An Antarctic Mystery by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Antarctica, Discovery and exploration, Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2021-07-10T17:41:27+00:00

XVIII

A Revelation

The following day, the 29th of December, at six in the morning, the schooner set sail with a northeast wind, and this time her course was due south. The two succeeding days passed wholly without incident; neither land nor any sign of land was observed. The men on the Halbrane took great hauls of fish, to their own satisfaction and ours. It was New Year’s Day, 1840, four months and seventeen days since I had left the Kerguelens and two months and five days since the Halbrane had sailed from the Falklands. The half-breed, between whom and myself an odd kind of tacit understanding subsisted, approached the bench on which I was sitting⁠—the captain was in his cabin, and West was not in sight⁠—with a plain intention of conversing with me. The subject may easily be guessed.

“Dirk Peters,” said I, taking up the subject at once, “do you wish that we should talk of him?”

“Him!” he murmured.

“You have remained faithful to his memory, Dirk Peters.”

“Forget him, sir! Never!”

“He is always there⁠—before you?”

“Always! So many dangers shared! That makes brothers! No, it makes a father and his son! Yes! And I have seen America again, but Pym⁠—poor Pym⁠—he is still beyond there!”

“Dirk Peters,” I asked, “have you any idea of the route which you and Arthur Pym followed in the boat after your departure from Tsalal Island?”

“None, sir! Poor Pym had no longer any instrument⁠—you know⁠—sea machines⁠—for looking at the sun. We could not know, except that for the eight days the current pushed us towards the south, and the wind also. A fine breeze and a fair sea, and our shirts for a sail.”

“Yes, white linen shirts, which frightened your prisoner Nu Nu⁠—”

“Perhaps so⁠—I did not notice. But if Pym has said so, Pym must be believed.”

“And during those eight days you were able to supply yourselves with food?”

“Yes, sir, and the days after⁠—we and the savage. You know⁠—the three turtles that were in the boat. These animals contain a store of fresh water⁠—and their flesh is sweet, even raw. Oh, raw flesh, sir!”

He lowered his voice, and threw a furtive glance around him. It would be impossible to describe the frightful expression of the half-breed’s face as he thus recalled the terrible scenes of the Grampus. And it was not the expression of a cannibal of Australia or the New Hebrides, but that of a man who is pervaded by an insurmountable horror of himself.

“Was it not on the 1st of March, Dirk Peters,” I asked, “that you perceived for the first time the veil of grey vapour shot with luminous and moving rays?”

“I do not remember, sir, but if Pym says it was so, Pym must be believed.”

“Did he never speak to you of fiery rays which fell from the sky?” I did not use the term “polar aurora,” lest the half-breed should not understand it.

“Never, sir,” said Dirk Peters, after some reflection.

“Did you not remark that the colour of the sea changed, grew white like

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