"I guess they got a belly full o' this business," was Jarrow's comment as he brought the boat alongside. "You make a mistake not to take 'em up. We'd be in a bad hole here if it come on to blow hard. Ye better let me signal 'em back."
Trask said nothing to this, but helped Dinshaw over the side. The old man seemed utterly spent, and appeared to be in a daze from the sun. He looked about as if he had seen none of them before, and smiled, whispering something about gold, holding up his hands and looking at them.
"He thinks the sand is gold," said Jarrow. "I looked it over and it's no more gold than I am."
Marjorie spoke to Dinshaw, but he merely blinked at her, and she took him away to the cabin and gave him food and drink.
"What's this Doc said about you cookin' gold out of sand?" asked Jarrow.
"Brass filings," said Trask, promptly, and took some of the particles from his trousers pocket and dumped them into Jarrow's palm. "Had my suspicions of him, and wanted to see if he'd give me a double cross. And he has the nerve to want to come back!"
Jarrow grinned and examined the grains of brass, and with a remark that it was all a crazy business, announced his intention of getting some sleep.
"Call me, Mr. Trask, if this calm breaks, and we'll git out. I'm disgusted."
Dinshaw had suffered a sort of collapse, or coma, and he was put to bed likewise. Trask managed to get up an awning, and out on deck, where they could keep watch on shore, they lunched in comparative comfort.
Locke, now satisfied that the whole venture was a mad sort of lark, took it all in jocular mood, and chaffed Marjorie about her desire to go adventuring in the tropics. But Trask knew that he had been much more worried than either himself or Marjorie, and that his sallies were the result of his relief from strain about how things would turn out for them.