The Crew of the Fish Killer Finds Refuge on an Iceberg, and Discovers Greater Safety Elsewhere, after Which the Cook is Mistaken for a Fool, but puts the Crew to Shame
ROBINSON caught the child from the berth. He paused—it was an instinct born of Labrador experience—to wrap a blanket about her, though she was clothed for the day. She reminded him quietly that she would catch cold without her cap; and this he snatched in passing. Then he was on deck—in the midst of a litter from aloft and of a vast confusion of terrified cries.
Before she struck, theFish Killerhad ascended a gently shelving beach of ice, washed smooth by the sea. There she hung precariously. Her stem was low, so low that the choppy sea came aboard and swamped the cabin; and the bow was high on the ice. Her bowsprit was in splinters, her topmast on deck, her spliced mainmast tottering; she was the bedraggled wreck of a craft.
Beyond, the berg towered into the fog, stretched into the fog; only a broken wall of blue-whiteice was visible. The butt of the bowsprit overhung a wide ledge. To scramble to the shattered extremity, to hang by the hands, to drop to safe foothold: this would all have been easy for children. The impulse was to seek the solid berg in haste before the schooner had time to fall away and sink.
Robinson ran forward.
"Got that kid?" Skipper Libe demanded. "Ah, you has! Billy Topsail!" he roared.
Billy answered.
"Get ashore on that ice!" the skipper ordered.
Billy ran out on the broken bowsprit and dropped to the berg. He looked back expectantly.
"Take the kid!"
A push sent Robinson on the same road. He dropped Mary into Billy's waiting arms. Then he, too, looked back for orders.
"Ashore with you!"
Robinson swung by the hands and dropped. Before he let go his hands he had felt the vessel quiver and begin to recede from her position.
"Now, men," said the skipper, "grub! She'll be off in a minute."
Every man of them leaped willingly to the imperativeduty. The food was in the forecastle and hold; they disappeared. Skipper Libe kept watch on deck. With the waves restless beneath her stern, the schooner was perilously insecure. She was gradually working her way back to the sea. The briefest glance below had already assured Skipper Libe that her timbers were hopelessly sprung.
She was old—rotten with age and hard service. The water was pouring in forward and amidships; it ran aft in a flood, contributing its weight to the vessel's inclination to slip away from the berg. It was slow in the beginning, this retreat; but through every moment the movement was accelerated. Five minutes—four—three: in a space too brief to be counted upon she would be wallowing in the sea.
"Haste!" the skipper screamed.
Waiting was out of the question. TheFish Killerwas about to drop into the sea. Though the men had but tumbled into the forecastle—though as yet they had had no time to seize the food of which to-morrow would find them in desperate need—the skipper roared the order to return.
"Ashore! Ashore!" he shouted.
They came back more willingly, more expeditiously, than they had gone; and they came back empty-handed. Not a man among them had so much as a single biscuit.
"Jim!" said the skipper.
With that, Jim Tall, the cook, clambered out on the bowsprit. The others of the crew waited, each with an anxious eye upon the skipper.
"Bill!"
No sooner was Jim Tall at the end of the bowsprit than Bill was underway. The skipper grimly watched his terrified progress.
"Jack!"
In turn, Jack Sop scrambled out and dropped to the berg. The schooner was fast receding from the ledge. Alexander Budge, John Swan, Archibald Mann, completing the fishing crew, with the exception of Tom Watt, the first hand, and the skipper, won the ice.
"Now, Tom!" said the skipper.
"You, sir!"
"Tom!" Skipper Libe roared; and you may be sure that Tom Watt waited no longer.
Only the skipper was left. The change from his passive attitude—from his unbending, reposeful attitude, with a hand carelessly laid on thewindlass—was so sudden and unequivocal that Jim Tall, the cook, who was ever the wag of the crew, startled even himself with laughter. It was instant. Skipper Libe in a flash turned from a petrified man into a terrified and marvellously agile monkey. He bounded for the bowsprit, nimbly ran the broken length of it, and there stood swaying. The vessel was now so far from the ledge, and so fast receding, that he paused. Delay had but one issue. This was so apparent that horror tied the tongues of the crew. Not a cry of warning was uttered. The situation was too intense, too brief, for utterance.
"Tom," said the skipper to the first hand, "catch!"
He leaped.
"Skipper," said Tom Watt, in the uttermost confusion, an instant later, "glad t' see you! Come in! You isn't a minute too early."
