The boy’s heart beat with excitement—this man and his subjects were only a few miles away.
“He didn’t favor me with a personal call,” continued Captain Bassett, “but I didn’t stand on ceremony. From what I had heard of the old man, he had a wonderful influence on hard working, honest colored men, and I didn’t care to have him hanging around the bay. He arrived about sundown, and when I rowed up to the side of his boat, I decided not to go aboard. The fish-cleaning shed at the market in Nassau was perfume compared to the hold of Cajou’s old hulk.
“By right, I had no control over the vicinity, but I had plenty of help with me, and I stayed only long enough to tell the king that I’d kick a hole into the bottom of his boat if he wasn’t gone by morning. He left all right, sometime in the night, one of my crews of three blacks with him. As that was their own business, I had to stand it.”
The boy sighed. He had expected a dramatic clash.
“That was only the prelude,” went on the Englishman. “Three weeks later, when I had reached home again, my pearl bag not much heavier than when I set out, I learned something more. I had been near fortune and just missed it. Two days before Cajou visited our mooring, one of my crews had made the find I had been awaiting for years. The great pink pearl had been found, and the usual thing happened. My men turned conspirators and thieves and concealed it.”
Andy sprang to his feet.
“And that’s how Cajou got it?”
“Precisely. One of the men confessed. The savage but clever Cajou probably got his charms working—like as not did it in all pearl fleets he could find. Anyway, he got three of my men, and you can be sure he got the pearl.”
“What’d you do?” asked the boy eagerly.