“It went down like a flash, Bob; but what a horrid mess, and there are no fish.”
“Aren’t there?” said the old fellow, coolly.
“Yes! hundreds; where did they all come from?”
“Oh, from below, I suppose,” and after giving the bucket three or four rinses the old sailor stood watching the water, now alive with good-sized fish, darting about and bearing off every scrap of the refuse, not even a floating feather being left, so that in five minutes the water was as crystal-clear as ever.
“What do you think of that, sir?” said Bostock, smiling. “Fish are pretty hungry about here. Be ’most ready to eat a chap who was having a swim.”
“It’s plain enough that we could catch plenty from the deck here.”
“Yes, sir, if you didn’t get your lines tangled in the coral. I’d rather moor the raft out in deeper water yonder off the shore. Couldn’t have a better place than we had yesterday.”
Half an hour later they were being gently wafted towards their previous day’s landing place, where cocoanuts were obtained, fish caught, and a large addition made to the number of pearl shells, which were laid on the sand in the bright sunshine, it being decided that on a large scale the task would be too laborious to open the great molluscs one by one.
“I’ll show you how it’s done, gen’lemen,” said Bostock. “I’ve seen it. Before long those shells ’ll be gaping, and the oysters dead. Then we’ll haul one of the biggest casks we can get ashore and scrape out the oysters and drop ’em in along with some water.”
“To decay?” said the doctor.