CHAPTER I.—THE SHARK-CHARMER WALKS THE PLANK.

Jack! I say, Jack! there's a row among the boatmen.”

A sturdy, thick-set young fellow of seventeen was Jack, with low-hung fists of formidable size, and a love for anything in the shape of a row that constantly led him into scrapes. Hot-headed though he was, he was one of the most good-humoured, well-meaning young fellows in the world, who, while he would not hurt a fly if he could help it, was always ready to fight in defence of his own or another's rights.

His chum, Roydon Leigh—“Don” for short—was of an altogether different type of young manhood. Jack's senior by a year, he was tall for his age, standing five feet ten in his stockings. His lithe, wiry frame contrasted strongly with Jack's sturdier build, as did his Scotch “canniness” with that young gentleman's headlong impetuosity.

“A row!” cried Jack delightedly, as he rushed to the taffrail. “Time, too; four weeks we've lain here, and never a hand in a single shindy!”

His companion laughed.

“As for that,” said he, “you're not likely to have a hand in this, unless you take the boat and row off to the diving grounds. All the same, there's a jolly row on—look yonder.”

The schooner Wellington rode at anchor at the northern extremity of the Strait of Manaar, on the famous pearl-fishing grounds of Ceylon. On her larboard bow lay the coast—a string of low, white sand-hills, dotted with the dark-brown thatch of fisher huts and the vivid green of cocoa-nut palms. The hour was eight o'clock in the morning of a cloudless March day; the fitful land-breeze had died away, leaving the whole surface of the sea like billowy glass. Half-a-dozen cable's-lengths distant on the schooner's starboard quarter, a score or-more of native dhonies or diving-boats rose and dipped to the regular motion of the long ground-swell.

It was towards these boats that Don pointed.

That something unusual had occurred was evident enough. Angry shouts floated across the placid water; and the native boatmen could be seen hurriedly pulling the boats together into a compact group about one central spot where the clamour was loudest.

“I say,” cried Jack, after watching the boats for some time in silence, “they're making for the schooner.”

“I don't half like the look of it,” replied Don uneasily; “they shouldn't leave the diving grounds, you know, until the signal gun's fired. I wish the guv was here.”

“Wishing's no good when he's ashore,” said Jack philosophically. “You're the skipper pro tem., and you must make the most of your promotion, old fellow. We'll have some fun, anyhow. Whew! how those niggers pull, and what a jolly row they're making!”

By this time the excited cries, which had first attracted the attention of those upon the schooner's deck, had been exchanged by the boatmen for a weird chant, to which every oar kept time. Erect in the stern of the foremost boat an old whiteheaded tyndal or “master” led the song, while at the end of each measure a hundred voices raised a chorus that seemed fairly to lift the boats clear of the water.

“What are they singing, anyway?” demanded Jack. “There's something about a diver and a shark in it, but I can't half make it out, can you?”

“We'll call Puggles—he'll be able to tell us. Pug! Hi, Pug! come here.”

“Coming, sa'b!” answered a voice from the cook's galley; and almost simultaneously there appeared on deck the plumpest, shiniest, most good-natured looking black boy that ever displayed two raws of pearly teeth. Nature had, apparently, pulled him into the world by the nose, and then, as a sort of finishing touch to the job, had given that organ a sharp upward tweak and left it so. It was to this feature that Puggles owed his name.

“Pug,” said his master, “tell us what those boatmen yonder are singing.”

The black boy cocked his ears and listened for a moment with parted lips. “Boat-wallahs this way telling, sa'b,” said he; and, catching the strain of the chant, he repeated the words of each line as it fell from the lips of the old tyndal:

“Salambo selling the diver one charm,

Salaam, Alii kum!

Old shark, he telling, then do no harm,

Salaam, Alii kum!

One spotted shark come out the south,

Salaam, Alii kum!

He taking diver's leg in his mouth,

Salaam, Alii kum!

Me big liking got, he telling, for you,

Salaam, Alii kum!

So he biting diver clean in two,

Salaam, Alii kum!

The lying charmer we take to the ship,

Salaam, Alii kum!

There he feeling bite of the sahib's whip,

Salaam, Alii kum!”

“Why, this Salambo must be the chap the guv had whipped off the grounds last season, eh, Pug?” cried Don excitedly.

