Tales from the Little, Illustrated, Golden Library - Tales of the Sea - The Black Pearl - Emilio Salgari - Fourth Story

 

The Black Pearl

VOCABULARY

cutlass = a short sword with a slightly curved blade, formerly used by sailor;

MEMO

The following text may present outdated depictions that are in no way or form shared by the translator themself, and neither are they shared by the original author of these stories.

Please understand that these stories' depictions are a depiction of their time.

A good translator strives to transfer the originality, tone, and idea of a text from its language of birth to its guest language, all the while respecting the intent and style of the original author. 

These translated texts do not intend to bring offense, but just to share the adventures 

written by Captain Emilio Salgari. 

Adventures inspired by his love for traveling around the world, especially to far, foreign lands, his passion for ships and sailing in general, as well as his endless curiosity about other cultures and what's out there, beyond the horizon line.

💎

   Surely you have either been told or have at least read that those beautiful pearls whose brilliance is almost phosphorescent, and that the ladies always wear, are fished from the bottom of the sea.

Their producers are a particular type of seashells that are a tad similar to our oysters from the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Sea and that can be found abbundantly only in the Indian seas, and the Persian Gulf.

Those from India, which are the most appreciated due to their splendour, are fished near the island of Ceylan* in a strait called Manaar**.

Every year, for two or three months, several hundred boats gather there, all having aboard skilled fishermen or deep sea divers, that do nothing but plunge in the water all day long, bringing oysters to the surface.

They work stark naked, having nothing on but a belt where they keep a cutlass, and from which they hang on a net whose purpose is to keep the oysters safe.

However, to their feet they tie a rock shaped like a sugarloaf in order to sink more rapidly.

Their submersion ordinarily lasts for about a minute or a minute and a half, but there are Indian people that can last for even three full minutes.

Don't think, however, that all of them always make it back to the surface. Not in the slightest. Those unfortunate people, in order to procure the pearls for their masters, risk their lives with every single dive.

As a matter of fact, many avid man-eaters enemies hide among the sands of the pearl-producing banks.

Sharks are especially common and with every opening of the fishing season, they rush in shivers***; there are even certain gigantic octopuses, a type of squid, whose arms are one-two metres long and armed with suckers.

These horrible octopuses, when they climb to a deep sea diver, they no longer allow him to return to the surface and hasten to drain them of their blood, via their numerous suckers.

Two years or so ago, a much more numerous fleet than usual had gathered on the bank of Manaar.

Word had spread that the number of pearl-producing oysters had prodigiously increased, possibly because of the few sea storms that had broken out in that year, which led to the boat owners doubling their fleets and their crews.

And indeed, the first results were very promising. Most of the oysters that the deep sea divers had gathered from the bottom of the sea contained truly brilliant small pearls, but then, for some unknown reason, the harvest lessened so much that both the boat owners and the men they had enlisted had started to grow seriously worried.

The most astounded of them all was an old Indian fisherman whose name was Nigala, for whom that sudden disappearance of the pearl-producing oysters meant nothing less than his most recent downfall.

That poor devil seemed to have been born under an extremely unlucky star.

He had had plenty of children, but never a hint of luck. Initially, he had been a farmer, but the scorching heat had always burned all of his crops; afterwards, he had been a merchant, but all of his deals had fallen through; so now he was a fisherman, but more than ever had he suffered from hunger for fishes rarely had allowed themselves to be caught by his nets.

As a last resort, and now desperate, he had sold all of the few goods he had left in order to buy a bigger boat so as to go to the bank of Manaar.

"I'll try pearl fishing", he had told himself.

And taking all of his twelve sons aboard his boat, he had gone to the fishing banks with the hope of finally making a fortune.

As always, his unlucky star had followed him even there. Rather, it seemed that his presence alone had put at risk the fortune making of others, because, as we have previously seen, after the first few successes, the oysters had simply disappeared.

The fishermen that knew him did not hesitate to blame him for it.

"It's because of Nigala that the oysters have disappeared!", they would say. "Nigala is a jinx!"