In this way, proceeding with admirable self-possession, the souls aboard theFish Killerjumped from the frying-pan. Whether or not it was into the fire was not for a moment in doubt. When the schooner had once fairly reached the sea, which immediately happened, she sank. They saw her waver, slowly settle, disappear;when her topmast went tottering under water the end had come.
Whatever may be said of a frying-pan, nobody can accuse the crew of theFish Killerof having come within reach of a fire. Aboard the berg it was cold—awfully cold. Icebergs carry an atmosphere of that sort even into the Gulf Stream; they radiate cold so effectively that the captains of steamers take warning and evade them. It was cold—very, very cold. There was nothing to temper the numbing bitterness of the situation. And what the night might bring could only be surmised.
Though they were born to lives of hardship and peril, though they had long been used to the chances of the sea, not one of the castaways had ever before fallen into a predicament so barren of hope. Flung on an iceberg, adrift on the wild North Atlantic, derelict where no ships passed, at the mercy of the capricious winds, without food or fire: there seemed to be no possibility of escape. But for a time they did not despair; and, moreover, for a time each felt it a high duty to make light of the situation, to joke of cold-storage and polar bears, that the spirits of the othersmight be encouraged. As dusk approached, however, the ghastly humour failed. Ruin, agony, grief, imminent death; in the moody silence, they dwelt, rather, upon these things.
It was not yet dark when a faint shock, a hardly perceptible shiver, a crash from aloft, a subsiding rumble, apprised the castaways of a portentous change of condition.
"What's that, now?" growled the cook.
It was a cruelly anxious moment. Only the event itself would determine whether or not the berg was to turn turtle. They waited.
"She's grounded, I 'low!" exclaimed the skipper.
There was no further disturbance. Whatever had happened, the equilibrium of the berg had been maintained.
"I'm thinkin'," said the skipper, "that I'll take a little look about."
The skipper's "little look about" developed what appeared to be a saving opportunity. The berg had grounded; it had also jammed a wandering pack of drift-ice against the land. What that shore was, whether mainland or island, the skipper did not wait to ascertain; it was sufficient for him to know that the survivors of theFish Killermight escape from a disintegrating berg to solid ground.
He returned, breathless, with the enlivening news; and in lively fashion, which almost approached a panic, the castaways abandoned the berg. It was a hard, painful, dangerous scramble, made in the failing light, and the cook had an unwelcome bath in the icy water between two pans; but it had a successful issue. Before dark, they were all ashore—more hopeful, now, than they had been, but still staring death in the face.
So curious was Skipper Libe that, taking advantage of the last of the light, he set out to discover the character of the refuge. He returned discouraged.
"'Tis but a rock," said he. "'Tis no more than a speck o' land."
Then night fell. Robinson's little daughter was by this time on the point of succumbing to the exposure. Cold, hunger and despair had reduced her to a pitiable silence. She was in the extremity of physical exhaustion. They made a deep hollow in the snow in the shelter of a declivity of rock; and there they bestowed her, gladly yielding their jackets to provide herwith such comfort as they could. But this was small mitigation of the hardship. The child was still hopeless and cold. It was sadly apparent that she could not survive the night. And Robinson knew that to-morrow and to-morrow—a long stretch of days—lay before them all. There was no hope for a frail body; weakness was death. In his heart he frankly admitted that he was about to lose his child.
He lay down beside her. "Mary, dear," he pleaded, "don't give up!"
She pressed his hand.
"Don't give up!" he repeated.
A wan smile came and went. "I can't help it," she whispered.
Skipper Libe and his men withdrew. It was now near midnight. The fog was lifting. Stars twinkled in patches of black sky. Low towards the seaward horizon the moon was breaking through the clouds.
Suddenly the cook sat bolt upright. "Skipper," he demanded, "where is we?"
"On the Devil's Teeth."
"An' what rock's this?"
"This?"
"Ay—this!"
"I'd not be s'prised," the skipper answered, "if 'tis what they calls the Cocked Hat."
"Feather's Folly!" roared the cook.
"Which?" said the skipper, suspiciously.
The cook was on his feet—dancing in glad excitement. "Feather's Folly!" he shouted "Feather's Folly!"
"Catch un!" said the skipper, quietly. "He've gone mad."
They set upon the poor cook. Before he could escape they had him fast. He was tripped, thrown, sat upon.
