Schumer laughed.
"What's the use of money to a Kanaka?" said he. "We'll give her something, of course, but we need not take her seriously into our calculations. Our shares—well, don't you think it's a bit early to come to that? All this is a dream in the air at present; it may never go farther."
"Well, it's this way," said Floyd, "I always think it's well to start out knowing exactly where you are going to, and what you are to get. When you sign on in a ship you know your pay, and you know the latitudes you have got to work in, and you know the time you are to be on the job. I think it would be better here and now to settle up this business, and I think we ought to go half shares."
"Half shares?" said Schumer meditatively.
"I have been figuring it out in my head," said Floyd. "What have we each contributed to the business? I have brought my work and a boat; now, without a boat we'd have been done completely, because you can't reach here by the reef, and we couldn't have discovered the beds without a boat. Then there's my work. You have brought your knowledge of pearling, and, what is more, all that trade stuff and provisions from the wreck, your energy and enterprise and your work. When I said half shares I did not mean that all the trade and provisions of the Tonga should not be taken into consideration. I would suggest that when we settle up I should pay you for all that out of my share. Then there is the money of the Tonga and the Cormorant. While I hold that Coxon's money belongs by right to his next of kin, I think what I have suffered through his relative, Harrod, permits me to use that money to further our speculation, paying it back with interest to the next of kin when all is through. So I would be nearly equal to you in ready cash, and the question resolves itself into my boat and work against your work and knowledge of pearling."
"I must point out to you," said Schumer, "that I discovered the beds."
"That is true, but without the boat where would you have been? If a ship had come along and you had borrowed a boat to explore the lagoon, the whole affair would have been given away. I am not arguing to make a profit out of the business at your expense, only to give my full views on the matter."
Schumer sat silent for a minute, and Floyd again noticed that profile, daring and predominant, hard and predatory. It was as though the spirit of a hawk were gazing over the sea through the mask of a man.
"It seems to me," said Schumer, "that the boat belonged to Coxon."
"And the Tonga?" said Floyd.