White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1935-04-18
Use of a Kanaka pearl diver.

use of a Kanaka pearl diver
| Doctor White was annoyed at the in
terruption. But as his experienced eye
swept over the details of the boat as
sembling out of the fog, this momen-
tary vexation gave place to astonished
chagrin, to dismay. Here was not their
belated diver, nor even the de Corlays,
nor Tom. 1t was a heavy yawl-rigged
semi-cabin cruiser. AS it forged slowly
down on them, swinging off little, the
doctor discovered small French flag
flying from the nizzen truck
| The significance of this was very
evident. No boat hailing from a neigh
boring French possession, especially
Miquelon island of which the COM
merce now deeply interested the United
States revenue service, was going to
advertise her nationality unless she
felt herself to be a virtuous craft and
entitled to the protection of her flag.
This could be no other than that Sc
bastien, described as scoundrel by
Jessica and Robert, and now come to
have a go at the Fourquet!
In the shock of this forbidding COM
plication Jessica sat and stared at the
boat as it drifted slowly up to them.
Three men were in her cockpit, one
of them holding the heavy, .old-fash-
Toned tiller. This would be Sebastien,
the doctor thought, his fists clinching,
! and the fellow looked indeed the sort
that the girl and Robert had described.
In a day when pirates still are quoted
at par, Sebastien had all the visible
traits Of high efficiency.
His face looked intelligent and alert,
less stealthy than scheming, and merci-
less rather than of the type that goes
with Sinking treachery. There was a
sort of Tartar suggestion about the
wide cheekbones, hooked nose, square
angled jaw and narrow, pointed chin.
His black, wiry muStache showed the
CLINT of strong, white teeth under it as,
utterly ignoring Doctor White and Jes-
sica, he ordered one of the men to let
go the anchor.
Doctor White raised himself a little
in the boat.
"You are too late" he said in a
crisp, authoritative voice. GIVE got a
line fast to this wreck and claim the
salvage from her"
Sebastien utterly ignored this state
ment. So far as concerned himself and
his immediate operations the elderly
gentleman and girl in the Whitehall
roWboat might not have been there at
all. The swarthy, stolid youth who had
gone forward cleared the turns of chain
cable from the winch and let go the
anchor.
Jessica, as if awakening from a
trance, whipped up her gown and en-
veloped her dripping body in it's folds
Sebastien stepped nimbly forward to
the we'll deck of the boat and threw
tarpaulin from something placed there
Doctor White saw this to be a divers
air pump.
The third man, who had gone into
the cuddy aft, came out with his arms
full of the helmet and other gear. The
youth forward stoppered the cable,
then took off his oilskin overcoat The
two other men did likewise, then car
ried on briskly their preparations
During these rapid evolutions not
one of them so much as threw glance
at the rowboat and the pair aboard it,
almost alongside.
"Are we going to stand for this,
Gardy? I'm afraid of that-that man.
II really wouldn't care to elope with
him, the-the way he'd do It'll"
Doctor White glanced at Jessica and
shook his head. He had been watch
ing silently the rapid preparations go
ing on aboard the vessel. Jessica shiv-
cred little, but not from cold, be-
cause her wooden gown was warm and |
heavy, and the night chill had by this
time left the air, while the sun, trying !!
to burn it's way through the fluffy !