"A great, great many years ago," began Philip, "all this part of Finland was quite wild. Rock, and forest, and water, but no living creature save wild beasts, such as the wolf, the fox, the wolverine, the lynx and the bear, with the weaker animals upon which they preyed. So then the beasts had it all their own way, till there settled here—so runs the legend—a band of marauders, from no one knows where, but it was thought that their own land was in the far south. Possibly this land may have grown too hot to hold them, and hence they emigrated northward in a large vessel of their own, as tradition says.
"Sailing up the Finnish Gulf, they landed on our coast, and came inland to the lake country. Here they built for themselves rude dwellings of wood. They hunted, they fished, they sowed, they reaped, and now and again they made raids into the country round about, and voyages to other parts of the coast, and under cover of night carried off from the villages and towns booty of all sorts. And not content with this, they even intercepted in their vessel, ships with valuable cargoes, and murdered the poor men who tried to protect their property.
"So that they became a terror to the whole land; for, as they multiplied and grew stronger, there was no force found that could withstand them; and what made matters worse, noble sir, many of the wild young scapegraces among the Finns joined the robber band; and since there were no police in those far-off days, these banditti had the whole land at their mercy."
"And what did they with the property that they wrested from the people of the country?" asked the stranger.
"Some of it," replied Philip, "was taken away by ship to distant parts and sold. But no one seems to know what the robbers did with their gold and silver, though there always were stories enough about of their having amassed quantities of treasure."
"But what about this island, my man?" questioned the officer, with a good-humoured imperiousness in his voice. "Restrain thine eloquence, and come to the point."
"I humbly beg the noble sir's pardon," replied the steward; "I come at once to this matter of the island. The reports at length appeared somehow to centre here, and rumour said that in this group of rocks the riches of several generations of robbers were hoarded."
"A safe enough rumour to circulate," laughed the young officer. "It is not likely that the robbers would suffer any outsider to prove for himself the truth of the report."
"That is true, sir general; but now hear the end of the story of this evil race. Mighty as the robbers had become, and a terror and scourge in the land, a force yet mightier had gone out against them."
"And what might this have been?" enquired the stranger.