They had scarcely entered this area when Floyd's attention became attracted to his companion. Schumer, leaning over the side and holding the thwart with his left hand, suddenly became rigid. The muscles of his neck stood out stiff, and his hand seemed trying to crush the wood of the thwart.
Then he turned with a great cry:
"Shell! Acres of shell—pearls! We've struck it!" Floyd, as excited as Schumer, drew in his sculls and looked over.
Fortune wears many cloaks, but her ugliest is formed of oysters. As far as Floyd could see, to right, to left, ahead, and astern, the floor of the lagoon was an oyster bed; all beauty of coral had vanished, and the water seemed deserted even by the colored fish that haunted the deeper parts of the lagoon.
"Row on," said Schumer; "let's see how far it stretches. It is the biggest find I ever expected to strike. I fancied there might be shell, I was on the lookout for shell, but it was only an idea of mine, and now it's here, a fortune right in our hands."
Floyd got out the sculls and the boat moved south.
Schumer was right when he had said "acres of shell." An hour's prospecting gave them the fact that the whole southern area of this the western portion of the lagoon was shell. There were three main beds with coral between, millions and millions of oysters, tons upon tons of shell, and no man could say the possibilities in the way of pearls.
When they had finished prospecting they beached the boat, and taking shelter from the sun under the shade of a little grove of artus and pura trees, set to on the provisions they had brought with them.
Right across the lagoon from where they sat they could see their camping place and the tent, the wreck, and the opening in the reef all in the blue weather, and beyond the opening in the reef a glimpse of the great Pacific and the fringe of pearl-white clouds on the horizon.
"Well," said Schumer, as they finished their meal, "the stuff is there right enough, and it only comes now to the question of lifting it. We have no labor, or none to speak of. Of course, we'll dredge and dive so as to get as much samples as we can, but we want twenty men on the work, and I don't see how we're to do it without letting others into the secret. It's this way: Some time or another a vessel is sure to happen along here and take us off; well, if it does we must keep mum. Our object will be to get to Frisco or Sydney, and there get hold of some chap with money and form a little syndicate. That'll water the profits considerable; he'll want half at least. But there you are—what's to be done?"