about L3 a ton, so
you may imagine that I felt very well satisfied. Then, besides the
pearl-shell I bought nearly five hundredweight of splendid hawkbill
turtle-shell, giving but two or three sticks of tobacco for an entire
carapace of thirteen plates weighing between two and three pounds, and,
as you know, hawkbill shell is worth eight dollars a pound in Hongkong,
and much more in London or Hamburg."

"Captain Yorke," said Guest, with a laugh, "you should not have told us
this. Drake here is a very good fellow, but in business matters--as a
supercargo--he'd cut the throat of his best friend."

"Don't believe that, Captain Yorke," I said, "but at the same time I
wish you had not told us of this place. You certainly have the prior
right of discovery, and ought to have the benefit, so I promise you I
will not repeat to our owners anything you now tell us."

Yorke's face changed, and his bright blue eyes looked into ours with
such a kindly expression that the fascination he already possessed over
me deepened quickly.

"You and Captain Guest are welcome to my knowledge, but I trust you will
use it for your own benefit, and not consider your owners. Tell me now,
gentlemen, would they consider _you_? Would they give you a handsome
bonus for putting, say, five, or six thousand pounds into their
pockets?"

"I daresay they would give us each a cheque for fifty pounds," said
Guest meditatively.

"Then keep the thing dark," said the big man energetically, "keep it
dark. Why should you, Captain Guest, and you, Mr. Drake, enrich your
owners by imparting to them this information? I tell you, gentlemen,
that all shipowners are alike, at least I never ran across any that
showed much consideration for any one else's welfare. Nine out of every
ten will work the soul out of their ship-masters and officers, who, when
they grow too old to go to sea, are chucked out into the gutter to die
of poverty, unless they have laid by a nest-egg for their old age."

"That is true enough," assented Guest, "and our esteemed employers are
no better than the general run. So we will look on what you have just
told us as private; by and by we will all talk over the matter, and see
if we cannot go into the thing together."

Yorke nodded. "I'm with you. I've always played a lone hand hitherto,
but I think that I can pull very well with men like you."

Then he resumed his story.

"On the morning of the third day I went ashore with my gun to have a