CHAPTER II

THE STORY OF THE ISLE OF GHOSTS

THE night passed quietly enough. Perhaps the old pastor's fears were groundless, and Freskel's brothers either had given up the idea of getting hold of the bag of coin, or suspected nothing of its change of quarters.

With the morning light came a sense of security, and the children were ready to laugh at their fears of the night before.

After their early meal of bread and goat's milk, they resolved to go and spend the day out of doors, taking dinner with them.

The time must pass slowly enough while their father was away from them; and the weather to-day was so fine that it seemed a pity for them to stay at home, when they had really nothing much to do.

So Blonda put up some dinner in a little basket, and Tonie took his fishing tackle, and carefully locking both doors of the house, they set out for a long day by the lake side.

On the shore, not far from the cottage, was a natural grotto formed by four great boulders of Finnish granite, which were so disposed as to make three rough walls and a roof, so that there was shelter within from sun and rain, and from wind too, unless this blew directly across the lake from the eastward, towards which the grotto was open, facing the rising sun.

In this pleasant resort the children established themselves. Blonda took out her knitting, while Tonie began to arrange his fishing tackle, and bait his hooks before embarking on the raft which Grubert had constructed from trunks of pine, and which served the children instead of a boat whenever they wanted to fish in deep water across the lake.

"The poor, dear pastor! How weary he looked and anxious too, last night!" said Blonda. "His sweet old face was quite white and drawn; didst thou remark it, Tonie?"

"Yes, surely," replied the boy; "and yet, Blonda, it may be that his fears were altogether groundless, after all. Freskel is but half-witted, and it is not impossible that he is mistaken, and that his brothers knew nothing of the bag, or even if they knew, perhaps they had no thought of so wickedly robbing the pastor of what his friend had entrusted to his care."

"I know not," rejoined Blonda thoughtfully, as she picked up a dropped stitch in her knitting. "But Freskel Valden—half-witted though he be—is, it seems to me, clear enough of vision and true of understanding in all matters which concern Pastor Oshart. Who knows, Tonie, whether such great love as his for our good minister may not make him wise, even as the very beasts and birds of the forest are wise through love, and cunning in their watchfulness over those for whom they care!"

"Thou may'st well be right, sister," said Tonie. "As our father has often told us, God has gifts for all, even the most simple among His creatures; and to one He gives wisdom of one sort, and to another of a different kind. But there, Blonda, I am ready now for my fishing; say, little sister, wilt thou come with me on the raft to the Isle of Ghosts, or stayest thou here?"

"I think I will stay, Tonie, for I want to finish this pair of socks for father, and I have not too much time. Come thou back to me here by dinner-time, and perhaps if thou return to the island afterwards, we can then go together."

So Tonie pushed off on his raft towards the centre of the lake, where, rising abruptly out of deep water, stood a rocky islet formed of the grey stone boulders which are to be found strewn everywhere on land and in the water over a great part of Finland. There were trees on the island and underwood in great tangles everywhere. Wild raspberry bushes and other brambly growths had struggled up between the rocks, clothing the rough crags almost down to the water's edge, while tiny ferns nestled under the shelter of the overhanging stones, a contrast, in their delicate beauty, to the massive grandeur of their surroundings.

Blonda was still watching Tonie as he dexterously propelled the raft across the water, when she was startled to hear a man's voice behind her saying in Russian, of which she knew enough to understand conversation and herself speak a little,—

"What then, my good friend, is the name of this island?"

"The name of the island, sir general, is the Isle of Ghosts," replied a voice, which Blonda recognised as that of the head wood-ranger, Philip Bexal, a sort of steward who looked after the forest land for his master, and paid Grubert Reuss and the rest of the woodcutters their wages.

"And pray, why the Isle of Ghosts?" asked the deep rich voice of the first speaker. "Does not everybody know that there are no ghosts, at least in these enlightened days?"

Blonda glanced through the cracks between the boulders, and saw a tall young officer in a general's undress uniform. He was standing, with the steward by his side, close to the right wall of the grotto, and facing the lake.

"This has always been the name, so far as I know, sir general," replied Philip Bexal. "The whole story is too long to tell; but since, noble sir, you are visiting our country—or this part of it—for the first time, and would know all you can about it, I will tell you what I may in a few words."

"Good; commence then, my friend," said the officer; "and I will sit on this stone and listen."

"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.

"The arm of the God of Hosts, the sentence of the Most High," replied Phil solemnly.

The officer took off his cap and crossed himself reverently.

Then he said,—"Go on, my man; I am listening."

"In the spring of one year," went on Philip Bexal, "there came from the east a terrible visitation, a pestilence such as had not been known there before. It swept through the land on the wings of the biting east wind, and men fell before it as the flies drop before the winter's breath. Right in among the lawless, godless band the black death leapt. Hard-drinking, foul-living men—what stand could they make against the awful scourge? To right and left they fell, smitten down, like Israel of old, by God's destroying angel. Only a few—so runs the tale—only a few escaped, and they took ship and fled away, leaving their goods behind, feeling, doubtless, that, like Achan, they were being punished for the possession of the accursed thing."