“Same black rascal, sa'b. His skin getting well, he coming back. Dey bring him 'board ship, make his skin sore two times,” explained Puggles, grinning.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Jack. “We'll oblige 'em! We'll trice the fellow up! Hullo, here they come!”

The boats having now reached the schooner, the chant ceased abruptly, the heavy oars were noisily shipped, and, amid a perfect Babel of voices, the boatmen came swarming up the sides, until the deck was one mass of wildly gesticulating, dusky humanity. The uproar was terrific.

The old tyndal, who towered a full head and shoulders above his comrades, pushed his way to the front, and commanding silence among his followers, addressed himself to Don, who was always-recognised as master in his fathers absence.

“Sab.” said he in pigeon English, “one year back big sa'b ordering Salambo eat plenty blows for selling charm to diver-man. All same, this season he done come back and sell plenty charm, telling diver-man he put charm round neck, shark no eat him up. He telling plenty lie—this morning one shark done come, eat diver, charm, all!”

“Let him stand forward,” said Don, beginning to enter as much into the novelty of the thing as Jack himself.

The culprit, a sleek old fellow with shaven head, crafty eyes, and a rosary of wooden beads about his neck, was shoved to the front.

“Are you the chap who was whipped off the grounds last year for selling chaims?” demanded Don.

“Your honour speaking true words.” whined the shark-charmer, salaaming until his shaven head almost touched the deck; “I same rascal.”

“I say, Jack,” whispered Don, “I shan't have him whipped, you know. We'll, make him walk the plank.”

“Capital! Hell funk, certain, and there'll be no end of fun.”

“Well do it, then,” said Don decidedly. “Go forward and order two of the lascars to take the boat and lie under the schooner's quarter—-this side, you know—ready to pick him up.”

In high glee Jack departed to execute this commission, while Don again turned to the shark-doctor.

“Do you happen to have one of those charms about you?” he asked.

“One here got, sa'b,” said the fellow, producing from the folds of his waist-cloth an ola or fragment of palm-leaf, covered with cabalistic characters. “Sa'b no look at him?”

“Keep it yourself,” said Don; “you'll soon need it. Hi, lascar!” to one of the schooner's crew who stood near. “Fetch a plank here and run it out over the side.”

By the time the plank was brought and run out until one-half its length projected over the water, Jack came up chuckling, and by a sign intimated that the boat was in readiness. The crowd of natives, guessing that something unusual was afoot, craned their necks eagerly, while Puggles executed a comic pas seul in his delight. But the shark-charmer, as Jack had predicted, “funked” miserably.

Knowing that with the boat in waiting there was absolutely no danger to the shark-charmer's life, Don turned a deaf ear to his pleadings, and made a signal to the lascars to proceed.

Willing hands seized the quaking wretch and dragged him to the schooner's side, where he was placed upon, the plank, Puggles standing on the deck-end to keep it down.

“Steady, Puggles!” cried Don. “One, two, three—let him slide!”

Puggles jumped aside, the deck-end of the plank rose high in air, then descended with a crash; and with a scream of terror the shark-charmer disappeared over the side.

A tremendous shout rose from the natives on deck, and with a common impulse they one and all rushed to the schooner's side, which they reached just as the shark-charmer's head reappeared above the surface. Another moment, and he was dragged into the boat, where, catching sight of the laughing faces ranged along the rail above, he shook his fist in mute menace, and so was rowed to shore.

“Teach the beggar a lesson he won't forget in a hurry,” said Don, as he watched the boat recede. “Good-bye, old boy; we're not likely to meet again.”

But in this sanguine forecast of the future he was mistaken, as events speedily proved.

CHAPTER II. A STROKE OF LUCK AND AN AFTER-STROKE.

It was the afternoon of the day on which the shark-charmer so unwillingly walked the plank. The breeze was so light and fitful that it barely ruffled the surface of the sea about the schooner. Weary of the narrow limits of the deck, Don and his chum dropped into the boat and rowed ashore—Puggles, as a matter of course, bearing them company.

“These beastly sands are like an oven!” growled Don, lifting his helmet to cool his dripping forehead. “Where shall we go, Jack?”

“Bazaar,” replied Jack laconically; “always some fun to be had there. Pug, point for the bazaar.”

“Me pointing, sar,” puffed the black boy, setting his dumpy legs in motion.

Puggles was never so much in his element as when thus strutting pompously in advance, warning common nigger humanity of the white sahibs' approach. At such times the disdainful tilt of his nose, the supreme self-complaisance of his expansive grin, were as good as a show.

