“Hi! You! Come along here,” came in the beachcomber’s harsh voice, and Carey had to hurry to him. “Come and help with these,” and he pointed to the bucket of glistening pearls. “Get me something to put them in.”
Carey thought for a moment, and then went below, to return with the first things he thought suitable, and Mallam nodded his satisfaction.
“They’ll do,” he said. “’Bout dry now. Your back’s easier than mine. Pour ’em in. No smugging—”
The pearls were carefully emptied into a couple of cigar boxes, and placed under lock and key in a small closet in the captain’s cabin, of which Mallam now took possession, while that evening his followers, who quite scorned the forecastle below deck, camped above it, close up to the bulwarks, starboard or port, according to which way the wind blew, these seeming to remind them of their humpies or wind-screens, which some of the most savage used instead of huts.
Chapter Twenty One.
Carey was not long in communicating to the doctor all he had heard from Bostock, and his words revived his companion wonderfully.
“Capital!” he said. “The fact of our being unarmed and this scoundrel keeping all the weapons out of our reach half maddened me.”
“Yes, wasn’t it horrid?” said Carey. “I felt better directly, and, do you know, I don’t think we have half so much to fear now from the blacks. I don’t feel a bit afraid of them. I can make them do just as I like; so can Bob.”