“‘Caves full of it!
“‘Mines of it!
“‘For days and weeks our boats did nothing but ply between ship and shore, laden to the gunwale with our pearly treasure. We had but room for one more ton. It was ready packed on shore, and I was left to watch. Alas and alas! that same night it came on to blow great guns from off the ocean. I could not see our brig for the foam and spray that dashed over the cliffs. But, ah me! I soon heard a mournful and piercing shriek, rising high over wail of wind and wash of wave, and I knew then she had gone down and all on board had perished. Shuddering with cold and horror, I sheltered myself in the inner recesses of a cave, careless even of falling a victim to a bear. I wandered in, and I wandered on and on, till I could no longer hear the surging of the storm-lashed waves, and the light behind me was swallowed up in obscurity. And now I could distinctly perceive a glimmering light and a rising mist far away ahead, while at the same time the air around me waxed sensibly warmer; still a spirit of curiosity seemed to impel me forward, until I found myself standing in front of a vast waterfall, which disappeared in the bowels of the earth beneath my feet, while floating in the vapoury mist above me were beings the most lovely I had ever imagined, in gauzy garments of pink and green.
“‘With their strange eyes bent pityingly on me, those water-spirits floated nearer and nearer. Then I felt lifted off my feet and borne gently but swiftly upwards through the luminous haze, upwards and into day once more; and what a blissful day!
“‘In this lovely land, where I dwelt so long, there was no alloy of sorrow, and the strange, bright beings that inhabited it were as happy and joyous as the birds that sang on every bough, or the flowers that wooed the wind and the sunshine.
“‘Five years passed away like one long and happy dream; then one day my spirit-friends came towards me with downcast looks and tear-bedimmed eyes. They came to tell me that, as with joy they had found me, so in sorrow they must now part with me—that no mortal must stay longer in their land than my allotted time. Then they clad me in skins and conveyed me up the mountain-side, even to the top of the highest cone. Looking down from this height, I could behold all the sea of ice spread out like a map before me, with sealers at work on the southern floes.
“‘“Yonder are your countrymen,” said the beautiful spirits; then sadly they bade me farewell.
“‘It must have been days afterwards when I was picked up by the Clotho’s men, who had gone to look for fresh-water ice.’
“The old man,” continued Magnus Green, “used to sigh as he finished his story, and we—for I, gentlemen, was one of his child-listeners—just whispering adieu, would steal away homewards through the winter’s night, seeing as we went spirits in every curling snowdrift, and hearing voices in every blast.”
“And what do you now think,” asked McBain, after a pause, “of this old man’s strange story?”