Part 2 (2/2)
”Neither I nor any other person believes it, Captain Guy, and you are the first I have heardbut a , for although this 'romance'--as you call it--appeared only last year, it is none the less a reality Although eleven years have elapsed since the facts occurred, they are none the less true, and we still await the ' word J of an enigma which will perhaps never be solved”
Yes, he was ood fortune West was there to take his place as commander of the schooner I had only to listen to hiain, I was curious to hear what the captain had to say about it
”And now,” he resumed in a sharper tone and with a shake in his voice which denoted a certain amount of nervous irritation, ”it is possible that you did not know the Pym family;that you have never met them either at Providence or at Nantucket--”
”Or elsewhere”
”Just so! But don't co that the Pym family never existed, that Arthur Gordon is only a fictitious personage, and his voyage an iar Poe, could have been capable of inventing, of creating--?”
The increasing vehemence of Captain Len Guy warnedhisall he said without discussion
”Now,” he proceeded, ”please to keep the facts which I a about facts You may deduce any results froret that I consented to give you a passage on the Halbrane”
This was an effectual warning, so I n of acquiescence The ar Poe's narrative appeared in 1838, I was at New York I immediately started for Baltirandfather had served as quarter- the War of Independence You adh you deny that of the Py, and the captain continued, with a dark glance at ar Poe His abode was pointed out to me and I called at the house A first disappointment! He had left A unable to see Edgar Poe, I was unable to refer to Arthur Gordon Pyions was dead! As the American poet had stated, at the close of the narrative of his adventures, Gordon's death had already been made known to the public by the daily press”
What Captain Len Guy said was true; but, in common with all the readers of the romance, I had taken this declaration for an artifice of the novelist My notion was that, as he either could not or dared not wind up so extraordinary a work of iiven it to be understood that he had not received the last three chapters from Arthur Pym, whose life had ended under sudden and deplorable circumstances which Poe did not ar Poe being absent, Arthur Py to do; to find the man who had been the fellow-traveller of Arthur Pye of the high latitudes, and whence they had both returned--how? This is not known Did they come back in company? The narrative does not say, and there are obscure points in that part of it, as in ar Poe stated explicitly that Dirk Peters would be able to furnish infor to the non-communicated chapters, and that he lived at Illinois I set out at once for Illinois; I arrived at Springfield; I inquired for this man, a half-breed Indian He lived in the hamlet ofVandalia; I went there, and met with a second disappoint, he was no longer there Some years before this Dirk Peters had left Illinois, and even the United States, to go--nobody knohere But I have talked, at Vandalia with people who had known him, hom he lived, to whom he related his adventures, but did not explain the final issue Of that he alone holds the secret”
What! This Dirk Peters had really existed? He still lived? I was on the point of letting myself be carried away by the statements of the captain of the Halbrane! Yes, another moment, and, in my turn, I should have ined that he had gone to Illinois and seen people at Vandalia who had known Dirk Peters, and that the latter had disappeared No wonder, since he had never existed, save in the brain of the novelist!
Nevertheless I did not want to vex Len Guy, and perhaps drive hily I appeared entirely convinced that he was speaking words of sober seriousness, even when he added,-- ”You are aware that in the narrative mention is made by the captain of the schooner on which Arthur Py a sealed letter, which was deposited at the foot of one of the Kerguelen peaks?”
”Yes, I recall the incident”
”Well, then, in one of ht to be I found it and the letter also That letter stated that the captain and Arthur Pym intended to make every effort to reach the uttermost limits of the Antarctic Sea!”
”You found that bottle?”
”Yes!”
”And the letter?”
”Yes!”
I looked at Captain Len Guy Like certain monomaniacs he had come to believe in his own inventions I was on the point of saying to hiht better of it Was he not capable of having written the letter hiretted, captain, that you were unable to come across Dirk Peters at Vandalia! He would at least have informed you under what conditions he and Arthur Pym returned from so far Recollect, now, in the last chapter but one they are both there Their boat is in front of the thick curtain of white ulf of the cataract just at thebut two blank lines--”
”Decidedly, sir, it is retted that I could not layto learn as the outcome of these adventures But, toto have ascertained the fate of the others”
”The others?” I exclaimed almost involuntarily ”Of wholish schooner which picked up Arthur Pyhtful shi+pwreck of the Graht them across the Polar Sea to Tsalal Island--”
”Captain,” said I, just as though I entertained no doubt of the authenticity of Edgar Poe's romance, ”is it not the case that all these men perished, some in the attack on the schooner, the others by the infernal device of the natives of Tsalal?”
”Who can tell?” replied the captain in a voice hoarse from emotion ”Who can say but that some of the unfortunate creatures survived, and contrived to escape from the natives?”
”In any case,” I replied, ”it would be difficult to ad”
”And why?”
