what else is there?
Is there nothing else he would be likely to keep here? Is there nothing
else he would be bound to keep here? Yes, sir; the pearls! First,
because they're too valuable to trust out of his hands. Second, because
pearls want a lot of handling and matching; and the man who sells his
pearls as they come in, one here, one there, instead of hanging back and
holding up--well, that man's a fool, and it's not Attwater.'

'Likely,' said Huish, 'that's w'at it is; not proved, but likely.'

'It's proved,' said Davis bluntly.

'Suppose it was?' said Herrick. 'Suppose that was all so, and he had
these pearls--a ten years' collection of them?--Suppose he had? There's
my question.'

The captain drummed with his thick hands on the board in front of him;
he looked steadily in Herrick's face, and Herrick as steadily looked
upon the table and the pattering fingers; there was a gentle oscillation
of the anchored ship, and a big patch of sunlight travelled to and fro
between the one and the other.

'Hear me!' Herrick burst out suddenly.

'No, you better hear me first,' said Davis. 'Hear me and understand me.
WE'VE got no use for that fellow, whatever you may have. He's your kind,
he's not ours; he's took to you, and he's wiped his boots on me and
Huish. Save him if you can!'

'Save him?' repeated Herrick.

'Save him, if you're able!' reiterated Davis, with a blow of his
clenched fist. 'Go ashore, and talk him smooth; and if you get him and
his pearls aboard, I'll spare him. If you don't, there's going to be a
funeral. Is that so, Huish? does that suit you?'

'I ain't a forgiving man,' said Huish, 'but I'm not the sort to spoil
business neither. Bring the bloke on board and bring his pearls along
with him, and you can have it your own way; maroon him where you
like--I'm agreeable.'

'Well, and if I can't?' cried Herrick, while the sweat streamed upon his
face. 'You talk to me as if I was God Almighty, to do this and that! But
if I can't?'

'My son,' said the captain, 'you better do your level best, or you'll
see sights!'

'O yes,' said Huish. 'O crikey, yes!' He looked across at Herrick with
a toothless smile that was shocking in its savagery; and his ear caught
apparently by the trivial expression he had used, broke into a piece of
the chorus of a comic song which he must have heard twenty years before
in London: meaningless gibberish that, in that hour and place, seemed
hateful as a blasphemy: 'Hikey, pike