II
Ambergris, though used in the production of scent, has no smell or only the faintest trace of odour when warmed; it is the ugliest stuff in the world, and as valuable as gold. Harman’s bother was that he did not know the weight of the lump. He reckoned, going by comparison with pigs of small ballast, that it might be half a hundred-weight, but the table of weights and measures barred him. He could not tell the number of ounces in a half hundred-weight.
“Well, it don’t much matter,” said he at last. “If you’re not lyin’ and it’s worth twenty dollars an ounce, then it’s worth twenty times its weight in dollars, and that’s good enough for us. Twenty bags of dollars as heavy as that lump of muck is good enough for Billy Harman. Say, it beats Jonah, don’t it? when you look at that stuff, which isn’t more nor less than good dinners by the hundred and bottles of fizz and girls by the raft-load. And to think of an old whale coughin’ it up; makes a chap b’lieve in the Scriptures, don’t it, seein’ what it is and seein’ where it come from, and seein’ how Providence shoved it right into our hands.”
“We haven’t cashed it yet,” said Davis.
“No, but we will,” replied the other. “I feel it in my bones. I’ve got a hunch the luck ain’t runnin’ streaky this time. Somethin’ else is comin’ along; you wait and see.”
He was right. Next morning, an hour after sunrise, a stain of smoke showed on the south-eastern horizon.
Steamers in those days were fewer in the Pacific even than now, but this was a steamer right enough.
“She’s coming dead for us,” said Davis, as the hull showed clear now of smoke. “Brail up the sail and stand by to signal her—what you make her out to be?”
“Mail boat,” said Harman. “Sydney-bound, I’ll bet a dollar. You’ll be hearin’ the passengers linin’ up and cheerin’ when we’re took aboard, and then it’ll be drinks and cigars and the best of good livin’ till we touch Circular Wharf. But I ain’t goin’ in for hard drinks, not till we cash in this ambergris, and not then, only may be a bottle of fizz to wet the luck. No, sir, seein’ Providence has dealt with us handsome, Billy’s goin’ to do likewise with her. Providence don’t hold with the jag, which ain’t more nor less than buyin’ headaches, and di’mond studs for bar tenders and sich. Providence is dead against the drink, and don’t you forget that.”
“Why, you were talking only last night of buying a saloon in ’Frisco,” said Davis.