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."