Part 18 (1/2)
No murmurs, no recrimination disturbed these labours It was evident that silence was deliberately maintained The crew obeyed the captain and West because they gave no orders but such as were of urgent necessity But, afterwards, would these men allow the authority of their leaders to be uncontested? How long would the recruits from the Falklands, ere already exasperated by the disasters of our enterprise, resist their desire to seize upon the boat and escape?
I did not think they wouldshould continue to drift, for the boat could not outstrip its progress; but, if it were to run aground once more, to strike upon the coast of an island or a continent, ould not these unfortunate creatures do to escape the horrors of wintering under such conditions?
In the afternoon, during the hour of rest allowed to the crew, I had a second conversation with Dirk Peters I had taken , and had occupied it for half an hour, being, as ht, when I saw the half-breed coed hardly a dozen words since the iceberg had begun to ain When Dirk Peters came up to me, he did not address hts that I was not quite sure he saw ainst an ice-block, and spoke: ”Mr Jeorling,” he said, ”you remember, in your cabin in the Halbrane, I told you the--the affair of the Grampus?”
I remembered well
”I told you that Parker's name was not Parker, that it was Holt, and that he was Ned Holt's brother?”
”I know, Dirk Peters,” I replied, ”but why do you refer to that sad story again?”
”Why, Mr Jeorling? Have not--have you never sa about it to anybody?”
”Not to anybody,” I protested ”How could you suppose I should be so ill-advised, so iht never to pass our lips--a dead secret?”
”Dead, yes, dead! And yet, understandis known”
I instantly recalled toa certain conversation in which he had overheard Hearne pro Martin Holt to ask the half-breed ere the circumstances of his brother's death on board the Graot out, or was this apprehension on the part of Dirk Peters purely iinary?
”Explain yourself,” I said
”UnderstandYes, yesterday--I have thought of nothing else since--Martin Holt took me aside, far from the others, and told me that he wished to speak to me--”
”Of the Grampus?”
”Of the Grampus--yes, and of his brother, Ned Holt For the first tiether for nearly three ed that I could hardly hear him
”It seemed to me,” he resumed, ”that in Martin Holt'slike a suspicion”
”But tell me what he said! Tell me exactly what he asked you What is it?”
I felt sure that the question put by Martin Holt, whatsoever its bearing, had been inspired by Hearne Nevertheless, as I considered it well that the half-breed should know nothing of the sealing- and inexplicable intervention in this tragic affair, I decided upon concealing it from him
”He asked me,” replied Dirk Peters, ”did I not remember Ned Holt of the Graht with the mutineers or in the shi+pwreck; whether he was one of the men who had been abandoned with Captain Barnard; in short, he asked me if I could tell him how his brother died Ah! how!”
No idea could be conveyed of the horror hich the half-breed uttered words which revealed a profound loathing of himself
”And what answer did you make to Martin Holt?”
”None, none!”
”You should have said that Ned Holt perished in the wreck of the brig”
”I could not--understand me--I could not The two brothers are so like each other In Martin Holt I seeot away from him”
The half-breed drew hi my head onhis brother were put, I had no doubt whatsoever, at the instigation of Hearne, but as his motive, and was it at the Falklands that he had discovered the secret of Dirk Peters? I had not breathed a word on the subject to anyested itself; the first involved a serious issue Did the sealing-ainst Dirk Peters, the only one of the Falkland sailors who had always taken the side of Captain Len Guy, and who had prevented the seizure of the boat by Hearne and his coeance of Martin Holt, to detach the sailing-iance and induce hins? And, in fact, when it was a question of sailing the boat in these seas, had he not imperative need of Martin Holt, one of the best seamen of the Halbrane? A man ould succeed where Hearne and his companions would fail, if they had only themselves to depend on?
I became lost in this labyrinth of hypotheses, and it ely to the troubles of an already complicated position
When I raised my eyes, Dirk Peters had disappeared; he had said what he came to say, and he no that I had not betrayed his confidence
The custo allowed to remain outside the cae of the boat
The following day was the 31st of January I pushed back the canvas of the tent, which I shared with Captain Len Guy and West respectively, as each succeeded the other on release from the alternate ”watch,” very early, and experienced a severe disappointment
Mist, everywhere! Nay,And ain; the te of the austral winter The su which would not resolve itself into rain, but would continue to muffle up the horizon
”Bad luck!” said the boatswain, ”for noere to pass by land we should not perceive it” ”And our drift?”
”More considerable than yesterday, Mr Jeorling The captain has sounded, and he makes the speed no less than between three and four miles”
”And what do you conclude from this?”
”I conclude that weI should not be surprised if we had land on both sides of us within ten or fifteen miles”
”This, then, would be a wide strait that cuts the antarctic continent?”
”Yes Our captain is of that opinion”
”And, holding that opinion, is he not going to make an attempt to reach one or other of the coasts of this strait?”
”And how?”
”With the boat” the boatswain, as he crossed his ar? Can we cast anchor to wait for it? And all the chances would be that we should never see it again Ah! if we only had the Halbrane!”
But there was no longer a Halbrane!
In spite of the difficulty of the ascent through the half-condensed vapour, I cliained that erey mantle in which the waters rapped
I reinning to blow freshly andasunder But no, fresh vapours accue, driven up by the immense ventilation of the open sea Under the double action of the atmospheric and antarctic currents, we drifted more and hout the vast bulk of the iceberg
Then it was that I felt myself under the dominion of a sort of hallucination, one of those hallucinations which must have troubled tilemyself in his extraordinary personality; at last I was beholding all that he had seen! Was not that impenetrable mist the curtain of vapours which he had seen in his deliriu for those luminous rays which had streaked the sky froht in its depths for that liht of soht for the ahite giant of the South Pole!
At length reason resu while it lasted, passed off by degrees, and I descended the slope to our ca never once lifted to give us a gli, which had travelled forty miles since the previous day, had passed by the extremity of the axis of the earth, we should never know it