“Yes, sir.”

“Including, no doubt, an auger, or, at any rate, a fair-sized gimlet?”

“Both, sir.”

“You will greatly oblige me, then, Mr. Goodfellow—­always with Captain Branscome’s leave—­by returning to the boat and fetching your auger; if possible, without attracting the ladies’ observation.  With this instead of returning direct to us, you will make your way to the left, towards the head of the beach, keeping well under the rocks, which will serve you from landward.  At the head of the beach you will bring us into sight a pace or two before you come abreast of the boat.  There, at a signal from me, you will creep down to the boat—­on hands and knees, or on your stomach if you will—­and bore me three small holes close alongside her keelson, using as much expedition as may consist with neatness.  You understand?  Then the quicker you set about it, the less will be the risk.”

Mr. Goodfellow touched his forelock, and sped on his errand.  Dr. Beauregard seated himself on the rocks, and loosing the gun from his bandolier, laid it across his knees.

“A simple job,” he remarked.  “Any one of us could do it as well as Goodfellow.  But it is a practice of mine to take the smallest risks into account; and if the honest fellow should be detected, why, I imagine he can be the most easily spared of the party.”

Mr. Goodfellow, however, reached the boat without misadventure.

“Ah, he displays intelligence!” commented Dr. Beauregard, watching him as, before setting to work, he lifted the boat’s gunwale and heaved her over on her other side, exposing the bilgepiece on which she had been resting.  “Yes, decidedly, he displays intelligence.”

Mr. Goodfellow having stripped off his coat, picked up his auger and bored his three holes very neatly.  This done be rubbed them over with a handful of sand, and smoothed over with sand all traces of sawdust, heaved the boat back, so that she rested again in her original position; and retired, sweeping his coat behind him, and obliterating his footprints as he went.

“Couldn’t be bettered!” said Dr. Beauregard, smiling cheerfully and smoothing his gun-barrel.  “And now I think we may rejoin the ladies and pray that these rascals will put off disturbing us until after luncheon.  At one time I feared they might have taken a panic yesterday morning at sight of your schooner; but they calculated, maybe, that the chances were all against your discovering their presence, which, of course, you never suspected.”

“I suspected something fast enough,” said Captain Branscome, “for in running along the coast I caught sight of smoke rising among the hills—­from a camp-fire, as I reckoned—­and no doubt from here or hereabouts, though I should have put it a mile or two farther south.”

“The born fools!” said Dr. Beau-regard, laughing.  “Well, it’s even possible that in their furious preoccupation they let the schooner come close without spying her.  Ah, Captain, you can hardly imagine—­ you, fresh from a civilized country, where folks must keep up appearances, while they prey upon one another—­how this lust of gold brutalizes a man when, as here, he pursues it without restraint.  And what, after all, will gold purchase?”