After supper Cunningham and I, with an old, discarded suit of clothes belonging to the skipper, rigged up a most realistic scarecrow, ready for transportation to the shore the first thing next morning.
We were all astir at daybreak next day; and while the hands, under the skipper’s supervision, hoisted out the longboat and jollyboat and passed them astern ready for towing, and then proceeded to wash down the decks, Cunningham and I took the gig, and, carefully depositing our scarecrow in the sternsheets, pulled ashore and set up the figure, the birds taking to the air with loud, plaintive cries the moment that we stepped ashore. Then, having set up the figure, which represented a man carrying a gun, we returned to the schooner, observing with satisfaction, as we did so, that the birds seemed indisposed to settle again, but, after wheeling in the air over the island for some time, winged their way out to sea.
By the time that we got back to the schooner breakfast was ready, and all hands were at once piped to the meal, regardless of the hour, the word at the same time being passed that everybody would be expected on deck again within twenty minutes. But no such warning was needed, for the forecastle hands by this time knew as well as the afterguard what we had come to this lonesome spot for, and were as eager as ourselves not only to see how the adventure would “pan out”—to use their own expression—but also to gain the utmost possible advantage over the Kingfisher and her people, whom they regarded as would-be lawless poachers upon our own private property; therefore when we of the cabin returned to the deck after a hasty meal, which we had bolted in less than a quarter of an hour, all hands were on deck, ready and waiting for orders. Accordingly no sooner did the skipper poke his head out of the companion and bellow the order to loose all fore-and-aft canvas than the group on the forecastle split itself up into sections, one section actually running aft to cast loose the mainsail, while a second attacked the foresail, a third laid out to loose the jibs, and the fourth and last proceeded to fix the levers of the patent windlass and to heave in the slack of the cable.
A quarter of an hour sufficed us to get the canvas set and the anchor broken out of the sand; and then, as the schooner paid off and filled, Cunningham proceeded to get his diving gear on deck and to make ready for the great experiment, while I sprang into the fore rigging and made my way aloft to the topsail-yard, from which to con the schooner out through the reef in the first place, and afterwards to look out for the oyster bed. We could not possibly have had a finer day for the beginning of our operations, for the sky was a clear, rich, deep blue, dappled here and there at intervals with small patches of Trade-cloud, which looked like bits of cotton wool, drifting solemnly athwart the azure, while the Trade wind was blowing very moderately, and there was no sea to speak of.
I had scarcely got myself comfortably settled upon the topsail-yard when the skipper hailed me from where he stood aft close alongside the helmsman.
“Tawps’l-yard, there!” he shouted. “I s’pose you don’t happen to see nothin’ of that there blamed Kingfisher anywhere about, do ye, Mr Temple?”
I sent my gaze slowly and searchingly right round the entire rim of the horizon. The air was so crystal-clear that no glass was needed to aid the eye. Had there been as much as three or four feet of a royal-masthead showing above the horizon I could not have failed to detect it, but there was nothing; the horizon was absolutely bare in every direction, and I so reported it. The skipper waved his hand by way of reply, and I forthwith turned my attention to the business in hand, which was that of conning the schooner through the passage in the reef.
Twenty minutes later we were outside, rising and falling easily upon the long Pacific swell; and the moment that it was prudent for us to do so we starboarded our helm a trifle and kept away for the slightly discoloured patch of water that seemed to mark the position of the shoal upon which we expected to find the boundless wealth of the extensive bed of pearl-oysters spoken of by the departed Abe. Ten minutes sufficed us to run down to it, and the moment that we reached it I saw that we had not come upon a wild-goose chase. The oysters were there, all right, thousands, millions of them, showing up as a light-brown patch, nearly ten acres in extent, clearly distinguishable through the crystal-clear water. I allowed the schooner to run to about the very centre of the patch, and then shouted for the anchor to be let go.
Meanwhile all halyards had been let run two or three minutes earlier, and the canvas was rolled up anyhow, everybody, from the skipper to the cabin boy, seeming to be suddenly seized with a perfect delirium of excitement. As for me, I went down on deck by way of the backstays, and at once proceeded to lend Cunningham a hand to get into his makeshift diving rig, which he was very carefully overhauling. And while this was doing, four of the hands came along with a twenty-five-foot ladder, heavily weighted at the bottom with pigs of iron ballast, which Cunningham had caused to be constructed; and this they launched over the side, allowing it to hang plumb up and down, well secured, just abaft the main rigging. This was for Cunningham to descend by; and upon looking over the side I saw that it reached to within about four feet of the surface of the oyster bed. The getting of Cunningham into his suit, and the arranging of all the preliminaries, such as the rigging of a derrick wherewith to hoist to the surface the nets of oysters after Cunningham had filled them, the hauling of the longboat alongside to receive the first load, and so on, kept us busy for a full half-hour, during which the skipper paced to and fro, urging us to hurry, and gnawing his finger nails to the quick in his excitement and impatience.
But at length everything was ready, even to the shovel which Cunningham was to use for shovelling the oysters into the nets; and with the upper end of the air hose securely made fast to the main rigging, close to where I stood with the signal line coiled in my hands ready for paying out, and with a stout sword bayonet girt about his waist as a defence against the possible attack of prowling sharks, the amateur diver was assisted to climb the rail and get his feet upon the topmost rung of the ladder, after which he was left to his own devices. We had taken the precaution to send a good man aloft in a boatswain’s chair, bent to the end of the gaff-topsail halyards, to keep a lookout for sharks, and he had reported none in sight; we therefore hoped that we should not suffer any very serious interruption from them, and Cunningham went over the side with the utmost confidence, I keeping my eye on him as he cautiously descended the ladder rung by rung, and paying out the signal line in such a manner as always to maintain a very light strain upon it.