"Don't let him up," the skipper warned. "He'll do hisself hurt. Poor man!" he sighed. "He've lost his senses."
"Mad!" screamed the cook. "You'remad. Feather's Folly! We're saved!"
"Hold un tight," said the skipper.
But the cook was not to be held. He wriggled free and bolted. Billy Topsail and all took after him, the skipper in the lead; and by the dim, changing light of that night he led them a mad chase over rock and through drifted snow. They pursued, they headed him off, they laid hold of his flying coat-tail; but he eluded them, dodged, sped, doubled. If he were mad, there was methodin his madness. He was searching every square yard of that acre of uneven rock. At last, panting and perspiring, he came to a full stop and turned triumphantly upon his pursuers. He had found what he sought.
"Mad!" he laughed. "Who's mad, now? Eh? Who's crazy?"
The crew stared.
"Who's crazy?" the cook roared. "Look at that! What d'ye make o' that?"
"It looks," the skipper admitted, "like salvation!"
Old man Feather had indeed "seen that it wouldn't happen again." He had provided for castaways on the Cocked Hat. There was a tight little hut in the lee of the Bishop's Nose; within, there were provisions and blankets and fire-wood and candles. Moreover, in the sprawling, misspelled welcome, tacked to the wall, there was even the heartening information that "seegars is in the kityun tabl." The passengers and crew of theFish Killerwere soon warm and satisfied. They spent a happy night—a night so changed, so cozy, so bountiful, that they blessed old man Feather until their tongues were tired.And old man Feather, himself, who kept watch on the Cocked Hat with a spy-glass, took them off to Hulk's Harbour in the clear weather of the next day.
"An' did you find the cigars, skipper?" he whispered, with a wide, proud grin.
"Us did."
"An' was they good? Hist! now," the old fellow repeated, with a wink of mystery, "wasn'tthey good?"
"Well," the skipper drawled, not ungraciously, you may be sure, "the cook made bad weather of it. But he double-reefed hisself an' lived through. 'Twas the finest an' the first cigar he ever seed."
The old man chuckled delightedly.
In Which the Clerk of the Trader Tax Yarns of a Madman in the Cabin
THE trading-schoonerTaxof Ruddy Cove had come down from the Labrador. She was riding at anchor in the home harbour, with her hold full of salt fish and the goods in her cabin run sadly low. Billy Topsail, safely back from Feather's Folly, and doomed by the wreck of theFish Killerto spend the summer in the quieter pursuits of Ruddy Cove, had gone aboard to greet the crew. There was hot tea on the forecastle table, and the crew was yarning to a jolly, brown grinning lot of Ruddy folk, who had come aboard. It was Cook, the clerk, a merry, blue-eyed little man, who told the story of the madman in the cabin.
"We were lying in Shelter Harbour," said he, "waiting for a fair wind to Point-o'-Bay. It was coming close to night when they saw him leaping along shore and kicking a tin kettle as though 'twas a football. I was in the cabin, putting the stock to rights after the day's trade.I heard the hail and the skipper's answering, 'Ay ay! This is the traderTaxfrom Ruddy Cove.' Then the skipper sung out to know if I wanted a customer. Customer? To be sure I wanted one!
"'If he has a gallon of oil or a pound of fish,' said I, 'fetch him aboard.'
"'He looks queer,' said the skipper.
"'Queer he may look,' said I, 'and queer he may be, but his fish will be first cousins to the ones in the hold, and I'll barter for them.'
"With that the skipper put off in the punt to fetch the customer; but when he drew near shore he lay on his oars, something puzzled, I'm thinking, for the customer was dancing a hornpipe on a flat rock at the water's edge, by the first light of the moon.
"'Have you got a fish t' trade?' said the skipper.
"'Good-evenin', skipper, sir,' said the queer customer, after a last kick and flourish. 'I've a quintal or two an' a cask o' oil that I'm wantin' bad t' trade away.'
"He was rational as you please; so the skipper was thrown off his guard, took him aboard, and pulled out.
"'You're quite a dancer,' said he.
"'Hut!' said the man. 'That's nothin' at all. When the moon's full an' high, sir, I dances over the waves; an' when they's a gale blowin' I goes aloft t' the clouds an' shakes a foot up there.'
"'Do you, now?' said the skipper, not knowing whether to take this in joke or earnest.
"'Believeme, sir,' said the man, with the gravest of faces, 'I'm a wonderful dancer.'
