"I! No, certainly! But you, perhaps—"
"Not that I am aware," said the Professor. "I have never had this object in my possession."
"Well, this is strange!"
"No, Axel, it is very simple. The Icelanders often wear arms of this kind. This must have belonged to Hans, and he has lost it."
I shook my head. Hans had never had an object like this in his possession.
"Did it not belong to some pre-adamite warrior?" I cried, "to some living man, contemporary with the huge cattle-driver? But no. This is not a relic of the stone age. It is not even of the iron age. This blade is steel—"
My uncle stopped me abruptly on my way to a dissertation which would have taken me a long way, and said coolly:
"Be calm, Axel, and reasonable. This dagger belongs to the sixteenth century; it is a poniard, such as gentlemen carried in their belts to give the coup de grace. Its origin is Spanish. It was never either yours, or mine, or the hunter's, nor did it belong to any of those human beings who may or may not inhabit this inner world. See, it was never jagged like this by cutting men's throats; its blade is coated with a rust neither a day, nor a year, nor a hundred years old."
The Professor was getting excited according to his wont, and was allowing his imagination to run away with him.
"Axel, we are on the way towards the grand discovery. This blade has been left on the strand for from one to three hundred years, and has blunted its edge upon the rocks that fringe this subterranean sea!"