CHAPTER IV.
The Cave by the Tide.
ACTING instantly on the impulse of an old sailor, Reube had sprungforward almost with the shock, and started to haul down the mainsail inorder to relieve the strain. The next moment, however, while thehalf-lowered sail was bulging and flapping, he leaped into the bow tohelp Will. The latter rose with a gasp and stood waist deep, clinging tothe bowsprit. His head and arms were bedaubed grotesquely with the mudinto which he had plunged with such violence. He gazed sternly at Reube,and exclaimed:
“Perhaps you’ll claim that you know these mud banks as well as I do! Iearnestly hope you may, some day, gain the same intimate knowledge ofthem!”
Then he climbed aboard and finished the furling of the sails, whileReube rolled convulsively in the bottom of the boat, unable to controlhis laughter. He recovered himself only when Will trod upon him withoutapology, and threatened to put him overboard.
When the sails had been made snug, and the pinkie bailed out, and themud cleaned with pains from Will’s face and hair and garments, there wasnothing to do but watch the _Dido_ in the distance and wait for the tideto fall. In another half hour, or a little more, only a waste of redflats and yellow pools separated the two stranded boats. Reube took offhis shoes and socks, rolled his trousers up high, and stepped overboard.These precautions were for Will superfluous; so he went as he was, andcongratulated himself on being able to defy all hidden clam shells.Before he went, however, he took the precaution to put out the pinkie’sanchor, for which Reube derided him.
“The pinkie’s no Western stern-wheeler, to navigate a field of wetgrass!” said he. “I fancy she’ll wait here till next tide all right!”
“Yes—but then?” queried Will, laconically.
“Then,” replied Reube, “we’ll come back for her with the _Dido_.”
“There’s lots one never knows!” said Will, as he looked carefully to theanchor rope. And as things turned out it was well he did so—a factwhich Reube had to acknowledge penitently.
The distance between the stranded boats was little more than a quarterof a mile, yet it took the boys some time to traverse it. The bottom ofthe cove was for the most part a deep and clinging ooze, which took themto the knee at every step, and held their feet with the suction of anairpump. Here and there were patches of hard sand to give them amoment’s ease; but here and there, too, were the dreaded “honey pots”for which that part of the coast is noted, and to avoid these they hadto go most circumspectly. The “honey pot” is a sort of quicksand inwhich sand is replaced by slime—a bottomless quagmire which does itswork with inexorable certainty and deadly speed. Both Reube and Willknew the strange, ominous olive hue staining the red mud over the mouthsof these traps, but they knew, also, that all signs sometimes fail, sothey took the boathook with them and prodded their path cautiously. Atlast, after wading a long, shallow lagoon, the bottom of which was thickwith shells, and unfriendly to Reube’s bare feet, they reached therunaway _Dido_.
Breathless with anxiety, Reube climbed over the side, suddenly imaginingall sorts of damage and defilement. But his darling was none the worsefor her involuntary cruise. She had shipped some muddy water, but thatwas all that Reube could grumble at. Gandy had been too shrewd to doanything that might look like malice aforethought. In a trice the trimcraft was bailed out and sponged dry. Then Will admired her criticallyfrom stem to stern, from top to keel, asking a thousand learnedquestions by the way, and feeling almost persuaded to build a boathimself. But even this interesting procedure came to an end, and atlength the comrades threw themselves down on the cuddy roof, andrealized that they were hungry. It was long past their dinner time. Thetide was not yet at its lowest ebb, and it would be four or five hoursere they could hope to get the boats again afloat.
The only thing they had to eat was a pocketful of dried dulse whichReube had brought with him. This they devoured, and it made them verythirsty. They decided to go ashore and look for a spring. Far away, onthe crest of the upland, were some houses, at which they gazed hungrily,but the idea of leaving the _Dido_ and the pinkie for any such longjaunt was not to be entertained for a moment. As they again stepped outinto the mud Will repeated the precaution which he had taken in regardto the pinkie. He put out the little anchor, and paid no heed to Reube’sderision. To be sure, Reube was both owner and captain, but Will stoodnot on ceremony.
Not far from high-water mark our thirsty explorers found a clear, coldspring bubbling out from beneath a white plaster rock. The water wasvery hard, carrying a great deal of lime in solution, and Will lecturedlearnedly on the bad effect it would have upon their stomachs if theydrank much of it. As usually happens, however, this theorizing had smallforce against the very practical fact of their thirst. So they dranktill they were perfectly satisfied, and were afterward none the worse.This, Will insisted, was thanks to the abundance of sorrel which theyfound amid the grass near by, whose acid was kind enough to neutralizethe lime which they had swallowed.
“But I say,” urged Reube, “there are folks back yonder who drink waterlike this all their lives. The wells in this plaster belt are all hardlike this, and some of the people who drink from them live to overninety.”
“That proves nothing,” said Will, “except that they are a long-livedstock. If they had sense enough to go somewhere else and drink softwater they might live to over a hundred!”
Reube cared little for argument, always finding it hard to know whetherWill was in earnest or not. He lazily changed the subject.
“By the way,” he remarked, “now’s just the chance to visit the cave atthe end of the Point!”
“Cave!” cried Will, jumping up from the grass. “What cave? How can therebe a cave round here without me knowing it?”
“Why, I only heard of it myself last fall,” said Reube. “You see, themouth of it isn’t uncovered till near low water; and nobody comes nearthis point at any time, there being nothing to come for, and the shoalsand eddies so troublesome. I’ve sailed round here a good deal at highand half tide, but no one comes near it when tide’s out. You see all thebroken rocks scattered away out across the flats from the Point. And asfor the “honey pots” between them—well, old Chris Boltenhouse, who toldme all about the place last fall, said they were a terror. You couldn’tstep without getting into one. Chris also told me that the Acadians, atthe time of their expulsion, had used the cave as a hiding place forsome of their treasures, and that when he was a boy quite a lot of coinand silver ornaments had been found there.”
“Queer, too,” muttered Will, “how things like that drop out of people’sminds, come back, and are forgotten again! Well, let’s look into thehole while we’ve got time;” and the two ran hastily to the narrow end ofthe turf.
Over the slippery rocks below tide mark they had to move moredeliberately, but in a short time they reached the foot of thepromontory and stood on the verge of the flats not half an hour abovelow water. Very villainous indeed looked the flats, with the olive-huedmenace spread over them on every hand. But there was no sign of a cave.Scanning the rocks minutely, our explorers skirted the whole front ofthe headland, but in vain. Then they started to retrace their steps,inveighing against the falsity of traditions. But now, their faces beingturned, the rocky masses took on for them a new configuration, and theydiscovered a narrow strait, as it were, behind a jutting bowlder. It wasa most unlikely-looking place for a cave entrance, but Will poked hisnose into it curiously. The next moment he shouted:
“Found!”
Reube sprang to his side. There, behind the sentinel rock, was a narrow,triangular opening of about the height of a man. Its base, some fourfeet wide, was thickly silted with mud, and its sides drippedforbiddingly. Will stepped inside, and then turned.
“It’s darker than Egypt!” he exclaimed. “How are we going to explore itwithout a light?”
“Ah,” said Reube in tones of triumph, “I’ve got ahead this time, Will! Ihappened to bring a whole bunch of
matches from home in my pocket tosupply the _Dido’s_ cuddy. And I picked up this on the Point when youwere running ahead in such a hurry.” And he drew a sliver of driftwoodpine from under his jacket.
“Good for you, old man!” cried Will, joyously. In a second or two thesliver was ablaze, and the explorers plunged into a narrow passage whosefloor sloped upward swiftly.
Will marched ahead carrying the torch.]