AN OCEAN WAIF.
The navigation of the _Halbrane_ went on prosperously with the help of
the sea and the wind. In fifteen days, if this state of things
lasted, she might reach Tristan d'Acunha. Captain Len Guy left the
working of the ship to James West, and well might he do so; there
was nothing to fear with such a seaman as he.
"Our lieutenant has not his match afloat," said Hurliguerly to
me one day. "He ought to be in command of a flag-ship."
"Indeed," I replied, "he seems to be a true son of the sea."
"And then, our _Halbrane_, what a craft! Congratulate yourself, Mr.
Jeorling, and congratulate yourself also that I succeeded in
bringing the captain to change his mind about you."
"If it was you who obtained that result, boatswain, I thank you
heartily."
"And so you ought, for he was plaguily against it, was our
captain, in spite of all old man Atkins could say. But I managed to
make him hear reason."
"I shan't forget it, boatswain, I shan't forget it, since,
thanks to your intervention, instead of moping at Kerguelen I hope
shortly to get within sight of Tristan d'Acunha."
"In a few days, Mr. Jeorling. Only think, sir, according to what I
hear tell, they are making ships in England and America with
machines in their insides, and wheels which they use as a duck uses
its paddles. All right, we shall know what's the good of them when
they come into use. My notion is, however, that those ships will
never be able to fight with a fine frigate sailing with a fresh
breeze."
* * * * *
It was the 3rd of September. If nothing occurred to delay us, our
schooner would be in sight of port in three days. The chief island
of the group is visible on clear days at a great distance.
That day, between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning, I was
walking backwards and forwards on the deck, on the windward side. We
were sliding smoothly over the surface of an undulating sea. The
_Halbrane_ resembled an enormous bird, one of the gigantic albatross
kind described by Arthur Pym--which had spread its sail-like wings,
and was carrying a whole ship's crew towards space.
James West was looking out through his glasses to starboard at an
object floating two or three miles away, and several sailors,
hanging over the side, were also curiously observing it.
I went forward and looked attentively at the object. It was an
irregularly formed mass about twelve yards in length, and in the
middle of it there appeared a shining lump.
"That is no whale," said Martin Holt, the sailing-master. "It
would have blown once or twice since we have been looking at it."
"Certainly!" assented Hardy. "Perhaps it is the carcase of
some deserted ship."
"May the devil send it to the bottom!" cried Roger. "It would
be a bad job to come up against it in the dark; it might send us
down before we could know what had happened."
"I believe you," added Drap, "and these derelicts are more
dangerous than a rock, for they are now here and again there, and
there's no avoiding them."
Hurliguerly came up at this moment and planted his elbows on the
bulwark, alongside of mine.
"What do you think of it, boatswain?" I asked.
"It is my opinion, Mr. Jeorling," replied the boatswain, "that
what we see there is neither a blower nor a wreck, but merely a lump
of ice."
"Hurliguerly is right," said James West; "it is a lump of ice,
a piece of an iceberg which the currents have carried hither."
"What?" said I, "to the forty-fifth parallel?"
"Yes, sir," answered West, "that has occurred, and the ice
sometimes gets up as high as the Cape, if we are to take the word of
a French navigator, Captain Blosseville, who met one at this height
in 1828."
"Then this mass will melt before long," I observed, feeling not
a little surprised that West had honoured me by so lengthy a reply.
"It must indeed be dissolved in great part already," he
continued, "and what we see is the remains of a mountain of ice
which must have weighed millions of tons."
Captain Len Guy now appeared, and perceiving the group of sailors
around West, he came forward. A few words were exchanged in a low
tone between the captain and the lieutenant, and the latter passed
his glass to the former, who turned it upon the floating object, now
at least a mile nearer to us.
"It is ice," said he, "and it is lucky that it is dissolving!
The _Halbrane_ might have come to serious grief by collision with it
in the night."
I was struck by the fixity of his gaze upon the object, whose nature
he had so promptly declared: he continued to contemplate it for
several minutes, and I guessed what was passing in the mind of the
man under the obsession of a fixed idea. This fragment of ice, torn
from the southern icebergs, came from those waters wherein his
thoughts continually ranged. He wanted to see it more near, perhaps
at close quarters, it might be to take away some bits of it. At an
order from West the schooner was directed towards the floating mass;
presently we were within two cables'-length, and I could examine
it.
The mound in the center was melting rapidly; before the end of the
day nothing would remain of the fragment of ice which had been
carried by the currents so high up as the forty-fifth parallel.
Captain Len Guy gazed at it steadily, but he now needed no glass,
and presently we all began to distinguish a second object which
little by little detached itself from the mass, according as the
melting process went on--a black shape, stretched on the white ice.
What was our surprise, mingled with horror, when we saw first an
arm, then a leg, then a trunk, then a head appear, forming a human
body, not in a state of nakedness, but clothed in dark garments.
For a moment I even thought that the limbs moved, that the hands
were stretched towards us.
