Reube Dare's Shad Boat

CHAPTER V.
A Prison House

IN their eagerness they forgot to look around before entering the cave. They forgot to look at the tide, which had already turned and was creeping swiftly over the treacherous levels. They forgot everything except that they were in the cave where once undoubtedly had been Acadian treasures, and where, as each dreamed in his heart and denied on his lips, some remnant of such treasures might yet lie hidden.

Will marched ahead carrying the torch and peering with eager enthusiasm into every crevice. The cave was full of crevices, but they were shallow and contained nothing of interest but some fair crystals of selenite, which gleamed like diamonds in the torchlight. A few of these Reube broke off and pocketed as specimens. The cave widened slowly as it ascended, and the slope of its floor kept it well drained in spite of the water ceaselessly dripping from roof and walls. Its shape was roughly triangular, and our explorers sometimes bumped their heads smartly in their haste.

Presently they reached a point where a narrow gallery ran off from the main passage. Which to take was the problem.

“It seems to me,” said Reube, “that if there was any of the old Acadians’ stuff here it would be most likely to be hidden in the smaller passage.”

“Acadians’ stuff!” sniffed Will, sarcastically. “A lot of that we’ll find!”

But, none the less, he acted on Reube’s suggestion, and led the way up the side gallery. After running some twenty-five feet the gallery turned a corner and ended in a smooth, sloping face of rock. There was no sign of crevice or hiding place here. Across the sloping face of the rock there ran a ledge about a foot wide some five or six feet above the floor, and the roof of the gallery at this point ascended steeply to a narrow and longish peak.

“No risk of bumping our heads here,” said Will, as he flung the torchlight along the ledge and showed its emptiness.

“Better hurry back and try if we can’t finish the main cave before the light goes out,” said Reube, pointing to the pine sliver, already more than half consumed. Shielding the flame with his hand to make it burn more slowly, Will led the way with quick steps back to the larger gallery. This now became more interesting. Its walls were strewn with most suggestive-looking pockets, so to speak, full of silt and oozy debris, into which Will and Reube plunged their hands hastily, expecting to find a coin or a silver candlestick in every one. So fascinated were they by this task that they paid no heed to the torch till it burned down and scorched Will’s fingers. He gave a startled cry, but had presence of mind enough not to drop it. To make it last a little longer he stuck it on the point of his knife and then exclaimed, in a tone of disappointment:

“Reube, we must get out of this while the light lasts – and that’ll have to be pretty quick!”

“Rather!” assented Reube. “Hark!”

The word was barely out of his mouth before the two lads were running for the cave mouth, their heads bent low, their hearts beating wildly. The sound which they had caught was a hollow wash of waves. In a few seconds the torch went out, but there was a pale, glimmering light before them, enough to guide their feet. This puzzled them by its peculiar tone, but in half a minute more they understood. It came filtering through the tawny tide which they found seething into the cave’s mouth and filling it to the very top. Will gave a gasp of horror, and Reube leaned in silent despair against the wall of the passage.

“The tide will fill this cave to the very top, I believe,” said he.

“Yes,” answered Will, in a voice of fixed resolve; “there’s nothing for it but to try a long dive right out through the mouth and into the rocks. We may get through, and it’s our only chance!”

“Go on, then, Will. Hurry, before it’s too late! And – have an eye to mother, won’t you?” Here a sob came into Reube’s voice. “You know I’m a poor swimmer and no diver. Good-bye!” and he held out his hand.

But Will was coolly putting on his coat again.

“I forgot that,” said he, simply. “Well, we’ll find some other way, dear old man. Bring along your matches;” and he turned back toward the depths of the cave.

For answer Reube merely gripped his arm with a strong pressure and stepped ahead with a lighted match. He could not urge Will to carry out the plan just proposed because in his heart, for all his confidence in Will’s powers as a swimmer, he could not believe it feasible. He saw, in imagination, his comrade’s battered body washing helplessly among the weedy and foaming rocks; while in the cave, for all the horror of it, there would certainly be some hours of respite – and who could say what they might not devise in all that time? He had a marvelous faith in Will’s resources.

In grim silence, and husbanding every match with jealous care, they explored the main cave to its end. Its end was a horrid, round, wet hole, a few feet deep, and not large enough to admit them side by side. They looked each other fairly in the eyes for the first time since that one glance when they had learned that they were entrapped. Reube’s eyes were stern, enduring – the eyes of one who had known life long. The boy had all gone out of them. Will’s eyes looked simply quiet and kind, but his mouth was set and his lips were white.

“This is just a rat hole, Reube,” said he. “We won’t stay here anyway. Seems to me it would be better to have room to stand up and meet it like a man.”

“Yes,” replied Reube, his voice choking with a sort of exaltation at his comrade’s courage; “we’ll go back to the little gallery with the high roof. We’ll get up on that ledge and we’ll fight it out with the water to the last gasp, eh? It’s pretty tough – especially for mother!”

