Page 91 of 159 CHAPTER XVIII. A REVELATION. - An Antarctic Mystery

“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.

		"Though I can make my extravaganzas appear credible, I cannot make the truth appear so." George Bernard Shaw