“I think we’d better spend the night here,” Uncle Charlie said. “I don’t know this coast too well. Might run into a reef if we try to make it to Trinité tonight.”
Exhausted from their long and fruitless search, the three slept that night under a clear sky, the sleep of the overtired. The sun was already up and blazing when they woke. A quick swim refreshed them after their hard sleep, and half an hour later they were on their way back down the coast.
They reached Trinité by midmorning.
After mooring the boat, they held a conference.
“What are your plans now, Derek?” Biff asked.
“Well, we could continue searching for the pearl fishery. Or—”
“Or we could go south and look for your father,” Biff completed Derek’s thought.
“What about this?” Uncle Charlie cut in. “Suppose Biff and I keep on looking for the pearls and you go off for a few days on your own?”
Biff frowned at these words. He knew his uncle’s intentions were good, but he also felt that if Derek left them, he’d be cut off from the only friends he had on Martinique. He’d be lonely and engaged in a search with his heart heavy at the prospect of what he might discover.
Biff didn’t quite know how to tell his uncle this. He didn’t want to contradict him. He didn’t have to. As he was puzzling a way out of the suggestion made by his uncle, he heard a shout. He looked in the direction the hail had come from. Lumbering down the dock, a broad grin on his strong face, came Crunch.