A gay and animated scene did the bazaar present. Back and forth through the temporary street surged an endless throng of natives of every shade of complexion and variety of costume—buying, selling, shouting, jabbering, drinking with friends or fighting with enemies.

“Much cry and little wool,” laughed Jack. “There's a big black fellow yonder auctioning off some pearl oysters; let's have a go at the next lot.”

“All right,” assented Don; “perhaps we'll have a stroke of luck. The guv knew a poor half-caste once who bid in just such a chance lot as this, and in one of them he found sixty-eight thumping big pearls. Cleared thousands of pounds by that one bid, the guv says. Pug! here, Pug!”

“Coming, sa'b,” gasped a faint voice, and Puggles wriggled his way from amongst the bystanders, shining with abundant perspiration and squeezed well-nigh flat by the pressure of the crowd.

“Pug,” said his master, “up on this creel with you, and when that big black fellow yonder puts up his next lot, bid 'em in.”

Up went Puggles, nothing loth to escape further squeezing, and up went the auctioneer's next lot. In five minutes' time the few dozens of oysters composing the lot were knocked down to the black boy at an absurdly low figure.

“Here you are,” said Don, handing him the coin. “Pass that over, and fetch the things away till we see what's inside them.”

Making a dive for the oysters, Puggles scrambled them into his cloth, and followed the sahibs to the outskirts of the crowd, blowing like a porpoise. Finding a convenient patch of shade beneath a banyan tree within a few yards of the lazy surf, they proceeded to ascertain, without further delay, whether the shells contained anything of value.

“Him plenty smell got, anyhow,” commented Puggles, as he arranged the oysters, which had been several days out of the water, in a small pyramid.

Jack threw himself on the sand, and surveyed the rough, discoloured heap with unqualified disgust. “They don't look very promising, I must say,” he cried. “Try that big one on top, Don.”

Inserting the blade of his pocket-knife between the shells of the bivalve, Don prized it open and carefully examined its contents. It contained nothing of any value.

Jack looked listlessly on, while his companion opened shell after shell with no other result than the finding of two or three miserable specimens of pearls, so small that, as Jack laughingly said, “one might stick them in ones eye and forget the moment after where one had put them.”

Only three or four shells now remained unopened, and Don was on the point of abandoning the search in disgust, when Jack, who had edged himself on his elbow as close to the heap as the villainous odour of the decomposed oysters would allow, snatched up a shell of large size, and said:

“Let me have the knife a moment, will you? This looks promising—it's the biggest of the whole lot, anyhow.”

“There you are, then; I've had enough of them myself,” said Don, tossing him the knife and walking off.

He had not proceeded half-a-dozen yards, however, when a loud shout brought him back at a run. Jack and Puggles were eagerly bending over the opened oyster.

“What is it?” he asked breathlessly, going down on his knees beside them.

Jack thrust the half-shell towards him. It was literally filled with magnificent pearls. *

* In 1828 no less than sixty-seven pearls were taken from a single oyster on these grounds.—J. K. H.

Not a word was spoken as the glistening, priceless globules were carefully abstracted from their unsightly case and laid upon Pug's coffee-coloured palm. Twenty-five pearls of matchless size and brilliancy did Jack count out ere the store was exhausted. So taken up were they with their good fortune that not one of the three observed a native creep stealthily towards them under cover of the tree.

“There's been nothing like it known on the grounds for years!” cried Don excitedly. “Any more, Jack?”

“No more,” said Jack, and was about to throw the shell away, when Puggles caught his arm.

“Stop, sar, stop! Me see something yellow in shell. Stick knife in the meat, sar, that side.”

With the point of the blade Jack prodded the substance of the oyster at the point indicated, and presently laid bare the queen of the royal family of pearls on which they had stumbled. Larger by far than any of the twenty-five already taken from the shell, this latest addition to the number was in shape like a pear, in lustre of the purest pale yellow.

“Him gold pearl, sa'b!” cried Puggles gleefully, grinning from ear to ear. “Other only silver. Gold pearl plenty price fetching.”

“Jack, old fellow,” cried Don, thumping his companion on the back, “Puggles is right; we're in luck. I've heard the guv say that a golden pearl isn't found once in twenty years. The priests are ready to give simply any sum you like for a really fine specimen.”