With that, they had started glowering at him, muttering threats against the poor old man and his twelve sons.

Nigala, resigned to his destiny as always, didn't imprecate against his sad fate, quite the opposite, in fact.

"This is what God wills", he would say. "May His will be done!"

His twelve sons, bold and powerfully built, would continuously dive into the sea water, constantly lowering themselves either on this or that bank, rummaging even through the sand but never having any luck.

It was already a lot if from a thousand oysters they would manage to obtain a small pearl worth a few liras, but it would take many days and a lot of effort before they could get one.

One day, while the old man was leading the boat above the banks, his eyes scouting the sea floor that was visible thanks to the limpidity of the water, he thought he had a heard a voice tell him:

"Nigala, stop here."

Surprised, he looked around, thinking that those words had been uttered by the lips of one of his sons, but there was no one else to be found.

His cabin boys were all gathered at the prow and were preparing a meager breakfast consisting of a few bananas boiled in water.

"Which of you spoke to me?", he asked.

"None of us did, father.", the youths ones replied.

Nigala, thinking he must have made a mistake, veered the ship in order to continue the search, and immediately heard the same, exact voice say:

"Nigala, stop here!"

Doubly surprised, the good old man stopped the boat and carefully looked over the sea floor.

Right under the keel of his little boat there was a cliff surrounded by banks, but with no oyster in sight.

Not trusting his own two eyes, he had called for his sons and they, too, had all confirmed that that wasn't the type of place where oysters could be found.

Nigala, convinced that he had must have made a mistake, allowed the boat to be guided by the wind on its course, step by step moving away from the bank. But the more it moved away, the more Nigala had the incomprehensible urge to return there.

Nigala had spent the entire day scouting the banks, not finding a single oyster.

Not even the other fishermen had had more luck.

During the night, while they were all asleep, the old man had been awakened multiple times by the same voice that kept telling him:

"Return to that bank!"

Deciding to listen to that mysterious voice, the following day he had gathered all of his sons, telling them everything.

"Father", the eldest one spoke up, "We will go and search that bank. Maybe it's God that's sending you there so as to put an end to our misery."

They set sail and returned to there where the old man had stopped, intent on exploring it carefully.

"I see nothing but a cliff.", said the eldest one.

"Same here", the others confirmed.

"Let's check it out, my sons", said the old man.

The firstborn put in his belt a cutlass, fearing a shark encounter, hung the net for keeping the oysters safe, and tied to his right foot the stone that had the same shape as a sugarloaf.

"Father", he said, "I'm on my way to try my own luck."

"Keep an eye out for the sharks", the old man said. "You know how much they love human flesh."

"I am armed and fearless."

The good young man submerged himself, rapidly going down.

The old man and all the others, bending over the edge of the boat, never lost sight of him, the water having kept its clarity.

They saw him rummaging through the sand, searching the whole bank, then go around the cliff, and then rapidly come up.

"Father", he said after having taken a deep breath, "That mysterious voice must have lied, because I have not seen a single pearl-producing oyster."

"We'll give it a try, as well.", said the others.

And one by one, they scrutinized the sand and all had come back up saying:

"There are no oysters here."

"This time, I'll try.", said the old man.

"Your years are far too many, father", said the firstborn. "If a shark were to attack you, you wouldn't be able to defend yourself."

"I have to sacrifice myself for the well-being of my children", replied Nigala. "That voice couldn't have deceived me. Pass me the knife and the net and have no fear."

The remonstrations of the sons were in vain; quite the contrary.

The old man tied the the stone to his foot, put the knife in his belt, amply supplied himself with air, and submerged himself.

It wasn't the first time that he was diving to the seafloor. He had been a deep sea diver for many years, in fact, he was one of the toughest ones.

Instead of descending on the bank, the old man had let himself fall straight down, right in front of the underwater cliff.

He felt it in his gut that, if there were any pearl-producing oysters to be found, they couldn't be anywhere but there.

He had just touched the seafloor, at about ten metres under the surface of the sea, when, as he was looking around, he had noticed that on the side of the cliff there was a crack where the water was forming a faint undertow.

