A week passed, during which time the Uncle Toby was ready for sea, while Grief managed to allay any suspicion of him by the shore crowd.
Even Gorman and Watson accepted him at his self-description. Throughout the week Grief begged and badgered them for the longitude of the island.
“You wouldn't have me leave here lost,” he finally urged. “I can't get a line on my chronometer without your longitude.”
Hall laughingly refused.
“You're too good a navigator, Mr. Anstey, not to fetch New Guinea or some other high land.”
“And you're too good a navigator, Mr. Hall,” Grief replied, “not to know that I can fetch your island any time by running down its latitude.”
On the last evening, ashore, as usual, to dinner, Grief got his first view of the pearls they had collected. Mrs. Hall, waxing enthusiastic, had asked her husband to bring forth the “pretties,” and had spent half an hour showing them to Grief. His delight in them was genuine, as well as was his surprise that they had made so rich a haul.
“The lagoon is virgin,” Hall explained. “You saw yourself that most of the shell is large and old. But it's funny that we got most of the valuable pearls in one small patch in the course of a week. It was a little treasure house. Every oyster seemed filled—seed pearls by the quart, of course, but the perfect ones, most of that bunch there, came out of the small patch.”
Grief ran his eye over them and knew their value ranged from one hundred to a thousand dollars each, while the several selected large ones went far beyond.
“Oh, the pretties! the pretties!” Mrs. Hall cried, bending forward suddenly and kissing them.