”Because the facts we are discussing are eleven years old”
”Sir,” replied the captain, ”since Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters were able to advance beyond Tsalal Island farther than the eighty-third parallel, since they foundin the midst of those Antarctic lands, why should not their companions, if they were not all killed by the natives, if they were so fortunate as to reach the neighbouring islands sighted during the voyage--why should not those unfortunate countrymen of mine have contrived to live there? Why should they not still be there, awaiting their deliverance?”
”Your pity leads you astray, captain,” I replied ” It would be impossible”
”Impossible, sir! And if a fact, on indisputable evidence, appealed to the whole civilized world; if a material proof of the existence of these unhappy men, imprisoned at the ends of the earth, were furnished, ould venture to o to their aid with the cry of 'Ierated to the point of e man in those shi+pwrecked folk who never had suffered shi+pwreck, for the good reason that they never had existed?
Captain Len Guy approached me anew, laid his hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear,-- ”No, sir, no! the last word has not been said concerning the crew of the Jane”
Then he proar Poe's romance, the name of the shi+p which had rescued Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters from the wreck of the Grampus, and Captain Len Guy had now uttered it for the first time It occurred to me then that Guy was the nalish shi+p; but what of that? The captain of the Jane never lived but in the iination of the novelist, he and the skipper of the Halbrane have nothing in coland But, on thinking of the similarity, it struck me that the poor captain's brain had been turned by this very thing He had conceived the notion that he was of kin to the unfortunate captain of the Jane! And this had brought him to his present state, this was the source of his passionate pity for the fate of the iinary shi+pwreckedto discover whether James West are of the state of the case, whether his chief had ever talked to him of the follies he had revealed to me But this was a delicate question, since it involved the mental condition of Captain Len Guy; and besides, any kind of conversation with the lieutenant was difficult On the whole I thought it safer to restrain my curiosity In a few days the schooner would reach Tristan d'Acunha, and I should part with her and her captain for good and all Never, however, could I lose the recollection that I had actually ar Poe's romance for sober fact Never could I have looked for such an experience!
On the 22nd of August the outline of Prince Edward's Island was sighted, south latitude 46A 55aE, and 37A 46aE east longitude We were in sight of the island for twelve hours, and then it was lost in the eveningday the Halbrant headed in the direction of the north-west, towards the most northern parallel of the southern hee
Chapter V
Frouelen Isles to Prince Edward Island
In this chapter I have to give a brief suar Poe's romance, which was published at Richmond under the title of THE ADVENTURES OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM1 We shall see whether there was any room for doubt that the adventures of this hero of ro the multitude of Poe's readers, was there ever one, with the sole exception of Len Guy, who believed thee Arthur Pye to the Antarctic seas he eographical discoveries, Edgar Poe, as then editor of the Southern Literary Messenger at Richmond, and that he authorized the latter to publish the first part of his adventures in that journal ”under the cloak of fiction” That portion having been favourably received, a volunature of Edgar Poe
Arthur Gordon Pym was born at Nantucket, where he attended the Bedford School until he was sixteen years old Having left that school for Mr Ronald's, he forustus Barnard, the son of a shi+p's captain This youth, as eighteen, had already acco expedition in the southern seas, and his yarns concerning that ination of Arthur Pyave rise to Py, and to the instinct that especially attracted hiion The first exploit of Augustus Earnard and Arthur Pym was an excursion on board a little sloop, the Ariel, a two-decked boat which belonged to the Py very tipsy, embarked secretly, in cold October weather, and boldly set sail in a strong breeze from the south-west The Ariel, aided by the ebb tide, had already lost sight of land when a violent stor felloere still intoxicated No one was at the helm, not a reef was in the sail The usts, and the wreck was driven before the wind Then careat shi+p which passed over the Ariel as the Ariel would have passed a floating feather
Arthur Pyives the fullest details of the rescue of his companion and himself after this collision, under conditions of extreth, thanks to the second officer of the Penguin, from New London, which arrived on the scene of the catastrophe, the comrades were picked with life all but extinct, and taken back to Nantucket
This adventure, to which I cannot deny an appearance veracity, was an ingenious preparation for the chapters that were to follow, and indeed, up to the day on which Pyht conceivably be regarded as authentic But, beyond the polar circle, above the austral icebergs, it is quite another thing, and, if the author's work be not one of pure iination, I aet on
Their first adventure had not cooled the two youths, and eightGra for whaling in the southern seas This brig was an old, ill-repaired craft, and Mr Barnard, the father of Augustus, was its skipper His son, as to accoo with hi better, but he knew that his family, and especially his o
This obstacle, however, could not stop a youth not iven to submit to the wishes of his parents His head was full of the entreaties and persuasion of his companion, and he determined to embark secretly on the Grampus, for Mr Barnard would not have authorized him to defy the prohibition of his family He announced that he had been invited to pass a few days with a friend at New Bedford, took leave of his parents and left his ho was to sail, he slipped on board unperceived, and got into a hiding-place which had been prepared for him unknown alike to Mr Barnard and the crew