The native who had concealed himself behind the trunk of the banyan tree, leaned eagerly forward. So close was he to the absorbed group that he could distinctly hear every word of their conversation. As he listened, an avaricious glitter shone in his crafty eyes, and he rubbed his hands unctuously together, as though he were rubbing pearls between them.

“How much do you suppose the lot is worth; Don?” Jack inquired.

“Some thousands of pounds, I should say. But the guv will be able to tell us. Say, I'd better put them in this.”

Taking out his watch, he drew off the soft chamois leather case, and carefully transferred the output of the mammoth oyster from Pugs palm to this temporary receptacle.

“Now,” cried Jack, leaping to his feet, “let's make for the schooner. The sun's set, and besides, I shan't feel easy until the golden 'un is in a safer place than a waistcoat pocket.”

“That's so,” assented Don. “Point, Pug!”

When they had disappeared in the crowded bazaar, the shark-charmer emerged from behind the tree, and took the road to that part of the beach where the boats lay.

By the time Don and his companions reached the schooner, the brief twilight had deepened into the gray darkness of early night. The pearls were at once shown to Captain Leigh, who confirmed his son's estimate of their value. It would, he said, run well into four figures, if not into five. The golden pearl he pronounced to be of special value.

“Not that it would fetch anything in England,” said he; “but wealthy natives—and more especially priests—stop at nothing to secure a pearl like that. I mean that in a double sense, my lads; so you had better stow your find away in a safe place.”

In the locker under the cabin clock, accordingly, the chamois leather bag with its precious contents was placed. On closing the locker, however, to his annoyance Don found the key to be missing.

“I shall put it in the little locker under the cabin clock,” said Don. “It locks, and there isn't a safer place on board the schooner.”

“Wrap your handkerchief round the bag, so it won't be noticed if any one opens the locker,” suggested Jack. “It will be safe enough then, especially as nobody ever comes here except ourselves and Pug.”

But on quitting the cabin, to their amazement they came face to face with the shark-charmer! He stood at the very bottom of the companionway, within a yard of the cabin door, and directly opposite the clock and locker.

“What are you doing here?” cried Don, advancing upon him angrily.

“Nothing, sab, nothing!” protested the native, dropping a running salvo of salaams as he backed up the steps. “Me only wanting to see big sa'b.”

“Then be off about your business, or you'll get the whipping you missed this morning. Do you hear?” And, without further ado, Salambo made for the deck, where they saw him disappear over the side.

“Do you think he saw us at the locker, Jack?” Don asked uneasily.

“I should think not. But even if he did he wouldn't be any the wiser. He knows nothing about the pearls.”

“True enough,” said Don, and so the subject dropped.

The cabin clock indicated the hour of ten when they turned in for the night. Somehow Don found himself unable to sleep. In spite of every effort he could make to the contrary, his thoughts would run on the pearls. At last he could stand it no longer. Leaping out of his berth, he struck a light and crept noiselessly into the main cabin. The companion door stood open to admit the night air, and his candle flared in the draught.

“I'll get to sleep, perhaps, if I take a look at them,” he said to himself as he made his way to the locker.

An exclamation of alarm burst from his lips. His hand shook so violently that it was with difficulty he could hold the candle. The lid of the locker stood wide open!

Advancing the light, he peered into the receptacle. It contained nothing. Handkerchief, bag, pearls—all had disappeared!

CHAPTER III.—THE QUEST BEGINS.

For a moment the discovery paralysed him, body and mind. Then he turned and hurried to Jack's cabin. Jack was snoring. Don shook him fiercely by the shoulder.

“Wake up! The pearls are gone!”

Jack was awake and on his feet in a twinkling. “You're dreaming, old fellow,” said he, seeing Don in his night-clothes. “You're only half awake.” Don did not argue the matter. He simply seized Jack by the arm and dragged him into the main cabin. There the empty locker placed the truth of his assertion beyond dispute.

“What's to be done?” gasped Jack.

“Let us call Pug,” suggested Don. “He may know something about this.”

Puggles slept on deck. In two minutes they were by his side, and he was stretching his jaws in a mighty yawn. Great was his astonishment when he heard of the loss. But he could throw no light on the matter. He had neither seen nor heard anything suspicious. As for Puggles himself, he was above suspicion.

“Come down and let us have another look,” said Jack. “It's just possible, you know, that some one may have been to the locker and accidentally dropped or knocked the case out upon the floor. I can't believe it's gone.”