He turned it over and over, until, after a while, it worked through his sight into his mind; then he looked more closely at it, for he had never seen the like of it before. It was not a shell, neither was it a pebble, for there were no pebbles on the island. It was thin and perfectly round, and as black as ink. On one side of it was a raised surface that bore a faint likeness to the rude image of a head; below this was something that looked like a row of small figures. He brushed it smooth with the palm of his hand, and then looked more closely at it, turning it around and around, and this way and that. All of a sudden a thought struck him, and I cannot describe the thrill that went through him as he looked at that which he held. As this thought went through his mind, he closed his hand and looked slowly around him, as though he was in a dream. I can distinctly recollect that that singular feeling which we all have felt at times passed over him;—a feeling as though all this had happened before, but as though it had happened in a dream. Then he looked at the object once more, and could just make out the figures;—they were 1, 7, 9 and 2. He picked at the edge of the disk, and a white sparkle followed the scratching of his thumb nail. “Good Lord, Jack!” cried he, “look! look!” There was a ring in his voice that made Jack jump as though he had been struck. “Look at what, Tom?” said he, in a half-frightened voice. “Look at this!” said Tom, and he held out that which he had picked up a minute before. “What do you think it is?” Jack had three or four of them in his own hand. “I don’t know,” said he, turning them over and over. Suddenly he too began to look more closely at them. “Why, Tom—Tom—” he began, “is it—is it—” “It’s money;—it’s silver money, Jack, as sure as I am a living sinner!” “Why, so it is!” cried Jack, “why, so it is, Tom! This is a half a dollar, and so is this, and this, and this! Why, Tom, here’s another, and another! Great heavens, Tom! _the sand’s covered with them!_” And so it was. Here and there would be two or three lying together, but in most cases they were scattered about like shells at high water mark. Jack sat down quite overcome, and then began laughing in a foolish sort of a way, but there was a catch in his laugh that sounded mightily like crying. “Tom,” said he, “we’re rich men! Tom, did you ever see or hear of the like? Why, Tom—” Then he stopped all of a sudden, and, scrambling to his feet, fell to gathering up the money as though he had been crazy. For an hour or more they hunted up and down, picking up silver pieces as children pick up chestnuts under a chestnut tree. After a while they only found a few stray coins here and there, and finally they cleared the beach of them altogether. Then they sat down to count them. Tom had about two hundred dollars; Jack had gathered more nearly three hundred than two. Altogether they had a little less than five hundred dollars between them.