In the morning, the three breakfasted in silence. Biff wanted to say something to cheer up Derek. But what was there to say? Derek’s face was white and drawn. It was plain to see that the Dutch boy had had little if any sleep the night before.
It was Derek who broke the silence.
“I want to thank you both,” he said. “But I don’t feel that I can ask you to continue this search any longer.”
“We’ll go along with you just as long as you want us to,” Biff spoke up loyally. “Right, Uncle Charlie?”
“Certainly, Biff.”
“No. It’s no use,” Derek continued. “Not in this section of Martinique. I’m sure that if my father were anywhere around here, we’d have heard something about it—some rumor, some tale of a tall white man.”
“I agree with you there, Derek,” Charles Keene said. “But there is much of Martinique still to be searched. The southern part, down around English Bay. That’s south of the spot where we believe your father located the pearl fishery. He might have gone into hiding down that way.”
“You mean, don’t you, Mr. Keene,” Derek said bravely, “that if he was lost at sea, and washed ashore, then it would be in that section of Martinique?”
Charles Keene didn’t reply. Derek had read his thoughts.
Right after breakfast, the three headed back across Martinique toward the cove where they had hidden their boat. It was about a twenty-mile trip, and they reached the spot just at dark.