Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-07-09

gin loneliness of star white pearl - his pearl!
The brothers, after few days work, began
to question Ames rather sharply about the
extent of the bed; and Ames, in whose mind
certain doubt was beginning, rat-like, to gnaw
and scratch, told them just what he chose to
tell. He didn't want them to know that the rich
trove was nearly finished He felt safe 50 long as
they thought there was plenty more to be had.
But the Workmans, even if they were too
old for diving now, had done good deal of it in
their time and it was hard to deceive them.
They began to talk to each other in stray
corners of the ship.
Ames had an idea they knew almost as much
about the bottom as he did himself. And on a
certain morning, when the Straits lay lightning
blue beneath MINDLESS sky, and the far-of
islets foated, pale as amber, clear like glass,
Morag's lover made up his mind. 1t would do
today :. 1t must do today. For by this time he
knew, informed by certain sixth sense &C
quired among the world rough places, that the
brothers did not mean him to return alive.
He would have given half the catch of pearls
put away in his suitcase to know just how that
Japanese diver had died. The brothers couldn't
have monkeyed with the air tube or the motor.
without the Binghis knowing. What then?
The answer came from an unexpected source
no later than that morning.
-Nulla islet was little more than reef;
it had few hollows on the top, filled just now
with recent rains; it rose abruptly from the
deeps of the pearling ground. and about its
edges fish were to be caught. The Binghis, every
morning, brought in snapper and cod. Ames get
ting into his diving woolens, saw Jim Workman
handing out bait and lines: heard him, in the
rude native tongue of the Binghi, direct the
boys where to fish and what to GET.
One word struck him like a shot from
gun He knew little of the "abo" language;
Workman wouldn't have believed newly ar
rived "Yank" could know any at all. But Ames
was clever with foreign tongues: clever, too,
through long experience of the value of such
reserve in keeping what he knew to himself He
heard what Jim was saying to the BingSn,
guessed at some and understood the rest.
GO to those caves at the far side and find me
a good crayfish or two. Well have them for
dinner"
1t was Ames' death sentence and he knew
it. Maybe the Binghi didn't know what all
Thursday Island divers understood, but Ames
was only too familiar with the worldwide
prohibition that keeps cayfish out of every
diving vessel and the mortal risk that follows
on any break of the rule. Young divers care
essly picking up uayfsh to add to their bag
below; old divers greedy for the savory oayfish
meat, cooking mess of cray in the galley, had
time and again been answerable for the deaths
of their mates The shark loves uayish above
all other food; even the slightest odor OF it will
draw him from far away 1t is not usually
the cray6sh, in the end that satiates his furious
hunger.
Ames knew all that, and now - now - he
knew how the diver had died. So easy to get
hold of crayfish on the quiet. So simple to rub
it over the helmet and corselet, when they were
adjusted to the divers head. So terribly sure
that any of the Torres tiger sharks who hap
pened to be within mile or 50 would smell the
cray sooner or later and. as the brothers -
secretly grinning. no doubt had said. shell
the diver out of his helmet and oorseiet like as
you'd shell kernel out of nut" Ames, con-
scious now of deadly danger to himself. resolved
that the brothers should be caught in their own
trap, if only he could manage to set that trap
and spring it.
The crayish stunt would be intended for
tomorrow: they'd told the boys to cook some
A. nvvv Il n