shillings a month to grub along the bottom of the ocean for oysters; but their sense of values was hazy, and they did not bother their heads much about white men's motives. This, however, applied particularly to the three men Chester Trent had lately recruited; Isa, alone, was less simple in that respect, for he had intelligence, of a low order, and much cunning.
Little more than a raw cannibal though he was at heart, Isa had learnt much by the simple process of watching during the many years he had been a pearl diver. It was always the white man, never the black, who went to so much trouble, risked everything, aye and even fought, for these small round objects that were found in the oyster.
Twice in his life he had seen divers killed for disobeying the white man's rules about pearls. Once it was when a New Guinea native held up a pearl a little larger than usual in his wet fingers to examine it. It had a curious, pinkish hue. Isa had never seen one quite like it before nor since. The white man who was employing them shouted something, and the diver let the pearl slip out of his wet fingers. It fell over the side in rather deep water, and the white man crushed the diver's skull in with a crow-bar.
On the other occasion a black tried to steal one of the pearls, and he was shot dead on the spot.
