The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

by Gustave Aimard

  CHAPTER XIII.

  INTERVENTION.

  The _Burlonilla_ proved herself commendably swift. Had she been even afaster sailer, captain Gladsden would have never dreamt of going out tosea with a view of eluding anyone curious about the movements of theeccentric young Englishman, after the disappearance of Ignacio beingreported to him. Search high and low, not a trace of the rogue. Spiteof the sharks at Guaymas, capitan don Jorge was so convinced that thelieutenant of bandoleros was inevitably fated to adorn the gallows,that he believed the rogue had reached land, or, as the vice-consulcould have given him a pointer, been taken into the scow of his famouscolleagues.

  Without being aware that the steamer was at the command of those whocould be accounted his enemies, and would be sent in pursuit, or,rather better to say, since Ignacio was the pilot, would strive toanticipate him, the captain made all haste for the spot indicated onPepillo's plans.

  Since Ignacio had but a vague surmise to go upon, the _Burlonilla_passed Point St. Miguel without anything hostile arising, and sooncast anchor at the second of the islets, in a chain which were namedafter the knots in the rope girdle of St. Francis. But the seafarers,men supremely practical, who do not fetch their similes from afar, hadalso preferred to take the protuberances for a likeness to the knots ina logline, call them, _Las Senales de la Cordonera de San Francisco_.The good mission priests might protest, but the laws of the Medes andPersians are easily effaceable as compared with a name down on a seachart.

  Between the mainland, where a dreary haze hinted of the smoke ofsleeping volcanoes in the rocky ridge of the peninsula of oldCalifornia, and the string of isles, the brigantine was made secure bystem and stern.

  The mainland was rugged, and apparently admirably abundant withvegetation.

  There were giant palmettos tossing their feathery tops to everycat's-paw, in isolated clumps, among a verdant screen of varied trees.

  Alas, for the trickiness of Dame Nature. That luxuriance wassuperficial, the verdancy that of worthless shrubs, cactus, andprickly pear, briar, vine and beach, plum, thorn apple and Dead Seafruit. Behind that illusive foliage, sand, lava, stones, dust, formedthe melancholy waste in which the scanty, wild creatures live inperpetual madness, induced by chronic thirst. Without irrigation, LowerCalifornia is an Arabia Petrae.

  But as Gladsden had no intention to settle, he was content with thealluring, if deceptive, face of the country.

  The first real annoyance was to find a small colony of Indian mongrels,painfully carrying on the re-raking up of the shells of the abandonedpearl fishery grounds. Their huts were picturesquely perched on rocks,the leafy roofs ornamented with _gallinasos_, fowls, more than halfwild, which indolently hunted for food in the natural thatch of palmand brush. These born pearl fishers had been there so long, that theyhad laid out little gardens for ground and bush, fruit and vegetables,defended by live cactus. Above patches of sugarcane glowed the goldenglobes of orange and citron, amid deep green leaves.

  As don Jorge Federico de Gladsden had come, not to scrape oystershells, but to haul up a mass of pearls in a submerged box withoutdesiring prying eyes to witness the operation, he allowed Benito toget the observers out of the way by simply hiring the whole settlementto go fishing at another point of the broken reef. From the brigantinethey could be seen, without their being able to watch the peculiarfishing in which her crew were about to engage.

  Fishing for pearls is a much more dangerous and difficult operationthan is generally supposed.

  Each of the several _piraguas_, or pirogues, or dugout canoes, as youplease, had two men, stripped for diving, save an apology for bathingdrawers, girded on by a rope. This retains to the left side a leathersheath for a heavy knife, not less than eighteen inches long and threefingers wide, sharp as a razor, intended to battle with the sharks andstripe backs, _pez manta_, a kind of galvanic ray of which the merecontact paralyses the victim.

  The worst kind of shark, the _tintorera_, that is to say, "the dyer,"promenades the Pacific where human beings congregate, and comes up theGulf. One of the headlands on the east coast is named after this terrorof the pearl divers. The _tintorera_ owes its cognomen to a singularpeculiarity, which reveals his presence providentially to afar off.Pores around his muzzle exude a luminous, gluey matter, which spreadsover the entire body and gives him a glowworm like effulgence. Over andabove this, the animal is next to blind, and consequently cannot go bysight alone to any point desirable. While, too, other sharks, to seizetheir prey, simply turn over on their sides, senor el Tintorera has toroll belly up completely.

  When there are any such _squaloid_ around the fishing place, no daypasses without there being "knots to untie," between the divers and thetintoreras, as well as the _pez mantas_, and, almost always, the menonly cut clear after horrible struggles.

  When the diver takes his "header," his fellow paddles the skiff forwardso as to accompany the plunger's diagonal immersion, whilst his riseis, on the contrary, vertical. This is done to pick up the swimmer atthe very identical instant of his reaching the surface, his left armladen with oysters and his lungs eager to catch air. Then he climbs in,takes the paddle, and manages similarly whilst his mate does the diving.

  Good divers go very deep, the most famous can touch bottom at twelveand even fifteen fathoms, and can stay under for seven or nine minutes,but these are rare, the majority not surpassing four and five minutes,which is very pretty. The mated divers keep on by turns until theyhave brought up the requisite quantity of oysters. Their gains aremiserable, and those whom captain Gladsden engaged were delighted toget a dollar a dozen. Many a shell has to be opened before any pearlsare found; ten or twelve per cent is a good proportion for the enrichedones, and then again, many pearls are far from valuable. The basisof the estimation is the orient, as much as to say the lustre of theconcentric layers, the "water," the roundness, and the size. Thoseworth a couple of thousand dollars are found on the South Americancoast, and still more seldom in "the Sea of Cortes," where we now are.

