Brown stood staring intently at her for a full minute or more; then he shouted:
“Yes, that’s the gol-darned Kingfisher, right enough, ne’er a doubt of it! All hands to the boat, and let’s get off to the Marthy. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that Slocum and his crowd tries to make trouble when they find us here before ’em.”
“Why do you think so, Captain?” demanded Cunningham. “Surely there are enough oysters here for both of us, aren’t there?”
“Well, yes, I reckon there are,” agreed Brown, somewhat doubtfully. “But I guess Slocum won’t think so; he’ll want the whole blamed lot.”
I thought this rather good, remembering, as I did, that previous to our arrival, and before we knew how extensive was the bed, the skipper had been straining every nerve to reach the island before his rival, with the avowed intention of sweeping the shoal clean if he could before the arrival of the Kingfisher. I said nothing, however, but, seizing the bucket containing the pearls which I had gathered during the morning, hastened away with the others toward where the longboat was moored. The moment that the last man was in we cast off, threw out our oars, and gave way for our own vessel, for the stranger was coming up hand over fist, and Brown was very anxious to be on board before the arrival of the Kingfisher, in order that he might be fully prepared for all eventualities.
We reached the Martha a few minutes before the stranger hove in stays to fetch the passage through the reef; and Brown at once went below, taking with him a couple of hands, routed out the arms and ammunition chests, and served out to each man a gun, a brace of Colt revolvers, and a cutlass, together with a liberal supply of ammunition for the firearms, at the same time instructing us to load our weapons and have them ready for instant use, but to keep them out of sight until it became apparent that they would be required.
By the time that our preparations were complete, the stranger—now identifiable beyond all question as the Kingfisher, since she carried her name legibly painted in white letters upon her head-boards—had passed through the reef and, taking in her canvas as she came, was steering for a berth about a cable’s length from where the Martha lay; and a few minutes later she put down her helm, came head to wind, and presently let go her anchor. Meanwhile the skipper, Cunningham, and I had been diligently taking stock of her through our glasses, with the object of ascertaining how many hands she carried, and we agreed that there were but eight in sight, which, counting also the cook and steward, gave her a complement of ten all told against fourteen of us, which fact caused our skipper to chuckle with satisfaction.
That we were not to be kept long in suspense with regard to the intentions of the newcomers soon became sufficiently evident, for the Kingfisher had scarcely swung to her anchor when a dory was launched, and, with three people in her, two at the oars and the third sitting in the sternsheets, came pulling toward the Martha Brown.
Five minutes later the little craft swept up alongside, one of our people hospitably dropped a rope’s end into her to hang on by, and the man in the sternsheets—a long, angular, big-boned individual, about six feet three inches in height, apparently about thirty-four years of age, with a thick thatch of reddish-brown hair, and an equally thick beard and moustache of the same colour, and attired, despite the intense heat, in a heavy pilot cloth jacket and trousers, a blue worsted jersey, a fur cap, and sea-boots reaching above his knees—uncoiling his long limbs, rose in the boat, and, with a nimbleness strangely at variance with his ungainly appearance, climbed the side, swung himself in over our low rail, and flung a quick, enquiring glance round the deck.
“Mornin’!” he remarked briefly in a surly tone of voice to the skipper, Cunningham, and myself, as we stepped forward to meet him. “I see this here schooner’s the Marthy Brown o’ Baltimore. Which o’ you ’uns is the cap’n of her?”