An Antarctic Mystery (17 page)

We disembarked at our yesterday's landing-place, and Hunt again
led the way towards the hill of Klock-Klock. Nothing remained of the
eminence that had been carried away in the artificial landslip, from
which the captain of the
Jane
, Patterson, his second officer, and
five of his men had happily escaped. The village of Klock-Klock had
thus disappeared; and doubtless the mystery of the strange
discoveries narrated in Edgar Poe's work was now and ever would
remain beyond solution.

We had only to regain our ship, returning by the east side of the
coast. Hunt brought us through the space where sheds had been
erected for the preparation of the
bêche-de mer
, and we saw the
remains of them. On all sides silence and abandonment reigned.

We made a brief pause at the place where Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters
seized upon the boat which bore them towards higher latitudes, even
to that horizon of dark vapour whose rents permitted them to discern
the huge human figure, the white giant.

Hunt stood with crossed arms, his eyes devouring the vast extent of
the sea.

"Well, Hunt?" said I, tentatively.

Hunt did not appear to hear me; he did not turn his head in my
direction.

"What are we doing here?" I asked him, and touched him on the
shoulder.

He started, and cast a glance upon me which went to my heart.

"Come along, Hunt," cried Hurliguerly. "Are you going to take
root on this rock? Don't you see the
Halbrane
waiting for us at
her moorings? Come along. We shall be off to-morrow. There is
nothing more to do here."

It seemed to me that Hunt's trembling lips repeated the word
"nothing," while his whole bearing protested against what the
boatswain said.

The boat brought us back to the ship. Captain Len Guy had not left
his cabin. West, having received no orders, was pacing the deck aft.
I seated myself at the foot of the mainmast, observing the sea which
lay open and free before us.

At this moment the captain came on deck; he was very pale, and his
features looked pinched and weary.

"Mr. Jeorling," said he, "I can affirm conscientiously that I
have done all it was possible to do. Can I hope henceforth that my
brother William and his companions—No! No! We must go
away—before winter—"

He drew himself up, and cast a last glance towards Tsalal Island.

"To-morrow, Jim," he said to West, "to morrow we will make
sail as early as possible."

At this moment a rough voice uttered the words:

"And Pym—poor Pym!"

I recognized this voice.

It was the voice I had heard in my dream.

"And Pym—poor Pym?"

I turned round quickly.

Hunt had spoken. This strange person was standing motionless at a
little distance, gazing fixedly at the horizon.

It was so unusual to hear Hunt's voice on board the schooner, that
the men, whom the unaccustomed sound reached, drew near, moved by
curiosity. Did not his unexpected intervention point to—I had a
presentiment that it did—some wonderful revelation?

A movement of West's hand sent the men forward, leaving only the
mate, the boatswain, Martin Holt, the sailing-master, and Hardy,
with the captain and myself in the vicinity of Hunt. The captain
approached and addressed him:

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'And Pym—poor Pym.'"

"Well, then, what do you mean by repeating the name of the man
whose pernicious advice led my brother to the island on which the
Jane
was lost, the greater part of her crew was massacred, and where
we have not found even one left of those who were still here seven
months ago?"

Hunt did not speak.

"Answer, I say—answer!" cried the captain.

Hunt hesitated, not because he did not know what to say, but from a
certain difficulty in expressing his ideas. The latter were quite
clear, but his speech was confused, his words were unconnected. He
had a certain language of his own which sometimes was picturesque,
and his pronunciation was strongly marked by the hoarse accent of
the Indians of the Far West.

"You see," he said, "I do not know how to tell things. My
tongue stops. Understand me, I spoke of Pym, poor Pym, did I not?"

"Yes," answered West, sternly; "and what have you to say about
Arthur Pym?"

"I have to say that he must not be abandoned."

"Abandoned!" I exclaimed.

"No, never! It would be cruel—too cruel. We must go to seek
him."

"To seek him?" repeated Captain Len Guy.

"Understand me; it is for this that I have embarked on the
Halbrane
—yes, to find poor Pym!"

