“Not to any great extent. They will be sure to give us as wide a berth hereafter as possible. In the meantime, I propose that we investigate.”
The two rose to their feet, and, lugging the armor 140 between them, moved off toward a point whose location was as well known to them as if they had spent years upon the atoll.
While they were thus walking, the mate, who was much the better-educated man, said:
“This pearl-hunting is a curious business. Those specimens that I brought up were the genuine species, and yet they have very few or no pearls among them. It must be because the conditions are not favorable for their creation or development, while, at the place we are about to visit, the mollusks are the same, and yet there are conditions existing there which cause an abnormal growth of the precious jewels.”
“Did you make a careful examination of those other oysters?”
“Yes. As I told you, they are genuine, but they have no pearls of any account, the conditions being unfavorable for their formation. You know the pearls grow within the oysters, being composed of slimy secretions deposited around some foreign substance that enters them. It may be that a peculiar action of the tide drives a grain of sand into the mollusks, where we are to visit––though that is all conjecture.”
But Mate Storms, who was only fairly launched out in the discourse upon pearls, was here interrupted by the captain exclaiming:
“This must be the spot.”
The particular bank had been designated so clearly that there could be no mistake, and had the chart, or map, fallen into the hands of the mutineers, they would have discovered the trick played on them in an instant. The spot was a peculiar one where the two friends stopped. Instead of being partly landlocked like the other, it opened out fairly upon the sea, and appeared to be entirely unprotected from the force of the breakers, which boomed against the beach.