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I Go A-Pearling
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147
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on
a certain island in the South Seas at a time when I was still rash and
young. For on Palawan I, too, had held a coconut pearl of supernatural
fame and great size.
It
was Sayid, my number one pearl tout, who inveigled me to Palawan, where
the vegetation is as lush as anywhere on earth. There the ferocious
natives, the deadly anopheles mosquito, the crocodiles in the creeks
and the fever-hung swamps offer a warm welcome to the white man who
ventures thither. Sayid, son of Abu Bakur by a first wife, had his own
reasons for making me want to go to Palawan. He wanted to take a wife
and badly needed money. Any time is a bad time for needing money, but
things were particularly bad at that time, for the pearling fleets had
been having bad weather and Sayid's livelihood depended on the business
he brought me. Moreover, as he naively told me, he was afraid for the
future, too, for he thought I would soon get disgruntled and leave the
islands for ever.
"Never mind," I rallied him. "There are other white men."
"But I shall never have a better master," he said diplomatically.
"How so?" I demanded. "I pay no more than other masters."
He reflected a moment. "Lord," he said, "you have never yet called me a son of a bitch."
When
I laughed he seized the propitious moment. For he was full of guile.
With great suavity he recommended his expedition to Palawan.
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