"I was on deck when they came aboard. It was then dusk. I noticed nothing out of the ordinary in my customer's appearance. He was a large, big-boned man, well supplied with fat and muscle, and capable, as I thought at the moment, of enduring all the toil and hardship to which the men of that coast are exposed. The skipper handed him over to me without a word of warning, and went below to the forecastle, for the wind was blowing cold and misty."
"Oh, well," the skipper broke in from his place in a bunk, "how could I tell that he was mad?"
"Whatever, Skipper Job," the clerk resumed, with a twinkle in his eye, "I took him into the cabin, and the crew and you were snug enough in the forecastle, where no hail of mine could reach you. It was not until then," he resumed, "whenthe light of the cabin lamp fell full upon him, that I had a proper appreciation of my customer's size and strength—not until then that I marked the deathly pallour of his face and the strange light in his eyes. He was frowsy, dirty, dressed in ragged moleskin cloth; and he had a habit of looking to right and left and aloft—anywhere, it appeared, but straight in my face—so that I caught no more than a red flash from his eyes from time to time. I felt uneasy, without being able to account to myself for the feeling; so, anxious to be well rid of him, I asked, abruptly, in what I could serve him.
"'I'm thinkin' you'll not be havin' the thing I wants,' said he.
"That touched me on a tender spot. 'I'm thinking,' said I, 'that we've a little of all that you ever thought of.'
"'I don't think you has,' said he, 'but 'twould be best for you if you had.'
"There was a hidden meaning in that. Why should it be best for me?
"'And what is it?' said I.
"''Tis a spool o' silk thread,' said he, soberly, 't' bind the fairies with—the wicked fairies that tells me t' do the things I don't want t'. If you'veany o'that, sir, I'll take all you got aboard, for I wants it bad.'
"'Come, now, my man,' said I sharply, 'stop your joking. I'm tired, and in no humour for it. What is it you want?'
"'I'm not jokin', sir,' said he. 'I wants a spool o' green silk thread t' lash the wicked fairies t' the spruce trees.'
"I could not doubt him longer; there was too much longing, too much hopelessness, in his voice for that. He was demented; but there are many men of that coast whom lonely toil has driven mad, but yet who live their lives through to the natural end, peaceable folk and good fishermen, and I thought that this poor fellow had as good a right to trade with me as the sanest man in Shelter Harbour.
"'We've no green silk thread, sir,' said I, 'that will securely lash fairies to spruce trees. But if you want anything else, and have fish to trade, I'll take them.'
"'I wisht you had the thread,' said he.
"'Why?' said I.
"''Twould be best for you,' said he with a sigh. 'If I could tie the wicked fairies up, I wouldn't have t'—have t'—do it. But,' he wenton, 'as you haven't any thread, I'll take some calico t' make a new dress for my brother's little maid.'
"A certain look of cunning, which overspread his face at that moment, alarmed me. I thought I had better find out what the wicked fairies had to do with me.
"'Did you meet the fairies to-night?' said I.
"'Ay,' said he. 'I met the crew o' wicked ones on my way through the bush.'
"'And what did they tell you?' said I.
"He signed to me to be silent; then he closed the cabin door and came close to the counter, behind which I stood, with no way of escape open.
"'Has you got a loaded gun?' he whispered hoarsely.
"His face was close to mine. In his eyes, which were now steady, two live, red coals were glowing. I fell back from him, frightened; for I now knew what work the wicked fairies had assigned to him for that night. Poor fellow! Frightened though I was, I pitied him. I saw his distress, and pitied him! He was fighting manfully against the impulse; but it mastered him, at last, and I realized that my life was in grave danger. I was penned in, you know, and—they call me 'little Cook'—I was no match for him.
"'No,' said I. 'I've no gun.'
"'Has you got a knife?' said he.
"'Sorry,' said I; 'but I'm sold out of knives.'
"'Has you got a razor?' said he.
"It was high time to mislead him. I saw an opportunity to escape.
"'Is it razors you want?' I cried. 'Sure, I've some grand ones—big ones, boy, sharp ones, bright ones. I keep them in the forecastle where 'tis dry. So I'll just run up to fetch the lot to show you.'
"His eyes glistened when I spoke of the brightness and sharpness of those razors. With a show of confidence, I jumped on the counter and swung my legs over. But he pushed me back—so angrily, indeed, that I feared to precipitate the encounter if I persisted.
