Despite the heavy clumsiness
           of her lines,
         the Aorai
              handled easily
                   in the light breeze,
         and her captain
            ran her well in
             before he hove to
                  just outside the suck
                       of the surf.

    The atoll of Hikueru lay
           low on the water,
         a circle of pounded coral
              sand a hundred yards wide,
         twenty miles in circumference,
           and from three
               to five feet
             above high-water mark.

    On the bottom
           of the huge
         and glassy lagoon
        was much pearl shell,
           and from the deck
               of the schooner,
         across the slender ring
               of the atoll,
           the divers
            could be seen at work.

    But the lagoon
        had no entrance for
         even a trading schooner.

    With a favoring breeze cutters
        could win in
               through the tortuous
                   and shallow channel,
           but the schooners lay
               off and on
             outside and
              sent in their small boats.

    The Aorai
          swung out a boat smartly,
           into which
            sprang half
                   a dozen brown-skinned sailors clad
                  only in scarlet loincloths.

    They took the oars,
           while in the stern sheets,
         at the steering sweep,
           stood a young man garbed
               in the tropic white
             that marks the European.

    The golden strain of Polynesia
          betrayed itself
               in the sun-gilt
                   of his fair skin and
              cast up golden sheens
                   and lights
                 through the glimmering blue
                       of his eyes.

    Raoul he was,
           Alexandre Raoul,
         youngest son of Marie Raoul,
           the wealthy quarter-caste,
         who owned and
              managed half a dozen
                  trading schooners similar
                       to the Aorai.

    Across an eddy
          just outside the entrance,
           and in and
               through and
             over a boiling tide-rip,
         the boat
              fought its way
                   to the mirrored calm
                       of the lagoon.

    Young Raoul
        leaped out
               upon the white sand
                   and shook
             hands with a tall native.

    The man's chest and shoulders
        were magnificent,
           but the stump
               of a right arm,
         beyond the flesh
             of which the age-whitened bone
                  projected several inches,
           attested the encounter
               with a shark
             that had
                  put an end
                       to his diving days and
                      made him a fawner
                           and an intriguer
                         for small favors.

    "Have you heard,
           Alec?"

    were his first words.

    "Mapuhi has found a pearl
          --such a pearl.

    Never was there one
          like it ever
              fished up in Hikueru,
           nor in all the Paumotus,
         nor in all the world.

    Buy it from him.

    He has it now.

    And remember
         that I told you first.

    He is a fool
           and you
        can get it cheap.

    Have you any tobacco?"

    Straight up the beach
           to a shack
      under a pandanus
         tree Raoul headed.

    He was his mother's supercargo,
           and his business
            was to comb
                   all the Paumotus
                 for the wealth of copra,
         shell,
           and pearls
             that they yielded up.

    He was a young supercargo,
           it was his second voyage
               in such capacity,
         and he suffered
               much secret worry
                   from his lack
                       of experience in
                  pricing pearls.

    But when Mapuhi
          exposed the pearl
               to his sight
         he managed
              to suppress the startle it
                gave him,
           and to maintain a careless,
         commercial expression on his face.

    For the pearl
        had struck him a blow.

    It was large
           as a pigeon egg,
         a perfect sphere,
         of a whiteness
             that reflected opalescent lights
                   from all colors about it.

    It was alive.

    Never had
         he seen anything like it.

    When Mapuhi
          dropped it into his hand
         he was
              surprised by
                   the weight of it.

    That showed
         that it
            was a good pearl.

    He examined it closely,
           through a pocket magnifying glass.