“Well,” said Will, with a queer, low tone of cheerfulness which seemed to his friend to mean more than cries and tears, “when I think of mother and Ted it sort of comes over me that I’d like to say my prayers – eh?” and for a minute or two, standing shoulder to shoulder, he and Reube leaned their faces silently against the oozy rock in the darkness. Then, lighting another match, they made all haste possible back to the side gallery, ascended it, and climbed upon the ledge. Hardly had they got there when they heard the tide whispering stealthily about the entrance of the passage. They felt that it was marking them down in their new retreat.

When the next match blazed up – for they could not long stand the darkness with that creeping whisper in their ears – Will gazed steadily at the peak of the roof above his head. The match went out.

“Another!” he cried, in a voice that trembled with hope.

“What is it?” asked Reube, eagerly.

“Roots!” shouted Will, leaping to his feet. “Tree roots coming through the roof up there! We must be near the surface, and there is evidently a fissure in the rock filled up with earth. We’ll dig our way out with our knives and our fingers yet!”

“But there are no trees on the Point,” urged Reube, doubtfully.

“Thunder, Reube! but can’t there be old roots in the soil?” cried Will, impatiently. “Dig, man, dig!” And he began clawing fiercely at the earth above his head. Reube aided him with fervent energy, and the earth, though hard and clayey, came down about them in a shower. Presently they could reach no farther up.

“We must cut footholds in this rock,” said Will.

The rock was plaster, but hard, and this took time. When it was accomplished they again burrowed rapidly toward the surface and air and light. They were working in the dark now, because with the rise of tide in the cave the air was growing close and suffocating. Three times they had to cut new footholds in the rock. They toiled in silence, hearing only each other’s labored breath and the falling of earth into the water beneath them. The tide was now crawling over the ledge where they had first taken refuge. There it stopped; but this they did not heed. The fear of suffocation was now upon them, blotting out the fear of drowning. Their eyes and ears and nostrils were full of earth. They worked with but a blind half-knowledge of what they were doing. All at once there came a gleam of light, and Reube’s hand went through the turf. He clawed at the sod desperately, and a mass of it came down about their heads. It troubled them not. There was the clear, blue sky above them. A sweet wind caressed their faces. They dragged themselves forth and lay at full length on the turf with shut eyes and swelling hearts.

CHAPTER VI.
The Blue Jar

IT was some minutes before either spoke. All they knew was that they were once more in the air and light. Then, with a start, Reube sat up and looked about him. He looked, of course, for the Dido. To his inexpressible relief the cherished craft was there in plain sight, riding safely at her anchor, some fifty yards from shore. And there, farther out, rode the pinkie. Reube blessed his comrade’s foresight.

“Will, where would the boats be now?” said he, “if you hadn’t insisted on anchoring them?”

Will sat up and surveyed the situation, thoughtfully clearing the mud from his eyes with little bunches of grass.

“It was just as well we anchored them,” he assented. “And now that I’ve got my wind, I think I had better swim out to the Dido and bring her in for you. I feel as if I wanted a bath anyway; don’t you?”

“I’ll be with you in half a minute,” said Reube. “But first I want to explore the cave a little more. It seems to me we came away in something of a hurry!”

He let himself cautiously down in the hole, feet first.

Will stopped his undressing and stared at him in amazement.

“Are you crazy?” he cried. “Do come out of that beastly hole! The idea of it makes me quite ill!”

“O, I’m not going far,” said Reube, “and I won’t be gone long, either. Don’t be alarmed.”

As his head disappeared Will ran to the hole and looked down, anxiously and curiously. He saw Reube groping in a crevice filled with soft earth, about three feet below the surface.

“What in the world are you after, Reube?” he inquired.

“That!” replied Reube the next instant, holding aloft triumphantly a small blue jar of earthenware. “Take it, and give me a lift out of this!”

Will deposited the old jar reverentially on the turf, and turned to help Reube up. He half expected that the jar would vanish while his back was toward it; but no, there it was, plain and palpable enough. It had a cover set into the rim, and sealed around the edges with melted rosin; and it was heavy.

Thrilling with suppressed excitement, Reube and Will sat down with the jar between them, and Reube proceeded to chip away the rosin with his knife. Will gazed at the operation intently.

“Probably some good old Evangeline’s pet jar of apple sauce!” said he.

Reube ignored this levity, and chipped away with irritating deliberation. At last off came the cover. As it did so there was a most thrilling jingling within, and the boys leaned forward with such eagerness that their heads bumped violently together. They saw stars, but heeded them not, for in the mouth of the jar they saw the yellow glint of a number of gold coins.

“Well, dreams do sometimes come true!” remarked Will. And Reube, spreading out Will’s coat, which lay close at hand, emptied upon it the whole contents of the jar.

It was coin – all coin! There were a few golden Louis, a number of Spanish pieces, with silver crowns and livres Tourtnois, amounting, according to such hasty estimate as the boys could make, to some five or six hundred dollars.

“That’ll be three hundred dollars apiece,” said Reube, with eyes sparkling; “and I’ll be able to take mother to Boston and go to college too!”

