ves."

"What's the name matter?" the supercargo demanded, taking advantage of
speech to pause with arms shoved into the sleeves of the undershirt.
"There it is, right under our nose, and old Parlay is there with the
pearls."

"Who see them pearl?" Hermann queried, looking from one to another.

"It's well known," was the supercargo's reply. He turned to the
steersman: "Tai-Hotauri, what about old Parlay's pearls?"

The Kanaka, pleased and self-conscious, took and gave a spoke.

"My brother dive for Parlay three, four month, and he make much talk
about pearl. Hikihoho very good place for pearl."

"And the pearl-buyers have never got him to part with a pearl," the
captain broke in.

"And they say he had a hatful for Armande when he sailed for Tahiti,"
the supercargo carried on the tale. "That's fifteen years ago, and he's
been adding to it ever since--stored the shell as well. Everybody's seen
that--hundreds of tons of it. They say the lagoon's fished clean now.
Maybe that's why he's announced the auction."

"If he really sells, this will be the biggest year's output of pearls in
the Paumotus," Grief said.

"I say, now, look here!" Mulhall burst forth, harried by the humid
heat as much as the rest of them. "What's it all about? Who's the old
beachcomber anyway? What are all these pearls? Why so secretious about
it?"

"Hikihoho belongs to old Parlay," the supercargo answered. "He's got a
fortune in pearls, saved up for years and years, and he sent the word
out weeks ago that he'd auction them off to the buyers to-morrow. See
those schooners' masts sticking up inside the lagoon?"

"Eight, so I see," said Hermann.

"What are they doing in a dinky atoll like this?" the supercargo went
on. "There isn't a schooner-load of copra a year in the place. They've
come for the auction. That's why we're here. That's why the little
_Nuhiva's_ bumping along astern there, though what she can buy is beyond
me. Narii Herring--he's an English Jew half-caste--owns and runs her,
and his only assets are his nerve, his debts, and his whiskey bills.
He's a genius in such things. He owes so much that there isn't a
merchant in Papeete who isn't interested in his welfare. They go out of
their way to throw work in his way. They've got to, and a dandy stunt it
is for Narii. Now I owe nobody. What's the result? If I fell down in
a fit on the beach they'd let me lie there and die. They wouldn't lose
anything. But Narii Herring?--what wouldn