The crew uttered a simultaneous cry. No! this body was not moving,
but it was slowly slipping off the icy surface.
I looked at Captain Len Guy. His face was as livid as that of the
corpse that had drifted down from the far latitudes of the austral
zone. What could be done was done to recover the body of the
unfortunate man, and who can tell whether a faint breath of life did
not animate it even then? In any case his pockets might perhaps
contain some document that would enable his identity to be
established. Then, accompanied by a last prayer, those human remains
should be committed to the depths of the ocean, the cemetery of
sailors who die at sea.
A boat was let down. I followed it with my eyes as it neared the
side of the ice fragment eaten by the waves.
Hurliguerly set foot upon a spot which still offered some
resistance. Gratian got out after him, while Francis kept the boat
fast by the chain. The two crept along the ice until they reached
the corpse, then drew it to them by the arms and legs and so got it
into the boat. A few strokes of the oars and the boatswain had
rejoined the schooner. The corpse, completely frozen, having been
laid at the foot of the mizen mast, Captain Len Guy approached and
examined it long and closely, as though he sought to recognize it.
It was the corpse of a sailor, dressed in coarse stuff, woollen
trousers and a patched jersey; a belt encircled his waist twice. His
death had evidently occurred some months previously, probably very
soon after the unfortunate man had been carried away by the drift.
He was about forty, with slightly grizzled hair, a mere skeleton
covered with skin. He must have suffered agonies of hunger.
Captain Len Guy lifted up the hair, which had been preserved by the
cold, raised the head, gazed upon the scaled eyelids, and finally
said with a sort of sob,--
"Patterson! Patterson!"
"Patterson?" I exclaimed.
The name, common as it was, touched some chord in my memory. When
had I heard it uttered? Had I read it anywhere?
At this moment, James West, on a hint from the boatswain, searched
the pockets of the dead man, and took out of them a knife, some
string, an empty tobacco box, and lastly a leather pocket-book
furnished with a metallic pencil.
"Give me that," said the captain. Some of the leaves were
covered with writing, almost entirely effaced by the damp. He found,
however, some words on the last page which were still legible, and
my emotion may be imagined when I heard him read aloud in a
trembling voice: "The _Jane . . ._ Tsalal island . . . by
eighty-three . . . There . . . eleven years . . . Captain . . . five
sailors surviving . . . Hasten to bring them aid."
And under these lines was a name, a signature, the name of Patterson!
Then I remembered! Patterson was the second officer of the _Jane_, the
mate of that schooner which had picked up Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters
on the wreck of the _Grampus_, the _Jane_ having reached Tsalal Island;
the _Jane_ which was attacked by natives and blown up in the midst of
those waters.
So then it was all true? Edgar Poe's work was that of an
historian, not a writer of romance? Arthur Gordon Pym's journal
had actually been confided to him! Direct relations had been
established between them! Arthur Pym existed, or rather he had
existed, he was a real being! And he had died, by a sudden and
deplorable death under circumstances not revealed before he had
completed the narrative of his extraordinary voyage. And what
parallel had he reached on leaving Tsalal Island with his companion,
Dirk Peters, and how had both of them been restored to their native
land, America?
I thought my head was turning, that I was going mad--I who accused
Captain Guy of being insane! No! I had not heard aright! I had
misunderstood! This was a mere phantom of my fancy!
And yet, how was I to reject the evidence found on the body of the
mate of the _Jane_, that Patterson whose words were supported by
ascertained dates? And above all, how could I retain a doubt, after
James West, who was the most self-possessed among us, had succeeded
in deciphering the following fragments of sentences:--
"Drifting since the 3rd of June north of Tsalal Island. . . . Still
there . . . Captain William Guy and five of the men of the _Jane_--the
piece of ice I am on is drifting across the iceberg . . . food will soon
fail me. . . . Since the 13th of June . . . my last resources
exhausted . . . to-day . . . 16th of June . . . I am going to die."
So then for nearly three months Patterson's body had lain on the
surface of this ice-waif which we had met on our way from the
Kerguelens to Tristan d'Acunha! Ah! why had we not saved the mate
of the _Jane_!
I had to yield to evidence. Captain Len Guy, who knew Patterson, had
recognized him in this frozen corpse! It was indeed he who
accompanied the captain of the _Jane_ when he had interred that
bottle, containing the letter which I had refused to believe
authentic, at the Kerguelens. Yes! for eleven years, the survivors
of the English schooner had been cast away there without any hope of
succour.
Len Guy turned to me and said,--
"Do you believe--_now_?"
"I believe," said I, falteringly; "but Captain William Guy of
the _Jane_, and Captain Len Guy of the _Halbrane_--"
"Are brothers!" he cried in a loud voice, which was heard by all
the crew.
Then we turned our eyes once more to the place where the lump of ice
had been floating; but the double influence of the solar rays and
the waters in this latitude had produced its effect, no trace of the
dead man's last refuge remained on the surface of the sea.