"And who may this Achan be of whom thou speakest?" asked the young officer.

"Noble sir, he is a character of Holy Scripture," answered Philip Bexal.

"It seems to me that thou art well versed in Holy Writ," remarked the stranger, his lip curling in a sarcastic smile.

"Sir, I am a Lutheran, and we of Luther's creed read our Bibles with diligence, finding in them the revelation of God's will and the chart for our guidance over life's sea."

"Indeed!" responded the officer dryly. "This is all very interesting, but now I will thank thee to proceed, my friend, for truth to say, thy tale is over long, and I ought to be moving on towards Klingengolf. My tarantass and post horses, as thou knowest, wait in the road not far from this."

"I have nearly finished," said Philip. "It is said that the great wave of death rolled on after a while, and this part of the land began to recover. Gradually the former haunts of the robbers became inhabited by peaceable people; a part of the denser forests were cut down, the wild beasts became scarce, and the country grew more civilized. Only that, following the bad example of the robber band, some of the people, having built ships, sailed forth to become pirates in their turn, and this did they till King Eric the Saint, of Sweden, weary of their evil practices, and of the danger to his own merchant vessels, in the twelfth century undertook a crusade against them, and compelled the people here, who were nothing better than pagans so far, to embrace Christianity. But from the time of the pestilence, every now and again rumour hath busied itself about the treasure of the robbers, though no one has ever seen a vestige of it; and to this present day, noble sir, that island is held to be the very heart of the golden mystery, and to hide somewhere in its rocky bosom the long-hoarded secret.

"Of late, especially, there has been a re-awakening of interest, since some of our villagers, while fishing at night, have seen (or so they declare) a shadowy form gliding in and out among the granite boulders, like some ghost about the tombs. And they are foolish enough to believe that the wraith of one of those dead men, more wicked perhaps than his companions, is doomed to haunt the place, ceaselessly searching, it may be, for treasure which he is never permitted to find. Great folly, sir general, such superstition," added Philip, shrugging his shoulders; "but you see—"

"I have heard it said," interrupted the stranger, silencing the steward with an impatient gesture, "that in a mountain and lake country the legends of the old days are more in number and live longer than in a flat land. This is perchance because nature has there no fastnesses wherein to store the things which make for tradition.

"Well good Philip Bexal, I thank thee for thy courtesy, and now I shall be moving on. But first, I will just peep round this singular pile of rocks; it looks, methinks, almost like a grotto."

Then Blonda heard a step, and in another moment the handsome face and lofty form of the young officer appeared in the opening.

"Good-morning, my little maid," said he kindly; "tell me thy name?"

"I am Blonda Reuss," replied the child.

"Her father is Grubert Reuss, one of the woodcutters on this estate," put in Philip, who had followed the stranger.

"And art thou an only child, little Blonda?" asked the young officer.

"No, sir, I have a brother, Tonie is his name; see, he is yonder, fishing from the raft by the island."

"He then, for one, fears not the ghosts," laughed the stranger.

"No, kind sir; why should he? Our father says, that those who fear God and trust in Him need fear nothing else in heaven or hell, but may have confidence that He who made all things can keep in their right places (wherever these may be) both the good spirits and the bad."

"Well spoken, little one! Art ready to give an answer for the faith that is in thee?" cried the stranger, laying his white gloved hand on the child's shoulder. "And pray, Blondinka, what sayest thou to this story of treasure in the Isle of Ghosts?" And the keen eyes of the officer peered enquiringly into Blonda's fair, open face.

Her gaze met his frankly and fearlessly, as she replied, "For myself, good sir, what can I say? I am a child, and I know nothing. My father tells Tonie and me not to think of there being gold hidden away in some rocky fastness of the island, for fear we should give ourselves up to the thought of it and the search for it, and thus forget our everyday work and the duty that God puts near at hand for us to do. He says, moreover, that since Scripture tells us that 'the love of money is the root of all evil,' and since also our Saviour Himself has said, 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven,' it is better and safer for us never to concern ourselves about hidden gold; and he, our father, himself believes that this island is no treasure house at all. But not so Freskel Valden."

"And who may Freskel Valden be?" asked the officer. "Some wise old grey-beard who can tell many a story of the long ago?"

Blonda laughed gleefully. "Nay, sir stranger," she said, "he is but a youth, and the good God in making his body left out—so they say—half his mind. Some call him a fool, but not I, for he knows many things that we know not, and where he loves, his heart makes him wiser than the wisest."

"Would that I had as kind an advocate, my little Blonda!" said the young man. "Give my respects to thy father, child, and say that General Nicolai is glad to have met thee, and that if at any future time I should be passing this way again, I would be glad to renew my acquaintance with his little daughter, and see him and thy brother in your own home. And now farewell, dear child. If thou and thy wise, half-witted friend should chance to find the robbers' treasure, remember that I put in a claim for at least half."

And laughing good-humouredly, the tall officer went away towards the road, accompanied by Philip Bexal.