An Antarctic Mystery (16 page)

Seated far aft in the ship, I read Edgar Poe's book with sedulous
attention, but I was not unaware of the fact that Hunt, whenever his
duties furnished him with an opportunity, observed me
pertinaciously, and with looks of singular meaning.

And, in fact, I was re-perusing the end of Chapter XVII., in which
Arthur Pym acknowledged his responsibility for the sad and tragic
events which were the results of his advice. It was, in fact, he who
over-persuaded Captain William Guy, urging him "to profit by so
tempting an opportunity of solving the great problem relating to the
Antarctic Continent." And, besides, while accepting that
responsibility, did he not congratulate himself on having been the
instrument of a great discovery, and having aided in some degree to
reveal to science one of the most marvellous secrets which had ever
claimed its attention?

At six o'clock the sun disappeared behind a thick curtain of mist.
After midnight the breeze freshened, and the
Halbrane's
progress
marked a dozen additional miles.

On the morrow the good ship was less than the third of a degree,
that is to say less than twenty miles, from Tsalal Island.

Unfortunately, just after mid-day, the wind fell. Nevertheless,
thanks to the current, the Island of Tsalal was signalled at
forty-five minutes past six in the evening.

The anchor was cast, a watch was set, with loaded firearms within
hand-reach, and boarding-nets ready. The
Halbrane
ran no risk of
being surprised. Too eyes were watching on board—especially those
of Hunt, whose gaze never quitted the horizon of that southern zone
for an instant.

The night passed without alarm. No boat had put off from the island,
nor had a native shown himself upon the beach. The
Halbrane
, then,
had not been observed on her arrival; this was all the better.

We had cast anchor in ten fathoms, at three miles from the coast.

When the
Jane
appeared in these waters, the people of Tsalal beheld
a ship for the first time, and they took it for an enormous animal,
regarding its masts as limbs, and its sails as garments. Now, they
ought to be better informed on this subject, and if they did not
attempt to visit us, to what motive were we to assign such conduct?

Captain Len Guy gave orders for the lowering of the ship's largest
boat, in a voice which betrayed his impatience.

The order was executed, and the captain, addressing West, said—

"Send eight men down with Martin Holt; send Hunt to the helm.
Remain yourself at the moorings, and keep a look-out landwards as
well as to sea."

"Aye, aye, sir; don't be uneasy."

"We are going ashore, and we shall try to gain the village of
Klock-Klock. If any difficulty should arise on sea, give us warning
by firing three shots."

"All right," replied West—"at a minute's interval."

"If we should not return before evening, send the second boat with
ten armed men under the boatswain's orders, and let them station
themselves within a cable's length of the shore, so as to escort
us back. You understand?"

"Perfectly, captain."

"If we are not to be found, after you have done all in your power,
you will take command of the schooner, and bring her back to the
Falklands."

"I will do so."

The large boat was rapidly got ready. Eight men embarked in it,
including Martin Holt and Hunt, all armed with rifles, pistols, and
knives; the latter weapons were slung in their belts. They also
carried cartridge-pouches. I stepped forward and said,—

"Will you not allow me to accompany you, captain?"

"If you wish to do so, Mr. Jeorling."

I went to my cabin, took my gun—a repeating rifle—with ball and
powder, and rejoined Captain Len Guy, who had kept a place in the
stern of the boat for me. Our object was to discover the passage
through which Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters had crossed the reef on the
19th of January, 1828, in the
Jane's
boat. For twenty minutes we
rowed along the reef, and then Hunt discovered the pass, which was
through a narrow cut in the rocks. Leaving two men in the boat, we
landed, and having gone through the winding gorge which gave access
to the crest of the coast, our little force, headed by Hunt, pushed
on towards the centre of the island. Captain Len Guy and myself
exchanged observations, as we walked, on the subject of this
country, which, as Arthur Pym declared, differed essentially from
every other land hitherto visited by human beings. We soon found
that Pym's description was trustworthy. The general colour of the
plains was black, as though the clay were made of lava-dust; nowhere
was anything white to be seen. At a hundred paces distance Hunt
began to run towards an enormous mass of rock, climbed on it with
great agility, and looked out overa wide extent of space like a man
who ought to recognize the place he is in, but does not.

