mall patches of Trade-cloud,
which looked like bits of cotton wool, drifting solemnly athwart the
azure, while the Trade wind was blowing very moderately, and there was
no sea to speak of.

I had scarcely got myself comfortably settled upon the topsail-yard when
the skipper hailed me from where he stood aft close alongside the
helmsman.

"Tawps'l-yard, there!" he shouted. "I s'pose you don't happen to see
nothin' of that there blamed _Kingfisher_ anywhere about, do ye, Mr
Temple?"

I sent my gaze slowly and searchingly right round the entire rim of the
horizon. The air was so crystal-clear that no glass was needed to aid
the eye. Had there been as much as three or four feet of a
royal-masthead showing above the horizon I could not have failed to
detect it, but there was nothing; the horizon was absolutely bare in
every direction, and I so reported it. The skipper waved his hand by
way of reply, and I forthwith turned my attention to the business in
hand, which was that of conning the schooner through the passage in the
reef.

Twenty minutes later we were outside, rising and falling easily upon the
long Pacific swell; and the moment that it was prudent for us to do so
we starboarded our helm a trifle and kept away for the slightly
discoloured patch of water that seemed to mark the position of the shoal
upon which we expected to find the boundless wealth of the extensive bed
of pearl-oysters spoken of by the departed Abe. Ten minutes sufficed us
to run down to it, and the moment that we reached it I saw that we had
not come upon a wild-goose chase. The oysters were there, all right,
thousands, millions of them, showing up as a light-brown patch, nearly
ten acres in extent, clearly distinguishable through the crystal-clear
water. I allowed the schooner to run to about the very centre of the
patch, and then shouted for the anchor to be let go.

Meanwhile all halyards had been let run two or three minutes earlier,
and the canvas was rolled up anyhow, everybody, from the skipper to the
cabin boy, seeming to be suddenly seized with a perfect delirium of
excitement. As for me, I went down on deck by way of the backstays, and
at once proceeded to lend Cunningham a hand to get into his makeshift
diving rig, which he was very carefully overhauling. And while this was
doing, four of the hands came along with a twenty-five-foot ladder,
heavily weighted at the bottom with pigs of iron ballast, which
Cunningham had cau