"'Don't trouble, sir,' said he. 'I'll find something that'll answer. Ha!' said he, taking an axe from the rack and 'hefting' it. 'This will do.'
"'But I'm wanting to wash my hands, anyway,' said I.
"''Twill make no difference in the end,' said he quietly.
"I speak of it calmly now; but when I found myself alone in the cabin with that poor madman—found myself behind the counter, with no defensive weapon at hand, with my life in the care of my wits, which are neither sharp nor ready—I was in no condition for calm thought. To hail the skipper was out of the question; he would not hear me, and the first shout would doubtless excite the big man in the moleskin clothes beyond restraint. My hope of escape lay in distracting his attention from the matter in hand until the skipper should come aft of his own notion. But I made one effort in another direction.
"'Did you saygreensilk thread orblue?' said I.
"'I said green, sir.'
"'Did you, now?' I exclaimed. 'Sure, I thought you said blue. We've no blue, but we've the green, and you'll be able to lash the fairies to the spruce trees, after all.'
"As a matter of fact, we had a few spools of silk thread, and one of them was green—a bad stock, as I knew to my cost, for I had long been trying to dispose of them.
"''Tis too late,' said he.
"'No, no!' said I. 'You'll surely not be lettingthe fairies drive you like that. You can take the green thread and lash them all up on the way home.'
"'No,' he said doggedly; ''tis too late. What they told me to do I must do before the clock strikes.'
"'Strikes what?' said I.
"'Twelve,' said he.
"With what relief did I hear this! Twelve o'clock? It was now but eight. The skipper would come aft long before that hour.
"''Tis a long time to wait,' said I. 'I'll make up my bunk, and you may lie down a bit and rest.'
"'It lacks but twelve minutes of the hour,' said he. 'They's a clock hangin' behind you, sir.'
"He indicated a cheap American alarm clock. It was the last of a half dozen I had kept hanging from the roof of the cabin. I had kept them wound up, for the mere pleasure of hearing their busy ticking, but had never set them—never troubled to keep them running to the right time. When I looked up I was dismayed to find that the clock pointed to twelve minutes to twelve o'clock!
"''Tis not the right time,' I began. ''Tis far too——'
"'Hist!' said he. 'Don't speak. You've but eleven minutes left.'
"Thus we stood, the fisherman with his back to the door and the axe in his hand, and myself behind the counter, while the cheap American alarm clock ticked off the minutes of my life. Eleven—ten—nine! They were fast flying. I could think of no plan to dissuade him—no ruse to outwit him. Indeed, my mind was occupied more with putting the blame on that lying clock than with anything else. I had determined, of course, to make the best fight I could—to blow out the light at the moment of attack, dive under the counter, catch my man by the legs, overturn him and escape by the door or there fight it out. Nine minutes—eight—seven! At that moment I caught a long hail from the shore.
"'Schooner ahoy! Ahoy!'
"I do not think the fisherman heard it. It was too faint—too far off; and he was too intent upon the thing he was to do.
"'Six minutes, sir,' said he.
"I wondered if Job had heard. The hail was repeated. Then I heard Skipper Job answerfrom the deck. At that the fisherman started; but his alarm passed in a moment.
"'Ahoy!' shouted Skipper Job.
"'Has you got a strange man aboard?' came from the shore.
"'Yes, sir,' Job called.
"'Watch him,' from the shore. 'He's mad.'
"'Oh, he's all right,' Job called. 'He's harmless.'
"Then silence. My hope of relief vanished. I should have to make the fight, after all, I thought.
"'Five minutes, sir,' said the madman.
"Had Skipper Job gone below again? Or would he come aft? For two minutes not a word was said. My customer and I were waiting for the first stroke of twelve. Soon I heard voices forward; then the tramp of feet coming aft over the deck—treading softly. They paused by the house, and the whispering ceased. Was it a rescue, or was it not? I could not tell. The men above seemed to have no concern with me. But, indeed, they had.
"'John, b'y,' a strange voice called, 'is you below?'
"''Tis me brother Timothy,' my customer whispered. 'I must be goin' home.'
"'John, b'y, is you below?'
"'Ay, Timothy!'
"'Come up, b'y. I'm goin' ashore now, an' 'tis time you was in bed.'
