Immediately before his face the rock made an inward sweep, showing an abrupt ledge, a yard in width and depth. Scanning this as closely as he could in the dim twilight of the ocean-cavern, Storms thought he saw something resembling an oyster, which was fully a foot in length. Uncertain as to its identity, he shoved his hand in and found it was suspended to the rock above, and after two or three violent wrenches, and by using his knife as well as he could, he broke it loose and drew it out.
It was an oyster, indeed, of prodigious size, and he instantly signaled to the captain to draw him up. The latter did so with a vigor that threatened to dislocate the armor itself.
“Here it is,” he exclaimed, the moment he reached the air. “But I don’t know whether there is anything in it or not.”
“My stars! Is that an oyster?” asked the captain, 151 picking it up and turning it over like a huge stone, with inquiring eyes.
Little Inez Hawthorne had come to the spot while the mate was down the last time, and she danced with delight at the sight of the beautiful pearls piled upon the ground like a heap of tiny cannon balls.
“What are you going to do with that?” she asked, surveying the big bivalve, with an expression of disgust on her pretty face.
“That is yours,” said the captain, earnestly.
The mate looked at him and said:
“Do you mean that, captain?”
“I do. Whatever we find inside of that shall be consecrated to the use of Inez Hawthorne––to be hers absolutely. There may be nothing at all, but if there be a pearl, it will possess a value which we cannot estimate.”