Robert Turold agreed, and they emptied the stones out of the bottles and leather bag into a single heap.

Remington took one bottle and Robert Turold another; to Thalassa fell the empty bag.

As the stones were sorted one was to be placed in each receptacle until the tally ran out.
It must have been a strange spectacle--so strange that it made a lasting impression on the least imaginative mind of the three, for he tried in his rude way to reproduce it on that Cornish beach after the lapse of thirty long years.

He threw bits of rock on the sand to indicate the positions in which they had sat.

From his description Charles pictured the scene adequately enough: the violet-black beach, exhaling sulphuric vapours, the yellow-grey volcanic rocks, the gurgling ebullitions of a geyser throwing off volumes of smoke high above them, and the faces of the three men (ruddy in the fire-glow, white in the moonlight) intent on the division of the heap of dull stones scattered on a flat rock between them.