"My customer put up the axe, and, with a sign to me to keep silence, went on deck, with me following. He jumped in the punt, as docile as a child, gave us all good-night, and was rowed ashore. We did not see him again; for the wind blew fresh from the nor'west in the morning, and by night we were anchored at Point-o'-Bay. Whether or not the fairies had commanded the poor fellow to kill me at twelve o'clock, I do not know. He did not say so; but I think they had."
In Which a Pirate's Cave grows Interesting, and Two Young Members of the Ethnological and Antiquarian Club of St. John's, Undertake an Adventure under the Guidance of Billy Topsail
THERE landed in Ruddy Cove, that summer, two youngsters from St. John's on a vacation—city schoolboys both: not fisher lads. They were pleasant fellows, and were soon fast friends with Billy Topsail and the lads of the place, by whom they were regarded with some awe, but still with great friendliness.
"Hello!" the visitors exclaimed, when they clapped eyes on Billy. "Where you going?"
"Fishin'."
"Take us, won't you, please?"
Billy Topsail grinned.
"Won't you?"
"I don't know," said Billy. "I 'low so."
They went to the grounds; and the day was blue, and the sea was quiet, and Billy Topsail and the schoolboys had a marvellously splendid time; so they were all friends together from that out.
Tom Call and Jack Wither were members of what they called, with no little pride, "The Ethnological and Antiquarian Club of St. John's." The object of this club of lads was, in the beginning, to preserve relics of the exterminated Beothuk tribe; but to the little collections of stone implements and flint-lock guns were soon added collections of mineral specimens, of fossils, of stamps, of fish and shells and sea-weeds, of insects, of old prints and documents—in short, of everything to which an inveterate collector might attach a value.
Wherever they went in the long vacation, whether to the coast or to the interior, not one of them but kept an eye open for additions to the club collections; and, though much of what they brought back had to be rejected, it was not long before they had the gratification of observing an occasional reference to "the collections of the Ethnological and Antiquarian Club" in the city newspapers.
All this accounts for the presence of Tom Call and Jack Wither in the Little Tickle Basin, in the thick of the islands off Ruddy Cove, one vacation day, and for their interest in a rusted iron mooring-ring, which was there sunk in the rock.
"And nobody knows who put it there?" Tom asked, curiously fingering the old ring.
"No," replied Billy Topsail, who had taken them over; "but they says 'twas the pirates put it there, long ago."
"Pirates!" cried Tom. "Do they say that?"
"'Twas me grandfather told me so."
It may be that pirates harboured in the Little Tickle Basin in the days when they made the Caribbean Sea a fearsome place to sail upon. When the Newfoundland coast was remote, uninhabited, uncharted, no safer hiding place could have been found than that quiet little basin, hidden away among the thousand barren islands of the bay. If, as they say, every pirate had his place of refuge, the iron ring is some evidence, at least, that a buccaneer was accustomed to fly to the basin when pursuit got too persistent and too hot for him.
"Of course!" said Tom, when they were sailing back to Ruddy Cove. "How else can you account for that ring? I bet you," he concluded, "that dozens of pirates had dens on this coast."
"Now, Tom," said Jack, "you know as well as I do that that's just a little too——"
"Well," he interrupted, "everybody knowsthat pirates used to come here. You'll find it in the histories. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that there is a cave around here."
"There is," said Billy Topsail.
"There!" cried Tom, his eyes shining. "I told you so!"
"'Tis a wonderful curious place, too," Billy went on. "You has t' crawl through a hole t' get inside. Sure, the hole is no bigger than a scuttle. You could close it with a fair sized rock. But once you gets through, the cave is as big as a room. 'Twould hold a score o' men very comfortable."
Tom gave Jack a meaning glance. Then he turned to Billy Topsail.
"Can you take us there?" he asked.
"I don't know as I could. I've onlyheered tellthey was a cave like that."
"And you've never been there?"
"Not me."
Tom's face fell—fell so suddenly and to an expression so woeful that Jack laughed outright, though he sympathized with Tom's disappointment.
"But I knows a man thathasbeen there," Billy continued. "He's the man that found it.'Tis like, now, that he's the only man that's ever been inside."
"Then the place isn't well known?"
"So far as I can tell, nobody knows it but ol' Joe West."
When they ran Billy's punt to old Joe West's stage, at Ruddy Cove, that night, Joe was inside, splitting the day's catch of cod. They broached the object of their visit without delay. Would he guide them to the cave at Little Tickle Basin? But Joe shook his head. The squid were in the harbour, and the fish were taking the bait in lively fashion. The loss of a day's catch was "beyond thinkin' of."