Immediately he had started suspecting that that gash was most likely leading to an underwater cave, and knowing that oysters always look for tranquil places, there was no doubt in his mind that there were some over there.

"Let's take courage and go visit it", he thought to himself.

His descending hadn't taken more than ten seconds, so he could spare a minute or more, which was enough time to explore the cave.

With a single thrust of the knife, he had cut the rope which was tied to the sugarloaf-shaped rock and vigorously swam inside the crack.

He hadn't been wrong: inside of the cliff there was quite a spacious cave, irregularly shaped, barely lit, given its narrow entrance. However, the rays of the sun that the water was refracting were more than enough to illuminate it.

The old Indian man was astonished. 

The whole floor of the cave was covered in magnificent seashells, their size large, with their edges as red as corals and their inner edges of a scintillating mother-of-pearls.

In the middle of them, he had seen an enormous tridacna****, whose circumference was that of one metre and whose genus was the same as that of the pearl-producing seashells.

Approaching that giant clam, inserting the knife between the two shells in order to prevent it from closing and stick a hand inside it took but an instant. 

Under his fingers he had immediately felt a round, hard body, the size of a fist.

It was the pearl, wrapped in between the mollusc's limbs, but a pearl of a size that had never been seen before, and whose value was inestimable.

That oyster that had grown inside the half darkness of the cave, in those tranquil waters, was hiding a fortune.

The old man had tried to tear it off of the rock to which it had kept itself stuck, but the excitement must had weakened his arms, because he hadn't been able to even move it. Without the help of his sons, he couldn't have taken it.

"Let's go back up", he thought.

It was about time because he felt that he couldn't last any longer.

His lungs needed air and were causing him acute pains.

The old fisherman, gathering all of his strength, swiftly swam towards the exit to then return to the surface.

Suddenly, he flipped himself over, grabbing on to a tip of a rock. 

A big shadow had appeared near the crack, completely blocking the entrance of the underwater cave and Nigala immediately had recognized it.

That was the shadow of a shark that was seven or eight metres long, specifically the hammerhead shark, which are the most ferocious ones.

These beasts, instead of having a round face and their head a bit flat, like all the other sharks, instead take on the shape of a real hammer, having their eyes situated at the two extremities, with a yellowish glow and that incur fear in one's heart.

Below that hammer-like shape head they have, there is a semi-circular mouth, so big that it can contain a young man, and it is armed with several rows of sharp, triangle-shaped teeth.

That beast probably had chosen that cave as its refuge, stopping near its entrance, and completely blocking it with its big body.

Was he aware of the presence of that poor fisherman or, catching sight of the boat's shadow on the sea floor, had stopped to spy on it? Whichever one it was, the shark still posed a grave danger for the fisherman that was now forced to stay hidden behind the rock, with his lungs exhausted.

The shark didn't seem willing to leave the way clear. With his head outside the cave, and his tail inside the cave, he would slowly stir his dorsal fins causing the water to gurgle and sometimes making light waves.

Nigala, crouching down behind the rock, kept looking at him with unutterable terror.

Death, at this point, seemed certain. His lungs could no longer hold on and unintentionally he would allow the water to pass through his wrinkled lips.

In his ears, there was a buzz that was getting louder and louder, as his nose was bleeding.

A few more moments and everything would be over. The unfortunate man felt that he was dying while the colossal oyster that was a stone's throw away was slowly opening its shells as if to show him the precious pearl that it was keeping hidden.

While the miserable man, powerless to try anything to rise to the surface to see the sun and fill up his lungs with air, was in agonising pain at the bottom of the dark cave, his sons, filled with grim anxiety, anxiously spied the seabed. All they knew was that they had seen their father remove the rock and disappear inside the side of the cliff, and had not seen him re-emerge.

Already a minute had passed by and the old man still hadn't appeared.

His firstborn immediately started suspecting that some kind of misfortune must have befallen him.

"Brothers", he said, "our father must be in some kind of danger. If it wasn't so, by now he would have re-emerged. I suspect that he must have found some kind of underwater cave and that his strength has left him."

