"It's funny to think there's maybe a fortune in pearls under all that," said he, "no knowing—but it will take some getting."
"We'll get it if it's there," said Floyd.
CHAPTER V
DREDGING
They were up at dawn, and the fire was crackling and the coffee heating before the sun had fully shown itself over the eastern reef line.
Schumer had been able to salve cooking utensils and some unbroken crockery ware from the Tonga, to say nothing of knives and forks and spoons.
It seems a small matter, but a knife and a fork make all the difference when one comes to food, even on an island of the Pacific—a plate, too.
Condemned to eat with one's fingers and to share a knife in common, one feeds, but one does not eat.
There was condensed milk for the coffee, ship's bread and salt pork fried over the fire. Isbel had collected some plantains; they went into the frying pan to help the pork. She had also gathered some drupes from a pandanus tree growing near the wreck, and served them on a big leaf.