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Of the forty-seven white pearls, four were of very large size. Davis had no scales, but he reckoned that these four and the black were worth all the rest put together.

The general stock-taking brought an end to their luck, and for weeks after the take was a joke, to use Davis’ expression. It is always so in pearling; a man may make a small fortune out of a fishery in a few months, but the take is never consistent, and if he strikes it rich at first, it is ten to one he will have to pay for his luck.

One morning, just as the sun was freeing himself from the reef and the last of the gulls departing for their deep-sea fishing grounds, Harman, who had been to draw water from the well, suddenly dropped the bucket he was carrying, shaded his eyes and gave a shout that brought Davis from the house.

Davis looked to where the other was pointing, and there far off to the north and lit by the newly-risen sun stood a sail.

They had been praying for a ship for the last fortnight, speculating on the chances of anything picking them up before they died of hope deferred and loneliness and a diet of fish and vegetable truck, yet now, before that sail hard on the blue and evidently making towards them, they scarcely felt surprised, and were too troubled to be filled with joy; for it suddenly occurred to them that pearls were pearls—that is to say, wealth in its most liftable form.