being slacked away or cast off on the jump. The sound of the surf was
loud, hollow, and menacing, and a heavy swell was setting in. A
terrible sheet of lightning burst before their eyes, illuminating the
dark day, and the thunder rolled wildly about them.

Toriki and Levy broke into a run for their boats, the latter ambling
along like a panic-stricken hippopotamus. As their two boats swept out
the entrance, they passed the boat of the Aorai coming in. In the
stern sheets, encouraging the rowers, was Raoul. Unable to shake the
vision of the pearl from his mind, he was returning to accept Mapuhi's
price of a house.

He landed on the beach in the midst of a driving thunder squall that
was so dense that he collided with Huru-Huru before he saw him.

"Too late," yelled Huru-Huru. "Mapuhi sold it to Toriki for fourteen
hundred Chili, and Toriki sold it to Levy for twenty-five thousand
francs. And Levy will sell it in France for a hundred thousand francs.
Have you any tobacco?"

Raoul felt relieved. His troubles about the pearl were over. He need
not worry any more, even if he had not got the pearl. But he did not
believe Huru-Huru. Mapuhi might well have sold it for fourteen hundred
Chili, but that Levy, who knew pearls, should have paid twenty-five
thousand francs was too wide a stretch. Raoul decided to interview
Captain Lynch on the subject, but when he arrived at that ancient
mariner's house, he found him looking wide-eyed at the barometer.

"What do you read it?" Captain Lynch asked anxiously, rubbing his
spectacles and staring again at the instrument.