"What is the matter with him?" asked Captain Len Guy, who was
observing Hunt attentively.

"I don't know what is the matter with him, captain. But, as you
are aware, everything about this man is odd: his ways are
inexplicable, and on certain sides of him he seems to belong to
those strange beings whom Arthur Pym asserts that he found on this
island. One would even say that—"

"That—" repeated the captain.

And then, without finishing my sentence, I said,—

"Captain, are you sure that you made a good observation when you
took the altitude yesterday?"

"Certainly."

"So that your point—"

"Gave 83° 20' of latitude and 43° 5' of longitude."

"Exactly?"

"Exactly."

"There is, then, no doubt that we are on Tsalal Island?"

"None, Mr. Jeorling, if Tsalal Island lies where Arthur Pym places
it."

This was quite true, there could be no doubt on the point, and yet
of all that Arthur Pym described nothing existed, or rather, nothing
was any longer to be seen. Not a tree, not a shrub, not a plant was
visible in the landscape. There was no sign of the wooded hills
between which the village of Klock-Klock ought to lie, or of the
streams from which the crew of the fane had not ventured to drink.
There was no water anywhere; but everywhere absolute, awful drought.

Nevertheless, Hunt walked on rapidly, without showing any
hesitation. It seemed as though he was led by a natural instinct,
"a bee's flight," as we say in America. I know not what
presentiment induced us to follow him as the best of guides, a
Chingachgook, a Renard-Subtil. And why not? Was not he the
fellow-countryman of Fenlmore Coopet's heroes?

But, I must repeat that we had not before our eyes that fabulous
land which Arthur Pym described. The soil we were treading had been
ravaged, wrecked, torn by convulsion. It was black, a cindery black,
as though it had been vomited from the earth under the action of
Plutonian forces; it suggested that some appalling and irresistible
cataclysm had overturned the whole of its surface.

Not one of the animals mentioned in the narrative was to be seen,
and even the penguins which abound in the Antarctic regions had fled
from this uninhabitable land. Its stern silence and solitude made it
a hideous desert. No human being was to be seen either on the coast
or in the interior. Did any chance of finding William Guy and the
survivors of the fane exist in the midst of this scene of desolation?

I looked at Captain Len Guy. His pale face, dim eyes, and knit brow
told too plainly that hope was beginning to die within his breast.

And then the population of Tsalal Island, the almost naked men,
armed with clubs and lances, the tall, well-made, upstanding women,
endowed with grace and freedom of bearing not to be found in a
civilized society—those are the expressions of Arthur Pym—and
the crowd of children accompanying them, what had become of all
these? Where were the multitude of natives, with black skins, black
hair, black teeth, who regarded white colour with deadly terror?

All of a sudden a light flashed upon me. "An earthquake!" I
exclaimed. "Yes, two or three of those terrible shocks, so common
in these regions where the sea penetrates by infiltration, and a day
comes when the quantity of accumulated vapour makes its way out and
destroys everything on the surface."

"Could an earthquake have changed Tsalal Island to such an
extent?" asked Len Guy, musingly.

"Yes, captain, an earthquake has done this thing; it has destroyed
every trace of all that Arthur Pym saw here."

Hunt, who had drawn nigh to us, and was listening, nodded his head
in approval of my words.

"Are not these countries of the southern seas volcanic?" I
resumed; "If the
Halbrane
were to transport us to Victoria Land,
we might find the
Erebus
and the
Terror
in the midst of an
eruption."

"And yet," observed Martin Holt, "if there had been an
eruption here, we should find lava beds."

"I do not say that there has been an eruption," I replied,
"but I do say the soil has been convulsed by an earthquake."

