Chapter 18: A Revelation

The following day, the 29th of December, at six in the morning, the schooner set sail with a north-east 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 Halbrahe 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 Halbrahe 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 milk, and that its surface became ruffled around your boat?"

"It may have been so, sir; I did not observe. The boat went on and on, and my head went with it."

"And then, the fine powder, as fine as ashes, that fell--"

"I don't remember it." "Was it not snow?"

"Snow? Yes! No! The weather was warm. What did Pym say? Pym must be believed." He lowered his voice and continued: "But Pym will tell you all that, sir. He knows. I do not know. He saw, and you will believe him."

"Yes, Dirk Peters, I shall believe him."

"We are to go in search of him, are we not?"

"I hope so."

"After we shall have found William Guy and the sailors of the Jane!"

"Yes, after."

"And even if we do not find them?"

"Yes, even in that case. I think I shall induce our captain. I think he will not refuse--"

"No, he will not refuse to bring help to a man--a man like him g"

"And yet," I said, "if William Guy and his people are living, can we admit that Arthur Pym--"

"Living? Yes! Living!" cried the half-breed. "By the great spirit of my fathers, he is--he is waiting for me, my poor Pym! How joyful he will be when he clasps his old Dirk in his arms, and I--I, when I feel him, there, there."

And the huge chest of the man heaved like a stormy sea. Then he went away, leaving me inexpressibly affected by the revelation of the tenderness for his unfortunate companion that lay deep in the heart of this semi-savage.

In the meantime I said but little to Captain Len Guy, whose whole heart and soul were set on the rescue of brother, of the possibility of our finding Arthur Gordon Pym. Time enough, if in the course of this strange enterprise of ours we succeeded in that object, to urge upon him one still more visionary.

At length, on the 7th of January--according to Dirk Peters, who had fixed it only by the time that had expired--we arrived at the place where Nu Nu the savage breathed his last, lying in the bottom of the boat. On that day an observation gave 86° 33' for the latitude, the longitude remaining the same between the and the forty-third meridian. Here it was, according the half-breed, that the two fugitives were parted after the collision between the boat and the floating mass of ice. But a question now arose. Since the mass of ice carrying away Dirk Peters had drifted towards the north, was this because it was subjected to the action of a countercurrent?

Yes, that must have been so, for oar schooner had not felt the influence of the current which had guided her on leaving the Falklands, for fully four days. And yet, there was nothing surprising in that, for everything is variable in the austral seas. Happily, the fresh breeze from the north-east continued to blow, and the Halbrane made progress toward higher waters, thirteen degrees in advance upon Weddells ship and two degrees upon the fane. As for the land--islands or continent--which Captain Len Guy was seeking on the surface of that vast ocean, it did not appear. I was well aware that he was gradually losing confidence in our enterprise.

As for me, I was possessed by the desire to rescue Arthur Pym as well as the survivors of the Jane. And yet, how could he have survived! But then, the half-breed's fixed idea! Supposing our captain were to give the order to go back, what would Dirk Peters do? Throw himself into the sea rather than return northwards? This it was which made me dread some act of violence on his part, when he heard the greater number of the sailors protesting against this insensate voyage, and talking of putting the ship about, especially towards Hearne, who was stealthily inciting his comrades of the Falklands to insubordination.

It was absolutely necessary not to allow discipline to decline, or discouragement to grow among the crew; so that, on the 7th of January, Captain Len Guy at my request assembled the men and addressed them in the following words:--

"Sailors of the Halbrane, since our departure from Tsalal Island, the schooner has gained two degrees southwards, and I now inform you, that, conformably with the engagement signed by Mr. Jeorling, four thousand dollars--that is two thousand dollars for each degree--are due to you, and will be paid at the end of the voyage."

These words were greeted with some murmurs of satisfaction, but not with cheers, except those of Hurliguerly the boatswain, and Endicott the cook, which found no echo.

On the 13th of January a conversation took place between the boatswain and myself of a nature to justify my anxiety concerning the temper of our crew.

The men were at breakfast, with the exception of Drap and Stern. The schooner was cutting the water under a stiff breeze. I was walking between the fore and main masts, watching the great flights of birds wheeling about the ship with deafening clangour, and the petrels occasionally perching on our yards. No effort was made to catch or shoot them; it would have been useless cruelty, since their oily and stringy flesh is not eatable.

At this moment Hurliguerly approached me, looked attentively at the birds, and said, --

"I remark one thing, Mr. Jeorling."

"What is it, boatswain?"

"That these birds do not fly so directly south as they did up to the present. Some of them are setting north."

"I have noticed the same fact."

"And I add, Mr. Jeorling, that those who are below there will come back without delay."

"And you conclude from this?"

"I conclude that they feel the approach of winter."

"Of winter?"

"Undoubtedly."

"No, no, boatswain; the temperature is so high that the birds can't want to get to less cold regions so prematurely."

"Oh! prematurely, Mr. Jeorling."

"Yes, boatswain; do we not know that navigators have always been able to frequent the Antarctic waters until the month of March?"

"Not at such a latitude. Besides, there are precocious winters as well as precocious summers. The fine season this year was full two months in advance, and it is to ba feared the bad season may come sooner than usual."

"That is very likely," I replied. "After all, it does not signity to us, since our campaign will certainly be over in three weeks."

"If some obstacle does not arise beforehand, Mr. Jeorling."

"And what obstacle?"

"For instance, a continent stretching to the south and barring our way."

"A continent, Hurliguerly!"

"I should not be at all surprised."

"And, in fact, there would be nothing surprising in it."

"As for the lands seen by Dirk Peters," said the boatswain, "where the men of the Jane might have landed on one or another of them, I don't believe in them."

"Why?"

"Because William Guy, who can only have had a small craft at his disposal, could not have got so far into these seas."

"I do not feel quite so sure of that. Nevertheless, Mr. Jeorling--"

"What would there be so surprising in William Guy's being carried to land somewhere by the action of the currents? He did not remain on board his boat for eight months, I suppose. His companions and he may have been able to land on an island, or even on a continent, and that is a sufficient motive for us to pursue our search."

"No doubt--but all are not of your opinion," replied Hurliguerly, shaking his head.

"I know," said I, "and that is what makes me most anxious. Is the ill-feeling increasing?"

"I fear so, Mr. Jeorling. The satisfaction of having gained several hundreds of dollars is already lessened, and the prospect of gaining a few more hundreds does not put a stop to disputes. And yet the prize is tempting! From Tsalal Island to the pole, admitting that we might get there, is six degrees. Now six degrees at two thousand dollars each makes twelve thousand dollars for thirty men, that is four hundred dollars a head A nice little sum to slip into one's pocket on the return of the Halbrane; but, notwithstanding, that fellow Hearne works so wickedly upon his comrades that I believe they are ready to 'bout ship in spite of anybody."

"I can believe that of the recruits, boatswain, but the old crew--"

"H--m! there are three or four of those who are beginning to reflect, and they are not easy in their minds about the prolongation of the voyage."

"I fancy Captain Len Guy and his lieutenant will how to get themselves obeyed."

"We shall see, Mr. Jeorling. But may it not that our captain himself will get disheartened; that the sense of his responsibility will prevail, and that he will renounce his enterprise?"

Yes! this was what I feared, and there was no remedy on that side. "As for my friend Endicott, Mr. Jeorling, I answer for him as for myself. We would go to the end of the world--if the world has an end--did the captain want to go there. True, we two, Dirk Peters and yourself, are but a few to be a law to the others."

"And what do you think of the half-breed?" I asked.