outside ocean.

Then a long parleying began. For upward of half an hour Moran and
Wilbur listened to a proposition in broken pigeon English made by
the beach-combers again and again and yet again, and were in no way
enlightened. It was impossible to understand. Then at last they made out
that there was question of a whale. Next it appeared the whale was dead;
and finally, after a prolonged pantomime of gesturing and pointing,
Moran guessed that the beach-combers wanted the use of the "Bertha
Millner" to trice up the dead leviathan while the oil and whalebone were
extracted.

"That must be it," she said to Wilbur. "That's what they mean by
pointing to our masts and tackle. You see, they couldn't manage with
that stick of theirs, and they say they'll give us a third of the loot.
We'll do it, mate, and I'll tell you why. The wind has fallen, and they
can tow us out. If it's a sperm-whale they've found, there ought to be
thirty or forty barrels of oil in him, let alone the blubber and bone.
Oil is at $50 now, and spermaceti will always bring $100. We'll take it
on, mate, but we'll keep our eyes on the rats all the time. I don't want
them aboard at all. Look at their belts. Not three out of the dozen who
aren't carrying those filthy little hatchets. Faugh!" she exclaimed,
with a shudder of disgust. "Such vipers!"

What followed proved that Moran had guessed correctly. A rope was passed
to the "Bertha Millner," the junk put out its sweeps, and to a wailing,
eldrich chanting the schooner was towed out of the bay.

"I wonder what Charlie and our China boys will think of this?" said
Wilbur, looking shoreward, where the deserters could be seen gathered
together in a silent, observing group.

"We're well shut of them," growled Moran, her thumbs in her belt. "Only,
now we'll never know what was the matter with the schooner these last
few nights. Hah!" she exclaimed under her breath, her scowl thickening,
"sometimes I don't wonder the beasts cut."

The dead whale was lying four miles out of the entrance of Magdalena
Bay, and as the junk and the schooner drew near seemed like a huge
black boat floating bottom up. Over it and upon it swarmed and clambered
thousands of sea-birds, while all around and below the water was thick
with gorging sharks. A dreadful, strangling decay fouled all the air.

The whale was a sperm-whale, and fully twice the length of the "Bertha
Millner." The work of tricing him up occupied the beach-combers