  Whilst the hired Indians were engaged at this submarine toil, Benitoand the two red men, old acquaintances of his, who would not haveengaged themselves to another master, were searching the water at theside of the brigantine first, and latter, farther and farther away,accompanied by the yawl, two men pulling so that the two red men couldrest calmly till they relieved the Mexican at the watery work.

  For a time there was a growing belief that Ignacio's brother had lied,or that the chest had been burst by the waters churned up by the_temporal_, as is named the terrible wind, the West Coast counterpartfor "the Norther" of Texas, or, at the best, moved it away into deepwater. But Benito and his copper acolytes were expert in judging theaquatic "signs," and soon pronounced that the bluish tint that denoteda pearl oyster bed, showed a bright bar from a break in its continuity.The chest had dragged, but was not lost. Within an hour, all threedivers being down at once, the old Indian came up and uttered a joyousshout on expelling his breath. He had a fragment of tarry rope. Next,Benito struck the trail, and came up crying, as soon as he could speak,that he had discovered the chest, the buoys had been eaten away bymarine creatures on the tooth of time, and the treasure coffer hadsunk, crushing into an oyster bed. The wounded oysters had exudedtheir pearly fluid and coated the strange object beautifully, and theshellfish had settled on it, but there it was in its lustrous andlovely mantle.

  The yawl returned to the brigantine with this good news. It was comingon dark, so that nothing could be done till morning, but make ready adrag and hauling and lifting tackle, the hooks of which the chief diverand his aides undertook to attach, as confidently as others would workon dry land in open air.

  Dona Dolores, whom, as a young bride, her husband had allowed toindulge in all her caprices--and heaven knows a Mexican girl, liberatedby wedlock, so to say, paradoxically, has an infinity of tastes togratify--had indulged in too much sweetmeat to have been a good sailor.As a consequence she was glad of the suggestion of Gladsden that,during the anchorage, she should remain o
n shore in the best hut ofthe little settlement. With the things landed from the _Burlonilla_the _haquel_ (little hut) was made tolerable lodgings--a relief to theconfinement of the brigantine's cabin.

  The night was lovely, after a glorious sunset, when the reflectionsof the sublime play of orange and vermilion suggested why the earlynavigators were led to call those upper waters of the Gulf the Red Sea(_Mar Rojo_), rather than because the united streams of the Gila andColorado pours, dyed with iron and copper, into the clearer blue.

  In the deep, deep sky the stars glittered like diamonds of more thanmortal polish. There was a mingling of air off the peninsula fragrantwith wild flowers, of air off the Gulf, of tempered briny billowsbumping the rocks of Cape St. Lucas, and of hot, dry breath from themainland, rich with a honey like sweetness that cloyed. All was still,all was lonely, and the sole cry, at long intervals, was that of thelean coyote, stealing over the sands and mingling his starlight shadowwith those of the giant cacti, shaped like colossal men brandishingmaces and clubs, as he curiously regarded the brigantine. If a slightbreeze ran along the shore it almost musically clattered the oystersclustered on rushes and mangroves, standing part submerged. Behind themthe mesquite and acacia, and back of all the sparse woods on the risingslope: beyond that peaks well apart.

  Once in the night watch the lookout reported a red fire gleamsouthwards like a fallen star quenching itself in the Gulf, and twicesmoke was espied in the same quarter.

  They knew it not, but it was Matasiete, after a search of San LuisGonzales Bay by daytime, pushing the steamer into the shoals around theIslands of San Luis and Cantador. The double incentives of revenge andgreed made the amphibious rascal excessively daring.

  In the morning, therefore, Gladsden coming on deck early to have atub in the brackish water drawn for his ultra-English custom, himselfbeheld the chaste _Susana_, full steam on, steering for the knots ofthe log line of St. Francis, and, logically, for himself.

  It would have been hard to lose the prize just when he had verified itsexistence, as well as one may believe in a pig--we mean a pearl in apoke.

  The _Burlonilla_ floated two guns and a swivel, and no deficiency ofsmall arms. The steamer had four ports, and canvas covered objects, oneat bow and one at stern, were no doubt the complement of her armament.She came down to within two cables' length of the anchorage of thegoleta, blowing off steam noisily, not to say threateningly, and therelet her both bower chains run out. A kedge and hawser, let from thestern, enabled her numerous crew to moor her so that her broadsideoverawed the little brigantine. Before this manoeuvre, Gladsden wasfain to believe it was only one of the smugglers which often run up theGulf and await the result of the negotiation of the consignees and theport officers before returning to Guaymas or elsewhere, and discharginga cargo on which, thus, the Exchequer of Mexico is neatly defrauded andthe public deficit is kept from lessening.

  With his glass captain Gladsden had recognised as the officer on thesteamer deck none other than the double traitor Ignacio. It needednothing more to understand that the newcomer would stick at nothingon this desolate coast where the ship duel would have no seconds orinterferers.

  He was ordering Mr. Holdfast, after having pointed out the Mexicanto him, to hurry all hands over breakfast with a little intimationthat some of them would dine in paradise if they did not beat off theunwelcome visitor.

  Suddenly the old Indian tutor and friend of Benito pointed shoreward.The canoe of the pearl diver was putting off with him and dona Dolores.Instantly, being a little nearer, and seeing the same sight, there wasa bustle on the quarterdeck of the _Susana_, and there appeared ingorgeous array, even eclipsing that of the Chilian representative inwhich he had last been admired, the celebrated don Anibal Cristobal deLuna.