short, curly beard and mustache, black eyes, with an aquiline nose, and both he and Brazzier had a fashion of wearing small gold ear-rings. Their arms and breast were plentifully tattooed, so that but for the great exception of their evil dispositions, they might well have passed for good specimens of the proverbial Jack tar.
It was different with the huge colored man, Pomp Cooper, who had been known about the wharves of San Francisco for a number of years. He was jolly and good-natured, possessed of prodigious strength, and had been on shipboard enough to acquire a fair knowledge of navigating a coasting vessel.
While many believed he possessed the proverbial loyalty of his race, and could not be induced to commit any grave crime, yet it must be admitted that there were ugly rumors afloat concerning him. It was asserted by more than one that he was a river and harbor pirate, and belonged to one of the worst gangs that ever infested the harbor of San Francisco.
While Captain Bergen was not ignorant of these rumors, yet he placed no credence in them, and believed Pomp to be one of the most valuable men he 52 could obtain. Such in brief was the crew of the Coral, when she sailed on her long voyage to the South Seas, in quest of pearls––the location of which had been given by the dying sailor in the Boston hospital.
CHAPTER VIII
VOYAGING SOUTHWARD
It was certainly very wonderful that little Inez Hawthorne should have been transferred from the steamer to the schooner, and that many hours should have passed before the discovery was made by the respective captains of the craft.