On reflection it will be seen that the explanation given by me
deserved to be admitted. And then it came to my remembrance that
according to Arthur Pym's narrative, Tsalal belonged to a group of
islands which extended towards the west. Unless the people of Tsalal
had been destroyed, it was possible that they might have fled into
one of the neighbouring islands. We should do well, then, to go and
reconnoitre that archipelago, for Tsalal clearly had no resources
whatever to offer after the cataclysm. I spoke of this to the captain.

"Yes," he replied, and tears stood in his eyes, "yes, it may
be so. And yet, how could my brother and his unfortunate companions
have found the means of escaping? Is it not far more probable that
they all perished in the earthquake?"

Here Hunt made us a signal to follow him, and we did so.

After he had pushed across the valley for a considerable distance,
he stopped.

What a spectacle was before our eyes!

There, lying in heaps, were human bones, all the fragments of that
framework of humanity which we call the skeleton, hundreds of them,
without a particle of flesh, clusters of skulls still bearing some
tufts of hair—a vast bone heap, dried and whitened in this place!
We were struck dumb and motionless by this spectacle. When Captain
Len Guy could speak, he murmured,—

"My brother, my poor brother!"

On a little reflection, however, my mind refused to admit certain
things. How was this catastrophe to be reconciled with Patterson's
memoranda? The entries in his note-book stated explicitly that the
mate of the
Jane
had left his companions on Tsalal Island seven
months previously. They could not then have perished in this
earthquake, for the state of the bones proved that it had taken
place several years earlier, and must have occurred after the
departure of Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters, since no mention of it was
made in the narrative of the former.

These facts were, then, irreconcilable. If the earthquake was of
recent date, the presence of those time-bleached skeletons could not
be attributed to its action. In any case, the survivors of the
Jane
were not among them. But then, where were they?

The valley of Klock-Klock extended no farther; we had to retrace our
steps in order to regain the coast. We had hardly gone half a mile
on the cliff's edge when Hunt again stopped, on perceiving some
fragments of bones which were turning to dust, and did not seem to
be those of a human being.

Were these the remains of one of the strange animals described by
Arthur Pym, of which we had not hitherto seen any specimens?

Hunt suddenly uttered a cry, or rather a sort of savage growl, and
held out his enormous hand, holding a metal collar. Yes I a brass
collar, a collar eaten by rust, but bearing letters which might
still be deciphered. These letters formed the three following
words:—

"
Tiger
—Arthur Pym."

Tiger!—the name of the dog which had saved Arthur Pym's life in
the hold of the
Grampus
, and, during the revolt of the crew, had
sprung at the throat of Jones, the sailor, who was immediately
"finished" by Dirk Peters.

So, then, that faithful animal had not perished in the shipwreck of
the
Grampus
. He had been taken on board the
Jane
at the same time as
Arthur Pym and the half-breed. And yet the narrative did not allude
to this, and after the meeting with the schooner there was no longer
any mention of the dog. All these contradictions occurred to me. I
could not reconcile the facts. Nevertheless, there could be no doubt
that Tiger had been saved from the shipwreck like Arthur Pym, had
escaped the landslip of the Klock-Klock hill, and had come to his
death at last in the catastrophe which had destroyed a portion of
the population of Tsalal.

But, again, William Guy and his five sailors could not be among
those skeletons which were strewn upon the earth, since they were
living at the time of Patterson's departure, seven months ago, and
the catastrophe already dated several years back!

Three hours later we had returned on board the
Halbrane
, without
having made any other discovery. Captain Len Guy went direct to his
cabin, shut himself up there, and did not reappear even at dinner
hour.

The following day, as I wished to return to the island in order to
resume its exploration from one coast to the other, I requested West
to have me rowed ashore.

He consented, after he had been authorized by Captain Len Guy, who
did not come with us.

Hung the boatswain, Martin Holt, four men, and myself took our
places in the boatt without arms; for there was no longer anything
to fear.