hand,
extracting such pearls as they contained, dropping the gems into the
bucket of water with which each of us was provided, and then throwing
the shells out on the reef apart from those still untouched. We toiled
on thus all day, with a pause of half an hour about midday, when we
retired to the boat, cleaned ourselves as well as we could, and snatched
a hasty meal, concluding our labours about half an hour before sunset.
When, during the run back to the ship at the end of the day, we
proceeded to compare notes and take stock of the results of our labour,
we came to the conclusion that either the bed was an enormously rich
one, or that we had had an exceedingly lucky day, for our combined booty
consisted of over fourteen hundred pearls--sixty-three of which were of
quite exceptional value from their size or colour--and a full quart
measure of seed pearl. I was of opinion, at the time--and am so still--
that we might have obtained considerably more than we did of the last,
but for the eagerness with which we prosecuted our search for the larger
gems, which caused our search for the smaller seed pearls to degenerate
into a very perfunctory operation.

The story of one day's work at the oyster-bed is the story of all; it is
therefore unnecessary to say more upon the subject than that we spent a
full fortnight upon the task of gathering pearls, by the end of which
time we had acquired so much dexterity at the work that we did more in
one day than we did in two at the beginning of our labours. Then,
although at the expiration of the fortnight we seemed to have made
scarcely any perceptible inroad upon that enormous deposit, we grew
tired of our self-imposed task and mutually agreed that we had
accumulated as much wealth as we required. Moreover, as we watched the
increase of that wealth day by day, our anxiety grew lest perchance
anything should happen to prevent our escape from the reef and our
return to that civilisation, where alone our wealth could be of any real
value to us. The reader may reasonably ask what grounds of
justification we had for the fear that anything could possibly happen to
prevent our escape, seeing that we had been fortunate enough to discover
a channel through which the ship might be easily taken out to sea; but I
think we all still carried a vivid recollection of the terrific natural
convulsion that had placed us in the extraordinary situation which we
then occupied; and I believe the others