"And where is he," I asked, "if not deep in a grave, in the
cemetery of his natal city?"

"No, he is in the place where he remained, alone, all alone,"
continued Hunt, pointing towards the south; "and since then the
sun has risen on that horizon seven times."

It was evident that Hunt intended to designate the Antarctic
regions, but what did he mean by this?

"Do you not know that Arthur Pym is dead?" said the captain.

"Dead!" replied Hunt, emphasizing the word with an expressive
gesture. "No! listen to me: I know things; understand me, he is
not dead."

"Come now, Hunt," said I, "remember what you do know. In the
last chapter of the adventures of Arthur Pym, does not Edgar Poe
relate his sudden and deplorable end?"

"Explain yourself, Hunt," said the captain, in a tone of
command. "Reflect, take your time, and say plainly whatever you
have to say."

And, while Hunt passed his hand over his brow, as though to collect
his memory of far-off things, I observed to Captain Len Guy,—

"There is something very singular in the intervention of this man,
if indeed he be not mad."

At my words the boatswain shook his head, for he did not believe
Hunt to be in his right mind.

The latter understood this shake of the boatswain's head, and
cried out in a harsh tone,—

"No, not mad. And madmen are respected on the prairies, even if
they are not believed. And I—I must be believed. No, no, no! Pym
is not dead!"

"Edgar Poe asserts that he is," I replied.

"Yes, I know, Edgar Poe of Baltimore. But—he never saw poor Pym,
never, never."

"What?" exclaimed Captain Len Guy; "the two men were not
acquainted?"

"No!"

"And it was not Arthur Pym himself who related his adventures to
Edgar Poe?"

"No, captain, no! He, below there, at Baltimore, had only the
notes written by Pym from the day when he hid himself on board the
Grampus
to the very last hour—the last—understand me the last."

"Who, then, brought back that journal?" asked Captain Len Guy,
as he seized Hunt's hand.

"It was Pym's companion, he who loved him, his poor Pym, like a
son. It was Dirk Peters, the half-breed, who came back alone from
there—beyond."

"The half-breed, Dirk Peters!" I exclaimed.

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

"And Arthur Pym may be—"

"There," answered Hunt, in a loud voice, bending towards the
southern line, from which he had not diverted his gaze for a moment.

Could such an assertion prevail against the general incredulity? No,
assuredly not! Martin Holt nudged Hurliguerly with his elbow, and
both regarded Hunt with pity, while West observed him without
speaking. Captain Len Guy made me a sign, meaning that nothing
serious was to be got out of this poor fellow, whose mental
faculties must have been out of gear for a long time.

And nevertheless, when I looked keenly at Hunt, it seemed to me that
a sort of radiance of truth shone out of his eyes:

Then I set to work to interrogate the man, putting to him precise
and pressing questions which he tried to answer categorically, as we
shall see, and not once did he contradict himself.

"Tell me," I asked, "did Arthur Pym really come to Tsalal
Island on board the
Grampus
?"

"Yes."

"Did Arthur Pym separate himself, with the half-breed and one of
the sailors, from his companions while Captain William Guy had gone
to the village of Klock-Klock?"

"Yes. The sailor was one Allen, and he was almost immediately
stifled under the stones."

"Then the two others saw the attack, and the destruction of the
schooner, from the top of the hill?"

"Yes."

"Then, some time later, the two left the island, after they had
got possession of one of the boats which the natives could not take
from them?"

"Yes."

"And, after twenty days, having reached the front of the curtain
of vapour, they were both carried down into the gulf of the
cataract?"

This time Hunt did not reply in the affirmative; he hesitated, he
stammered out some vague words; he seemed to be trying to rekindle
the half-extinguished flame of his memory. At length, looking at me
and shaking his head, he answered,—

"No, not both. Understand me—Dirk never told me—"

"Dirk Peters" interposed Captain Len Guy, quickly. "You knew
Dirk Peters?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"At Vandalia, State of Illinois."

"And it is from him that you have all this information concerning
the voyage?"

"From him."

