On the hillside, fifty feet above the sea level, they commenced operations, and in a fortnight’s time the cave was almost completed; and not only that, but a beautiful staircase leading up to it. The soil was not hard after the outer crust was tapped, although some veins of quartz were alighted upon which required to be blasted. Several times they came across the trunks of huge trees that seemed to have been scorched by fire, the remains, doubtless, of the primeval forest that had once clad these hills with a sea of living green. Nor were bones wanting; some of immense size were turned up and carefully preserved.
Rory made a careful study of the remains of the animal and vegetable life which were found, and the result of this was his painting two pictures representing the Past and Present of the strange land where their vessel now lay. The one represented the Arrandoon lying under bare poles and yards in the ice-locked bay, with the wild mountainous land beyond, peak rising o’er peak, and crag o’er crag, all clad in the garments of eternal winter, and asleep in the uncertain light of the countless stars and the radiant Aurora. But the other picture! Who but Rory—who but an artist-poet could have painted that? There are the same formations of hill and dale, the same towering peaks and bold bluffs, but neither ice nor snow is there; the glens and valleys are clad in waving forests; flowers and ferns are there; lichens, crimson and white, creep and hang over the brown rocks; happy birds are in the sky; bright-winged butterflies seem flitting in the noonday sunshine, and strange animals of monstrous size are basking on the sea-shore.
Rory’s pictures were admired by all hands, but the artist had his private view to begin with, and, among others like privileged, aft came weird old Magnus. First he was shown the picture of the Past.
He gazed at it long and earnestly, muttering to himself, “Strange, strange, strange.”
But no sooner was the companion picture placed before him, than he started from the chair on which he had been sitting.
“I was right! I was right?” he cried. “Oh! bless you, boy Rory; bless you, Captain McBain. This—this is the Isle of Alba. Yonder are the dear hills. I thought I could not be mistaken, and not far off are the mammoth caves. I can guide you, gentlemen, to the place where lies wealth untold. This is the happiest day of old Magnus’s life.”
“Sit down, Magnus,” said McBain, kindly; “sit down, my old sea-dad. Gentlemen, gather round us; Magnus has something to tell us I know. Magnus,” he continued, taking the old man’s thin and withered hand in his, “I have often thought you knew more about this Isle of Alba than you cared to tell. What is the mystery? You have spoken so often about these mammoth caves. How know you there is wealth of ivory lying there?”
“I have no story to relate,” said Magnus, talking apparently to himself; “only a sad reminiscence of a voyage I took years and years ago to these same dreary latitudes. I had a son with me, a son I loved for his dead mother’s sake and his own. I commanded a sloop—’twas but a sloop—and we sailed away from Norwegian shores in search of the ivory mines. We reached this very island. The year was an open one, just like this; myself and my brave fellows found ivory in abundance; in such abundance that our sloop would not carry a thousandth part of it, for, gentlemen, in ages long gone by, this island and those around it were the homes of the mammoth and the mastodon. We collected all the ivory and placed it in one cave. How I used to gloat over my treasure! It was all for my boy. He would be the richest man in Northern Europe. My boy, my dear boy, with his mother’s eyes! I had only to go back to Norway with my sloop and charter a large vessel, and return to the Isle of Alba for my buried treasure.”
Here poor old Magnus threw his body forward and covered his face with his skinny hands, and the tears welled through his fingers, while his whole form was convulsed with sobs.
“My boy—died!” was all he could utter. “He sleeps yonder—yonder at the cave’s mouth. Yonder—yonder. To-morrow I will guide you to the cave, and we will see my boy.”