"Yeah, let's go look for him", said the others.

"I will descend first: as the firstborn, it is my duty."

He quickly tied himself to the rock, put his knife in his belt and prepared to submerge.

"If you don't see me return", he said, "come look for me".

With that said, he dived into the water.

Nigala's firstborn was a robust young man that was twenty-five years of age, brave to the point of temerity and an incredibly skilled deep sea diver.

He had fished for pearls together with his father several times and could resist underwater for long periods of time.

Keeping in mind where the old man had disappeared, he had descended in front of the cliff, having already thought that over there there must have been some kind of opening that led to an underwater cave.

The minute he had touched the seafloor he took notice of the crack inside the rock and just like his father had done, cut the rock off so he could have better freedom of movement.

He had almost entered the passage, when he suddenly saw the hammerhead shark.

The shark hadn't yet left its spot, almost as if he had known that sooner or later some kind of human prey would show up.

The young Indian, noticing that the shark was blocking the entrance of the cave, could figure out why their old parent could no longer re-emerge to the surface.

"My father is stuck in there", he thought. "If I don't kill the shark, he's done for."

The young Indian, as we have mentioned, was strong and brave. It wasn't the first time that he would have to battle that terrible inhabitant of the sea, quite the contrary, one time he had had a bloody battle with two of them.

He grabbed his knife and resolutely swam towards it. 

The hammerhead shark had already spotted him and with a single flick of his tail darted out of the cave with its mouth open, as if it could foretaste the flesh of the young man.

At first, it had tried to knock him down with a blow of its tail, but when that failed, it rolled over on his stomach in order to cut him in two.

That's all that the young man was waiting for.

As quick as a lightning bolt, his left hand clung to the shark's pectoral fins as his right hand, armed with the cutlass, delivered desperate blows.

The shark wriggled terribly, now ascending towards the surface, now sinking towards the bottom, all the while delivering formidable tail blows.

The young Indian man refused to give up on him and wouldn't desist from the stabbing. The blood coming from that body covered in wounds was enough to obscure the water. 

That fight lasted for twenty seconds, not a second more, ending in the victory of the good young man.

The shark, with its belly torn open and its skin in pieces, soon re-emerged to the surface motionless.

It was dead.

Once the shark no longer posed a risk, the young Indian man did not waste time. Being able to last for a few more seconds, quickly swam inside the underwater cave, and near the cliff, he had found his old parent, lying motionless in the middle of the seashells.

The asphyxiation had began. He tightly grasped him, crossed again the pathway that was now clear and with a powerful kick of his heel re-emerged to the surface in proximity of the boat.

He was so exhausted that he couldn't keep himself above the waves and blood was flowing from his nose and ears.

"Brothers", he had had barely the time to exclaim. "Help!"

The sturdiest ones had already rushed into the sea. The old man and the firstborn were lifted onto the boat, where they had received first aid.

The firstborn lost no time in regaining his senses; the old man, on the other hand, swollen like a wineskin, delayed the opening of his eyes.

However, following energetic rubbings, finally a long sigh escaped his wrinkled lips.

"The tridacna", this was his first shout.

"Father, don't talk.", said the firstborn.

The old man shook his head vigorously.

"The tridacna", he repeated, in a broken voice. "There... in the cave... I saw it... the pearl... the pearl... three or five steps away."

Then, exhausted from the supreme effort, fell back down in the arms of the firstborn, repeating himself in a weak voice:

"The... pea... arl.. arl... pearl! Rich... all of us... rich!..."

The firstborn that, too, had entered the cave where his old parent had nearly died a horrendous death, didn't recall seeing the tridacna, therefore thought that the ill-fated man was speaking under the influence of delirium. 

"Let's wait until he recovers", he told his brothers. "We'll see then if our parent is telling the truth!"

But the old fisherman was getting worse and worse. The long immersion had shaken his sturdy constitution.

Soon enough, he had come down with a fever, then the delirium came, but even during his fervour he would do nothing but repeat the same things:

"The pearl... all of us rich... the pearl... sons... don't forget..."

