The Adventures of Billy Topsail

CHAPTER XXIV

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 knows that 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 only heered tell they 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 that has been 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:

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 —with the 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're stumbled on. 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 be something," Jack replied. "Something we want."

CHAPTER XXV

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 overgrown with 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! I thought it 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 find something. 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's something!"

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.

CHAPTER XXVI

In Which Billy Topsail Determines to go to the Ice in the Spring of the Year and Young Archibald Armstrong of St. John's is Permitted to Set Out Upon an Adventure Which Promises to be Perilous but Profitable

IN the winter when he was fifteen years old, Billy Topsail determined to go to the ice with the great sealing fleet in the spring, if it could be managed by hook or crook. His father had no objection to make. The boy was old enough to look out for himself, he knew; and he was sure that the experience would complete the process of making a man of him.

"Go, b'y," said he, "if you can."

There was the difficulty. What sealing captain would take a lad of fifteen when there were grown men to be shipped? Billy was at a loss. But he determined, nevertheless, that he would go to the ice, and selected Long Tom Harbour as a promising port to sail from, for it was near by and well known. From Long Tom Harbour then, he would go seal hunting in the spring of the year if it could be managed by a boy with courage and no little ingenuity.

"Oh, I'll go somehow!" said he.

It was twilight of a blustering February day. Sir Archibald Armstrong, the great St. John's merchant, sat alone in his office, with his chair drawn close to the low, broad window, which overlooked the wharves and the ice-strewn harbour beyond; and while the fire roared and the wind drove the snow against the panes, he lost himself in profound meditation. He stared absently at the swarm of busy men – now almost hidden in the dusk and storm – and at the lights of the sealing fleet, which lay there fitting out for the spring voyage to the drift-ice of the north; but no sound of the activity on deck or dock could disturb the quiet of the little office where the fire blazed and crackled and the snow fell softly against the window panes.

"Beg pardon, sir," a clerk interrupted, putting his head in at the door. "Cap'n Hand, sir."

Captain Hand, of the sealing ship Dictator, was admitted. He was a thick, stubby, hammer-fisted, fiery-faced old man, marked with the mark of the sea. His eyebrows made one broad black band of wiry hair, stretching from temple to temple, where they grew in the fashion of two sharp little horns; and he had a habit of dropping them over his little red eyes, as if in a passion – but nobody was deceived by that; for, save in moments of righteous anger, the light of good humour still shone in the little red eyes, however fiercely they flashed. The rest of his face was beard – a wilderness of gray beard; it sprang from somewhere below his shirt collar, and straggled in a tangled growth over his cheek-bones and neck.

"Report t' you, sir," said he, in a surprisingly gruff voice; and at the same time he pulled the lobe of his right ear, which was his invariable manner of salute.

Sir Archibald and Captain Hand were in close consultation for half an hour; during all of which time the burly captain's eyes were thickly screened by his eyebrows.

"Oh, I sees, sir – I sees," said he, rising, at the end of it. "Oh, ay! Of course, sir – of course!"

"And you'll take good care?" Sir Archibald began, almost tenderly.

"Oh, ay!" heartily. "I ain't no nurse, as I tells you fair; but you needn't worry about him, sir."

"His mother will be anxious. She'll hold you responsible, captain."

Captain Hand violently pulled the lobe of his right ear, and turned to go. At the door he halted. "Tim Tuttle o' Raggles Island has turned up again, sir," he said, "an' wants t' be shipped."

"Tuttle?" muttered Sir Archibald. "He's the man who led the mutiny on the Never Say Die. Well, as you will, captain."

"Oh, I'll ship him!" said the captain, grimly; and with a last pull at his ear he disappeared.

On the heels of the captain's departure came Archie. He was Sir Archibald's son; there was no doubt about that: a fine, hardy lad – robust, as every young Newfoundlander should be; straight, agile, alert, with head carried high; merry, quick-minded, ready-tongued, fearless in wind and high sea. His hair was tawny, his eyes blue and wide and clear, his face broad and good humoured. All this appeared as he pulled off his cap, threw back the flaps of his fur-lined overcoat, picked a stray thread from his knickerbockers, and, at last, eagerly approached his father.

"You little dandy!" laughed his father.

Archie laughed, too – and flushed. He knew that his father liked to poke fun at him because the cut of his coat, the knot in his cravat, the polish on his boots, were matters of such deep concern to the boy.

"Oh, come now, father!" he protested. "Tell me whether I'm to go or not."