The water was
transparent almost as air; and I happened to select a place where the
coral grew within a few yards of the surface. As I dove, my eye fell
on a considerable cluster of large oysters that were collected on the
rock, and, reaching them, I succeeded in bringing up half a dozen that
clung to each other. These dives I repeated, during the next quarter
of an hour, until I had all the oysters, sixty or eighty in number,
safe on the shore. That they were the pearl oysters, I knew
immediately; and beckoning to Neb, the fellow soon had them snug in a
basket, and put away in a place of security. The circumstance was
mentioned to Marble, who, finding no more heavy drags to be made,
ordered the Sandwich Islanders to take a boat and pass a few hours in
their regular occupation, on account of the owners--if, indeed, the
last had any further claim on our services. These men met with
tolerable success, though, relatively, nothing equal to mine. What,
just then, was of far more importance, they made a discovery of an
arm-chest lying on the bottom of the basin, at the anchorage of the
Crisis, and which had doubtless been sunk there by the French. We had
all la Pauline's boats but the captain's gig. I went in one of them
with a gang of hands, and, the divers securing a rope to the handles
of the chest, we soon got it in.
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