“She tells me there was a Kanaka cook; been in the family as long as she can remember.”

“I see.  I deal with the Malay mostly; but twice a year I visit islands occupied by the true blacks, recently cured of their ancient taste for long-pig.”

“What’s that?”

“Think it over,” said McClintock, grimly.

“Good Lord!—­cannibals?”

“Aye.  Someday I’ll take you down there and have them rig up the coconut dance for you.  The Malays have one, too, but it’s a rank imitation, tom-toms and all.  But what I want to get at is this.  If your wife can coach you a bit in native lingo, it will help all round.  I have two Malay clerks in the store; but I’m obliged to have a white man to watch over them, or they’d clean me out.  Single pearls—­Lord knows where they come from!—­are always turning up, some of them of fine lustre; but I never set eyes on them.  My boys buy them with beads or bolts of calico of mine.  They steal over to Copeley’s at night and dispose of the pearl for cash.  That’s how I finally got wind of it.  Primarily your job will be to balance the stores against the influx of coconut and keep an eye on these boys.  There’ll be busy days and idle.  Everything goes—­the copra for oil, the fibre of the husk for rope, and the shell for carbon.  If you fall upon a good pearl, buy it in barter and pay me out of your salary.”

“Pearls!”

“Sounds romantic, eh?  Well, forty years ago the pearl game hereabouts was romantic; but there’s only one real pearl region left—­the Persian Gulf.  In these waters the shell has about given out.  Still, they bob up occasionally.  I need a white man, if only to talk to; and it will be a god send to talk to someone of your intelligence.  The doctor said you wrote.”

“Trying to.”

“Well, you’ll have lots of time down there.”

Here Ruth returned with the broth; and McClintock strode aft, convinced that he was going to have something far more interesting than books to read.

Spurlock stared at Ruth across the rim of his bowl.  He was vaguely uneasy; he knew not what about.  Here was the same Ruth who had left him a few minutes since:  the same outwardly; and yet...!

On the ninth day Spurlock was up and about; that is, he was strong enough to walk alone, from the companion to his chair, to lean upon the rail when the chair grew irksome, to join Ruth and his employer at lunch and dinner:  strong enough to argue about books, music, paintings.  He was, in fact, quite eager to go on living.

Ruth drank in these intellectual controversies, storing away facts.  What she admired in her man was his resolute defense of his opinions.  McClintock could not browbeat him, storm as he might.  But whenever the storm grew dangerous, either McClintock or Spurlock broke into saving laughter.

McClintock would bang his fist upon the table.  “I wouldn’t give a betel-nut for a man who wouldn’t stick to his guns, if he believed himself in the right.  We’ll have some fun down there at my place, Spurlock; but we’ll probably bore your wife to death.”