"Do you know the bearings?" Tom asked.
"T' be sure. 'Tis very simple t' get near the spot; but 'tis wonderful hard t' find the hole. 'Tis all overgrown. You might hunt for a year, I'm thinkin', an' never find it. When you does find it, it takes a deal o' nerve t' crawl in. 'Tis that dark an' damp! You keeps thinkin' all the time, too, that something will fall over the hole an' shut you in. If you crawls through," Joe concluded, impressively, "be sure one o' you stays outside."
"But we've no chart of the place," Tom complained.
"If you've paper an' a bit o' pencil," said Skipper Joe, "I'll draw you one."
Here is what he drew:
map
Skipper Joe, of course, carefully explained his drawing. "Does you see where the arrow points?" said he. "Well, 'tis there. You gets the head o' that little rock in line with the point, at high water, an' there you are. The cliff is rough, an' covered with a growth o' spruce. The hole is about half way up, openin' off a mossy ledge. You'll have t' pry around a wonderful lot t' find it."
"What's it like inside?" Tom asked, eagerly.
"Well, they is a deal o' birch bark scattered around, an' a lot o' broken rock. I saw that by the light of a match; but I was too scared t' stay long, an' I haven't never been there since."
Billy Topsail agreed to sail the sloop to Little Tickle Basin on the next day. Then the boys walked home by the road, much excited. Indeed, Tom, who was of an imaginative and enthusiastic turn, was fairly transported. No flight of fancy was too high for him—no hope too wild. The chart passed from his hand to Jack's and back again a hundred times. The crude, strange drawing, with its significant arrow, touched all the pirate tales with reality.
"If it had been only a cave, without a rusted mooring-ring, it wouldn't have been so much," said Tom. "But with the ring—withthe ring, my boy—a narrow, hidden passage to a cave means a great deal more."
Jack asked Tom what he was "driving at."
"I think," said he calmly, "that there is buried treasure there."
Jack scoffed.
"Very well," said Tom; "but you must remember that these discoveries come unexpectedly.They'restumbledon. You can't expect to find a sign-post near buried treasure."
That night they lay awake for a long time. Tom and Jack were bed-fellows at Ruddy Cove. Struck by a simple idea, Jack awoke his friend.
"Tom," said he, "I think we'll find something there."
"Spanish gold or English?" Tom asked, sleepily.
"It will besomething," Jack replied. "Something we want."
In Which There is a Landslide at Little Tickle Basin and Something of Great Interest and Peculiar Value is Discovered in the Cave
NOON of the next day found the three boys at Little Tickle Basin, with the punt moored to the mysterious ring. Many a vessel had floated in that snug berth before, no doubt. But whose? And what flag did they fly? When the tide was at the full, the boys set off across the basin in the punt; and they were soon ashore, with the head of the little rock in line with the point of land, as the chart directed.
"Now for it!" cried Tom.
And up the cliff he started, Jack following, with Billy Topsail, who was quite as deeply stirred as they, bringing up the rear, a pick in one hand and a shovel in the other. It was not hard climbing. The declivity could hardly be called a cliff. Rather, it was a hill, rising sharply from the water's edge—steep, strewn with broken rock, loose turf and decaying stumps, and overgrownwith moss and ill-nourished shrubs. Jack was impressed with the instability of the whole mass.
"If it weren't for the juts of naked rock," he thought, with some alarm, "this stuff would all slip into the water, like snow from the roof of a house."
But he was far too deeply interested in the search to dwell upon such speculation, however threateningly the imagination might present the possibilities. They all kept to the perpendicular line, from their landing place to the crest of the hill; and they searched painstakingly, tearing aside the shrubs, peering under overhanging rocks, prying into dark holes. It was all without reward. At last, Jack came to the top of the hill. Tom was below him, following a narrow ledge; and Billy Topsail, now wearied of the search, was sitting on a boulder, lower down.
"Hello, Tom!" Jack shouted. "What luck?"
Jack caught hold of a shrub, and leaned outward, in an attempt to catch sight of Tom.
"Nothing yet," Tom answered.
Then Jack's feet, which had been resting on an insecure footing of loose stones, shot from under him. He clung to his shrub and held his position,but in the effort he dislodged a small boulder, which went crashing down, dislodging earth and the accumulations of broken rock in its course. He had started a little avalanche; and the most he could do was to cry a horrified warning and watch it go rolling down, growing greater as it went.