"And he came back alone—alone—from that voyage, having left
Arthur Pym."

"Alone!"

"Speak, man—do speak!" I cried, impatiently. Then, in broken,
but intelligible sentences, Hunt spoke,—

"Yes—there—a curtain of vapour—so the half-breed often
said—understand me. The two, Arthur Pym and he, were in the Tsalal
boat. Then an enormous block of ice came full upon them. At the
shock Dirk Peters was thrown into the sea, but he clung to the ice
block, and—understand me, he saw the boat drift with the current,
far, very far, too far! In vain did Pym try to rejoin his companion,
he could not; the boat drifted on and on, and Pym, that poor dear
Pym, was carried away. It is he who has never come back, and he is
there, still there!"

If Hunt had been the half-breed in person he could not have spoken
with more heartfelt emotion of "poor Pym."

It was then, in front of the "curtain of vapour," that Arthur
Pym and the half-breed had been separated from each other. Dirk
Peters had succeeded in returning from the ice-world to America,
whither he had conveyed the notes that were communicated to Edgar
Poe.

Hunt was minutely questioned upon all these points and he replied,
conformably, he declared, to what the half-breed had told him many
times. According to this statement, Dirk Peters had Arthur Pym's
note-book in his pocket at the moment when the ice-block struck
them, and thus the journal which the half-breed placed at the
disposal of the American romance-writer was saved.

"Understand me," Hunt repeated, "for I tell you things as I
have them from Dirk Peters. While the drift was carrying him away,
he cried out with all his strength. Pym, poor Pym, had already
disappeared in the midst of the vapour. The half-breed, feeding upon
raw fish, which he contrived to catch, was carried back by a cross
current to Tsalal Island, where he landed half dead from hunger."

"To Tsalal Island!" exclaimed Captain Len Guy. "And how long
was it since they had left it?"

"Three weeks—yes, three weeks at the farthest, so Dirk Peters
told me."

"Then he must have found all that remained of the crew of the
Jane
—my brother William and those who had survived with him?"

"No," replied Hunt; "and Dirk Peters always believed that they
had perished—yes, to the very last man. There was no one upon the
island."

"No one?"

"Not a living soul."

"But the population?"

"No one! No one, I tell you. The island was a desert—yes, a
desert!"

This statement contradicted certain facts of which we were
absolutely certain. After all, though, it that when Dirk Peters
returned to Tsalal Island, the population, seized by who can tell
what terror, had already taken refuge upon the south-western group,
and that William Guy and his companions were still hidden in gorges
of Klock-Klock. That would explain why half-breed had not come
across them, and also why survivors of the
Jane
had had nothing to
fear during eleven years of their sojourn in the island. On the
other hand, since Patterson had left them there seven previously, if
we did not find them, that must have because they had been obliged
to leave Tsalal, the being rendered uninhabitable by the earthquake.

"So that," resumed Captain Len Guy, "on the return of Dirk
Peters, there was no longer an inhabitant on the island?"

"No one," repeated Hunt, "no one. The half-breed did not meet
a single native."

"And what did Dirk Peters do?"

"Understand me. A forsaken boat lay there, at the back of the bay,
containing some dried meat and several casks of water. The
half-breed got into it, and a south wind—yes, south, very strong,
the same that had driven the ice block, with the cross current,
towards Tsalal Island—carried him on for weeks and weeks—to the
iceberg barrier, through a passage in it—you may believe me, I am
telling you only what Dirk Peters told me—and he cleared the polar
circle."

"And beyond it?" I inquired.

"Beyond it. He was picked up by an American whaler, the
Sandy
Hook
, and taken back to America."

Now, one thing at all events was clear. Edgar Poe had never known
Arthur Pym. This was the reason why, to leave his readers in
exciting uncertainty, he had brought Pym to an end "as sudden as
it was deplorable," without indicating the manner or the cause of
his death.

"And yet, although Arthur Pym did not return, could it be
reasonably admitted that he had survived his companion for any
length of time, that he was still living, eleven years having
elapsed since his disappearance?"