“Three hundred dollars apiece!” said Will. “Indeed, I don’t see what I had to do with it. You found it. You had nerve enough to take notice of it when you were more than three quarters dead. And you went back and got it. I’ve no earthly claim upon it, old man.”

Reube set his jaw obstinately.

“Will,” said he, “we were exploring the cave in partnership. If you had found the stuff, I’d have expected my share. Now, you’ve got to go shares with me in this, or I give you my word our friendship ends!”

“O, don’t get on your dignity that way, Reube,” said Will. “If I must, why, I suppose I must! And if I can’t take a present from you, I don’t see whom I could take one from. But I won’t take half, because I didn’t do half toward getting it, and because you need it enough sight more than I do. A couple of years ago I’d have spoken differently. But I’ll divide with you, and as to the proportions, we’ll settle that on the way home. Now I’m off for the Dido!” And having thrown off his clothes as he talked, he ran down the bank and plunged into the sea.

“I’ll let you off with one third,” shouted Reube after him, as he sat on the bank and watched. “Not one penny less!”

“All right,” spluttered Will, breasting a white-crested, yellow wave. In a few minutes he was on board the Dido. Pulling up the anchor and hoisting the sail, he brought her in beside a jutting plaster rock which formed a natural quay. Then he resumed his clothes, while Reube took his place at the helm.

The wind being still down the bay and the tide on the turn, they decided not to attempt the all-night task of beating up against it. It took them, indeed, two tacks to reach the pinkie. Will went aboard the latter craft, leaving Reube in his darling Dido. The two boats tacked patiently back and forth, in and out of the wide cove, till they gained the shelter of a little creek under the lea of Wood Point. Here they were secured with anxious care. Then Will and Reube started for home by the road, pricked on to haste by the thought of how their mothers would be worrying, by the sharp demands of their empty stomachs, and by the elating clink of the coins that filled their pockets. When they reached Mrs. Dare’s cottage Reube rushed in to relieve his mother’s fears, for she had indeed begun to be anxious. Will hurried on toward Frosty Hollow, munching a piece of Mrs. Dare’s gingerbread by the way.

As he trudged forward cheerfully, he was overtaken by an express wagon bound for “the Corners.” The driver offered him a “lift,” as the phrase goes about Tantramar. It was none other than Jerry Barnes, the master of the red bull, and the owner of the pinkie which Will and Reube had so boldly appropriated. Will told him the whole story, omitting only the discovery of the jar of coin. He and Reube had agreed to keep their counsel on this point, lest some should envy their good luck and others doubt their story.

“I hope,” said Will, “you are not put out at our taking the pinkie?”

“I hope,” grinned Barnes, “you’re not put out at old Ramses for bein’ so oncivil in the pastur’! But as for the pinkie, of course you did quite right. Only I’ll want you chaps to get her back to the creek by to-morrow mornin’s tide, as I’m goin’ to drift for shad to-morrow night!”

“Of course,” said Will; “we’ll go after her the first thing in the morning. That’s just what we planned on.”

“That there’s a smart boat Reube Dare’s built. And he’s a right smart lad, is Reube,” remarked Jerry Barnes.

“There’s where your head’s level,” agreed Will, warmly.

“And do you know when he’s goin’ to drift?” asked Barnes.

“He won’t be quite ready for to-morrow night,” said Will. “But we count on getting out the night following.”

“Well, now, a word in your ear!” went on Barnes, leaning over confidentially. “I’ve no manner of doubt Mart Gandy cut the Dido loose. And now Reube had better keep his eye on his nets after the boats get away to-morrow night. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if Gandy’d try slashing ’em, so as to give Reube an unpleasant surprise when he starts out for the Dido’s first fishing.”

“I say,” said Will, “I never thought of that! We’ll ‘lay’ for him, so to speak, and give him a lesson if he tries it on.”

“A nod’s as good as a wink,” remarked Jerry Barnes, mysteriously, as he set Will down at Mrs. Carter’s door.

Mrs. Carter had not been at all anxious. Ever since Will’s reclamation of the new marsh she had had an implicit faith in his ability and judgment. She had imagined that he was spending the day with Reube. She rather lost her dignified self-control over Will’s story of the adventure in the cave, and she was filled with girlish excitement over the finding of the old blue jar.

“Of course, dearest boy,” said Mrs. Carter, “you did quite right to want Reuben to take all the treasure, since he alone found it. But where would he have been but for you? Reuben is a fine boy, if his grandfather didn’t amount to much. He takes after his mother’s family the most. I’m glad he made you take a share of these lovely old coins.”

“We’ll be able to have some sort of a jolly lark on the strength of it when Ted comes home,” said Will.

“We might take a run to Boston!” suggested his mother. “I want you boys to see the city; I want to see it myself. And I might – Mrs. Dare, you know, might want a friend near her if the operation proves at all serious, which I hope it won’t.”

“You dear, that’s just like your thoughtfulness!” cried Will, jumping up and kissing her. And so it was agreed upon, subject, in a measure, to Ted’s assent.