"Tom!" he called. "Oh, Tom!"
This time there was no answer. Dead silence followed the frantic call and the plunge of the avalanche into the water. What had become of Tom? Billy Topsail, who had found shelter in the "lee" of the boulder upon which he had been sitting, suggested, when Jack joined him, that Tom had been swept into the water by the flood of stones and earth. Jack scouted the suggestion. Had he not watched the course of that selfsame flood? Tom had been on the ledge. He must still be there—unconscious, probably, and unable to answer to the call of his name.
"We'll look there first, at any rate," he determined.
A great part of the avalanche had lodged on the ledge. Stones and moss and new earth lay in slanting heaps in many places; but of Tom's body there was no sign.
"He've been swep' into the water, I fears," Billy declared.
"Or buried on the ledge," said Jack.
Jack called to his friend again. While they listened, straining their ears for the remotest response, he had his eye fixed on a remnant of the avalanche near by. To his unbounded astonishment, he perceived evidences of some disturbance within the heap. The disturbance suddenly developed into an upheaval. A foot and an ankle shot out. A moment later Billy Topsail had that foot and its mate in his hands and was hauling with small regard for the body behind.
It was Tom.
"I've found the cave!" he gasped, when they had set him on his feet, profusely perspiring, flushed and exceedingly dirty. "But what's up? How did I get shut in there? Part of the hill slipped away! Ithoughtit was a landslide. I found the hole, and started to crawl in, to make sure that it was the place before I said anything. Then I heard a racket; and then the light was shut out. I thought I might as well go on, though, and find out afterwards what had happened. So on I went. And it's the cave, boy!" he cried."When I made sure of that," he went on, "I wanted to get out in a hurry. I was afraid to crawl into that hole head foremost—afraid of being jammed. Of course, I knew that something had fallen over the mouth of it; and I thought I could kick the thing out of the way just as easily as I could push it, and meantime have all the air there was. So out I came, feet first. Have you got that pick and shovel, Billy? Let's clear this stuff away from the hole and go in."
"What's in there, Tom?" Jack asked.
"You'll soon find out."
They left Billy Topsail outside, as a precaution against entombment. Tom went first with the lantern. When, looking along the passage, Jack saw a flare of light, he followed. The passage was about six feet long, and so narrow that he could not quite go upon hands and knees. He squirmed through, with his heart in his mouth, and found himself, at last, in a roomy chamber, apparently rough-hewn, wherein Tom was dancing about like a wild Indian.
"Pirate gold!" he shouted. "Pirate gold!"
"Where is it?" Jack cried, believing, for the moment, that he had discovered it in sacks.
"Dig, boy!" said Tom. "It's underground."
At any rate, a glance about, by the light of the lantern, discovered no treasure. It was underground, if it were anywhere. So they set about unearthing it without delay. But there was no earth—nothing but broken rock. The shovel was of small use; they took turns with the pick, labouring hard and excitedly, expecting, momentarily, to catch the glitter of gold. Occasionally, the strength of both was needed to lift some great, obstinate stone out of the way; but, for the most part, while one wielded the pick, the other removed the loosened rock.
"What in the world is this thing?" Tom asked.
He had taken a round, brown object from the excavation. Suddenly he let it drop, with a little cry of horror, and started to his feet. Jack picked it up and held it close to the lantern.
"Pirates!" whispered Tom, now utterly horrified.
"Last night," said Jack, "I told you that we'd findsomething. We've found it."
"We've found a pirates' den," said Tom.
"No," Jack replied, handing him the skull; "we've found a Beothuk Indian burial cave.We've struck it rich for the Ethnological and Antiquarian Club!"
"Well," Tom admitted, ruefully, "that'ssomething!"
Struck it rich? Indeed, they had! The most valuable part of the collection of Indian relics, now in the club's museum, came from that cave. The excavation occupied three days; and at the end of it, when they laid their treasures out at Ruddy Cove, they were thrown into a transport of delight. In addition to the skeleton remains, which have since served a highly useful purpose, they had found stone hatchets, knives, spearheads, clubs, and various other implements of warfare and the hunt; three clay masks, a curious clay figure in human form, and three complete specimens of Indian pottery, with a number of fragments.
The rusted iron mooring-ring has never been explained.