to fill out in the soft
land breeze, which wafted them back to their stranded home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

The weather was glorious, and the days glided by in what would have been
a luxurious life had it not been for the busy, investigating spirit
which kept them active.

For they were in the midst of abundance. The well-stored ship,
victualled for a couple of hundred people, offered plenty for three,
while from sea and land there was an ample supply in the form of fish,
fowl, and eggs, both birds' and turtles', places being discovered which
were affected by these peculiar reptiles, and where they crawled out to
deposit their round ova in the sand, while a fine specimen could be
obtained by careful watching.

Then, too, there was an abundant supply of fresh water easily to be
obtained by taking a water cask up the river on the raft.

As Carey's injury mended he was restlessly busy either superintending
the pearl fishing, whose results were visible in half-a-dozen casks sunk
in the sands and an ever-increasing stack of the great shells carefully
ranged in solid layers by Bostock, to whom fell the lot of pouring water
in the casks and giving their contents a stir-up from time to time.

"Smell, sir?" he said, in answer to a remark from Carey, who always went
carefully to windward. "Oh, I s'pose they do; so does fish if you keep
it too long, but I don't mind."

"But it's horrid sometimes," said Carey; "and if it wasn't for the
pearls I wouldn't have anything to do with the mess."

"Dirty work brings clean money, my lad; and if you come to that, the
fresh lots of shells I piles up don't smell like pots of musk. But it's
all a matter o' taste. Some likes one smell, and some likes another,
and then they calls it scent. Why, I remember once as people used to
put drops on their hankychies as they called--now, what did they call
that there scent, my lad?"

"Eau de Cologne."

"No, nothing like that."

"Lavender water?"

"Nay, nay."

"Millefleurs?"

"Nay, nothing like it. Here, I've got it; something like Paddy Chooly."

"Patchouli?"

"That's it. I knew it was something about Paddy. Well, sir, if you'll
believe me, that stuff smelt just like black beetles in a kitchen
cupboard near the fire. I don't mind the smell o' pearl soup."

"But I want to see number one emptied. When is it to be?"

"When it's quite ripe, and it aren't ripe yet."

"Takes a long time, doesn't it?" said Carey.

"And no mist