During the night, the unfortunate man ceased to live. The pearl that was meant to make his family a fortune, so harshly tested by fate, had proved fatal to him.

The twelve sons, grief-stricken, brought their father on land and buried him under the shadow of a gigantic banana tree that was growing at the farthest point of Ceylan.

For many days no one had given a second thought to the pearl that the moribund so had pleaded with his sons to go and search for at the bottom of the sea.

It was only two weeks later that the underwater sea cave had returned to the mind of the firstborn. The fishing season being almost over, the young man decided to go straight to the cliff, certain that he wouldn't have been followed by the other fishermen there.

Old man Nigala couldn't have been wrong, that was the conviction of all of his children.

They had waited for a dark night, in order to mislead the other fishermen, whom, having already heard some things, had been spying on them for several days and had over there where there had been that bloody battle with the shark.

The three oldest sons, all of them sturdy cabin boys and incredibly skilled deep sea divers, the moment dawn broke submerged themselves and resolutely entered the underwater cave.

The gigantic tridacna was still there, in the middle of the seashell bank, showing its inner mother-of-pearl.

The three young men tore it off from its rock, not without an extreme effort, tied it to a rope that they had lowered from the boat, and promptly returned to the surface.

Once the tridacna was lifted up on the boat and opened up, inside it was found a superb black pearl, as big as an egg, and whose value was certainly inestimable.

The poor old man was dead but he had given his sons a fortune.

That pearl, the biggest that is known, has now become the property of the sultan of Mysore, one of the richest nabobs***** of India.

Nowadays, the sons of Nigala are considered the richest ship owners of Manaar and every year they send a fleet of a hundred boats to the pearl-producing banks.

But they have not forgotten their parent.

At the farthest point of the Indian peninsula, in the vicinity of Cape Cormorin, in front of the banks of Manaar, one can see a splendid mausoleum of the purest Indian style rise, shaded by a gigantic banana tree.

That's where old man Nigala sleeps his eternal slumber.

💎

Source of the tale (28.07.2025).

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*Present-day Sri Lanka. The name "Ceylon" was used during the periods of Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial rule. Its current name, Sri Lanka, has only been in use since 1972.

"Ceylan" is what is considered Salgarian penmanship.

**Present-day Gulf of Mannar.

***A gathering of sharks is called a shiver.

****A tridacna is a type of large saltwater clam that belongs to the giant clams subfamily. Source (05.08.2025).

*****The correct term is nawab, but in English and other foreign languages, the term that was adopted was nabob.

A nabob is a royal title that indicates a ruler, specifically one of a South Asian state. The Western equivalent would be the title of a prince. In earlier times, it was a title that was bestowed to a Muslim official or governor under the Mogul empire. Source (05.08.2025).

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Personal Notes:

It is said that the stories written by Emilio Salgari are stories he would hear from sailors, when he would go to visit the dock.

His best and most known work, "Sandokan, The Tiger of Malaysia" has been proven to bear resemblance to true historical facts, starting with the firstly-thought-of-as-fictional island, Mompracem (currently known as Kuraman Island), and with the strong impression that Sandokan is no other than a fictional representation of Syarif Osman, who ruled Marudu (north of Borneo) (I recommend you go here for more information about Sandokan or Syarif Osman. Miss Bianca has done a marvelous job in finding, gathering, and translating information about Salgari and his works, especially those concerning the character of Sandokan).

Going by this, I strongly suspect that all of Emilio Salgari's stories are based on true, historical happenings and people, the sands of time mercilessly erasing most of their traces.

Emilio Salgari's stories feature places from all around the world; many of them feature places as far as possible from Europe itself. It is not far fetched that a story from your own hometown might be present in one of his writings, regardless of how remote or unknown you might think it might be to others.

If you know how to find the original, historical, sources of any of the stories present on this blog or if you even recognize one of them here as a local, known story (or legend) to you, please feel free to contact me.

I would love to put both the story written by Salgari and the historical one side by side and not let these names become forgotten.

Thank you very much for your assistance.