They showed me a few pieces they had saved, splinters and slugs of
nacre, misshapen and of no luster, and sneered at the net results,
worth, at most, not so much as the day's wages I was paying either. I
cared nothing for the results, and smiled and nodded as I took them.
Thus the day wore on till mid-afternoon, when, such had been the zeal
of the clammers, the heap of bivalves was exhausted. They stood erect,
straightening their stiffened backs, and grinned as they looked at me.
"Well," said the old hag, "I reckon ye're satisfied now that we know
this business better'n you do. He told ye there wasn't no pearl in
this river."
"No;" added her hopeful son, "an' come to think of it, how'd I ever
know you had a hundred dollars? I ain't seen it yet. But we've done,
so let's see it now."
I quietly opened my pocketbook and took several bills of that
yellow-backed denomination, and selected one for him. He took it at
first suspiciously, then greedily, and I saw his eyes go to my wallet.
"I forgot," said I, and took out two bills of five dollars each, which
I handed to him.
"By golly!" said he, "so'd I forgot!"
"Why did you forget about your wages?" I asked, and looked at him
keenly. He turned his eyes aside.
"This fresh-water pearl fishing," said I, "has many points of
likeness to the ocean pearl fishing in Ceylon."
"You been there?" he queried. "And why is it like them?"
"In several ways. It is, in the first place, all a gamble. The pearl
merchants buy the oysters as I bought my mussels, by the lump and as a
chance, based on the law of average product. They rot the oysters as
you do the mussels. The smell is the same: and many other things are
the same. For instance, it is almost impossible to keep the diver from
stealing pearls, just as it is hard to keep the Kafirs from stealing
the diamonds they find in the mines."
I still was looking at him closely, and now I said to him mildly, and
in a low tone of voice, "It would be of no use--I should only beat you
again; and I would rather spare your mother. You see," I added in a
louder tone of voice, "the natives put pearls in their hair, between
their toes, in their mouths--although they do not chew tobacco as you
do. One who merely put one in the pocket of his overalls--if he wore
overalls--would be called very clumsy, indeed, especially if he had
been seen to do it."
Involuntarily, he clapped a hand on his pocket. What would have been
his next act I do not know, for at that moment I heard a voice call
out sharply, "Halt! villain. Throw up your hands, or by heavens you
die!" Turning swiftly, I saw Lafitte, his pistol barrel rested in very
serviceable fashion in the crotch of a staff, the same as when he
first accosted me on my stream, glancing along the barrel with an
ominous gray eye again gone three-cornered.