Every lagoon would be a pearl lagoon but for the fact that the oyster of all sea creatures is the most difficult to suit with a breeding ground. The tides must not be too swift, the floor must be exactly right.
Javal Lagoon was ideal, a bar of reef delaying the floor current and the coral showing the long coach-whip fucus loved by the pearl-seeker. Davis declared himself satisfied, and they rowed back to inspect the mounds of shell and oysters rotting on the beach which were to be thrown in as part of the goodwill of the business.
That night after supper, Clayton showed his pearls. A few of them. He had four tin cash-boxes, and he opened one and disclosed his treasures lying between layers of cotton-wool. You have seen chocolate creams in boxes—that was the sight that greeted the eyes of Harman and Davis, only the chocolate creams were pearls. Some were the size of marrowfat peas and some were the size of butter beans, very large, but not of very good shape, some were pure white, some gold and some rose.
“Don’t show us no more, or I guess we’ll be robbin’ you,” said Harman.
Next morning the pearl-man began his preparations for departure, the water-casks of the Douro were filled, chickens caught and cooped, a live pig embarked and the groves raided for nuts, bananas and bread-fruit.
“It’s well he’s leavin’ us the trees,” said Harman.
The diving suits were got out and Clayton showed them how they were used, also the trick of filling the net bag with oysters in the swiftest way and without tangling the air-tube. The beds were shallow enough to be worked without diving gear, but a man in a diving dress will raise five times as many pairs of shells as a man without in a given time, Clayton explained this. He left nothing wanting in the way of explanations and advice, and next morning, having filled up with provisions and water, he put out, taking the ebb, the Douro heeling to a five-knot breeze and followed past the break by a clanging escort of gulls.
Then Harman and Davis found themselves alone, all alone, masters of a treasure that would have turned the head of Tiffany, and of a hundred and fifty Kanakas, men, women, and children, a tribe captained and led by one Hoka, a frizzy-headed buck whose only dress and adornment was a gee string and the handle of a china utensil slung round his neck as a pendant.
The rotted oysters on the coral were useless, they had been worked over by Clayton. That was the first surprise, the next was the price of labour. Two sticks of tobacco a day was the price of native labour, not half a stick as reported by Clayton.
Trade tobacco just then worked out at two cents a stick, so the pay was not exorbitant; it was the smallness of the stock in hand that bothered our syndicate. But Hoka was adamant. He did not know ten words of English, but he knew enough to enforce his claims, and the syndicate had to give in.