_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.