“This is very extraordinary,” I said, musing over the novel and singular incident.
“Not at all. There is a very simple explanation, Harry. The Icelanders are known to keep up the use of these antiquated weapons, and this must have belonged to Hans, who has let it fall without knowing it.”
I shook my head. That dagger had never been in the possession of the pacific and taciturn Hans. I knew him and his habits too well.
“Then what can it be—unless it be the weapon of some antediluvian warrior,” I continued, “of some living man, a contemporary of that mighty shepherd from whom we have just escaped? But no—mystery upon mystery—this is no weapon of the stony epoch, nor even of the bronze period. It is made of excellent steel—”
Ere I could finish my sentence, my uncle stopped me short from entering upon a whole train of theories, and spoke in his most cold and decided tone of voice.
“Calm yourself, my dear boy, and endeavor to use your reason. This weapon, upon which we have fallen so unexpectedly, is a true dague, one of those worn by gentlemen in their belts during the sixteenth century. Its use was to give the coup de grâce, the final blow, to the foe who would not surrender. It is clearly of Spanish workmanship. It belongs neither to you, nor to me, nor to the eider-down hunter, nor to any of the living beings who may still exist so marvelously in the interior of the earth.”
“What can you mean, Uncle?” I said, now lost in a host of surmises.
“Look closely at it,” he continued; “these jagged edges were never made by the resistance of human blood and bone. The blade is covered with a regular coating of iron mold and rust, which is not a day old, not a year old, not a century old, but much more—”
The Professor began to get quite excited, according to custom, and was allowing himself to be carried away by his fertile imagination. I could have said something. He stopped me.
“Harry,” he cried, “we are now on the verge of a great discovery. This blade of a dagger you have so marvelously discovered, after being abandoned upon the sand for more than a hundred, two hundred, even three hundred years, has been indented by someone endeavoring to carve an inscription on these rocks.”
“But this poniard never got here of itself,” I exclaimed, “it could not have twisted itself. Someone, therefore, must have preceded us upon the shores of this extraordinary sea.”
“Yes, a man.”
“But what man has been sufficiently desperate to do such a thing?”
“A man who has somewhere written his name with this very dagger—a man who has endeavored once more to indicate the right road to the interior of the earth. Let us look around, my boy. You know not the importance of your singular and happy discovery.”
Prodigiously interested, we walked along the wall of rock, examining the smallest fissures, which might finally expand into the much wished-for gully or shaft.
We at last reached a spot where the shore became extremely narrow. The sea almost bathed the foot of the rocks, which were here very lofty and steep. There was scarcely a path wider than two yards at any point. At last, under a huge overhanging rock, we discovered the entrance of a dark and gloomy tunnel.
There, on a square tablet of granite, which had been smoothed by rubbing it with another stone, we could see two mysterious, and much worn letters, the two initials of the bold and extraordinary traveler who had preceded us on our adventurous journey.
“A. S.,” cried my uncle; “you see I was right. Arne Saknussemm, always Arne Saknussemm!”
XXXVIII
No Outlet—Blasting the Rock
Ever since the commencement of our marvelous journey, I had experiencedmany surprises, had suffered from many illusions. I thought that I was case-hardened against all surprises and could neither see nor hear anything to amaze me again.
I was like a man who, having been around the world, finds himself wholly blasé and proof against the marvelous.
When, however, I saw these two letters, which had been engraven three hundred years before, I stood fixed in an attitude of mute surprise.