“‘No,’ said Johnson, ‘I think I’ll give you a little yarn about a tussle I had with a turtle in the Sulu waters. I fancy there isn’t much that grows but you’ll find it somewhere in Borneo; and the water there is just as full of life as the land.’
“‘Sharks?’ I queried.
“‘Oh, worse than sharks!’ replied Johnson. ‘There’s a big squid that will squirt the water black as ink; and just then, perhaps, something comes along and grabs you when you can’t defend yourself. And there’s the devil-fish, own cousin to the squid, and the meanest enemy you’d want to run across anywhere. And there’s a tremendous giant of a shell-fish,—a kind of scalloped clam, that lies with its huge shells wide open, but half hidden in the long weeds and sea-mosses. If you put your foot into that trap—snap! it closes on you, and you’re fast! That clam is a good deal stronger than you are; and if you have not a hatchet or something to smash the shell with, you are likely to stay there. Of course your partner in the boat up aloft would soon know something was wrong, finding that he couldn’t haul you up. Then he would go down after you, and chop you loose perhaps. But meanwhile it would be far from nice, especially if a shark came along—if another clam does not nab him, for one of these big clams has been known to catch even a shark. Many natives thereabouts do a lot of diving on their own account, and, of course, don’t indulge in diving-suits. I can tell you, they are very careful not to fall afoul of those clam-shells; for when they do they’re drowned before they can get clear.’
“‘You can hardly blame the clam, or whatever it is,’ said I. ‘It must be rather a shock to its nerves when it feels a big foot thrust down right upon its stomach!’
“‘No,’ assented Johnson; ‘you can’t blame the clam. But besides the clam, there is a big turtle that is a most officious creature, with a beak that will almost cut railroad iron. It is forever poking that beak into whatever it thinks it doesn’t know all about; and you cannot scare it as you can a shark. You have simply got to kill it before it will acknowledge itself beaten. These same turtles, however, at the top of the water or on dry land would, in most cases, prove as timid as rabbits. And then, as you say, there are the sharks,—all kinds, big and little, forever hungry, but not half so courageous as they get the credit of being.’
“‘I suppose,’ I interrupted, ‘you always carried a weapon of some sort!’
“‘Well, rather!’ said Johnson. ‘For my own part, I took a great fancy to the ironwood stakes that the natives always use. But they didn’t seem to me quite the thing for smashing those big shells with, supposing a fellow should happen to put his foot into one. So I made myself a stake with a steel top, which answered every purpose. More than one big shark have I settled with that handspike of mine; and once I found, to my great advantage, that it was just the thing to break up a shell with.’
“‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Best, who had been listening rather inattentively hitherto. ‘So you put your foot in it, did you?”
“‘Yes, I did,’ said Johnson. ‘And that is just what I’m going to tell you about. I was working that season with a good partner, a likely young fellow hailing from Auckland. He tended the line and the pump to my complete satisfaction. I’ve never had a better tender. Also, I was teaching him to dive, and he took to it like a loon. His name was “Larry” Scott; and if he had lived, he would have made a record. He was killed about a year after the time I’m telling you of, in a row down in New Orleans. But we won’t stop to talk about that now.
“‘As I was saying, Larry and I pulled together pretty well from the start, and we were so lucky with our fishing that the fellows in the other boats began to get jealous and unpleasant. You must know that all kinds go to the pearl-fisheries; and the worst kinds have rather the best of it, in point of numbers. We were ready enough to fight, but we liked best to go our own way peaceably. So, when some of the other lads got quarrelsome, we just smiled, hoisted our sail, and looked up a new ground for ourselves some little distance from the rest of the fleet. Luck being on our side just then, we chanced upon one of the finest beds in the whole neighborhood.