An Antarctic Mystery - Jules Verne (good summer reads TXT) 📗

countryman of his, Mr. Jeorling! But stay! I had some dealings formerly with a captain of that name. Guy, Guy⁠—”

“William Guy?” I asked, quickly.

“Precisely. William Guy.”

“Who commanded the Jane?”

“The Jane? Yes. The same man.”

“An English schooner which put in at Tristan d’Acunha eleven years ago?”

“Eleven years, Mr. Jeorling. I had been settled in the island where Captain Jeffrey, of the Berwick, of London, found me in the year 1824, for full seven years. I perfectly recall this William Guy, as if he were before me. He was a fine, openhearted fellow, and I sold him a cargo of seal-skins. He had the air of a gentleman, rather proud, but good-natured.”

“And the Jane!”

“I can see her now at her moorings in the same place as the Halbrane. She was a handsome vessel of one hundred and eighty tons, very slender for’ards. She belonged to the port of Liverpool.”

“Yes; that is true, all that is true.”

“And is the Jane still afloat, Mr. Jeorling?”

“No, Mr. Glass.”

“Was she lost?”

“The fact is only too true, and the greater part of her crew with her.”

“Will you tell me how this happened?”

“Willingly. On leaving Tristan d’Acunha the Jane headed for the bearings of the Aurora and other islands, which William Guy hoped to recognize from information⁠—”

“That came from me,” interrupted the ex-corporal. “And those other islands, may I learn whether the Jane discovered them?”

“No, nor the Auroras either, although William Guy remained several weeks in those waters, running from east to west, with a lookout always at the masthead.”

“He must have lost his bearings, Mr. Jeorling, for, if several whalers, who were well deserving of credit, are to be believed, these islands do exist, and it was even proposed to give them my name.”

“That would have been but just,” I replied politely. “It will be very vexatious if they are not discovered some day,” added the Governor, in a tone which indicated that he was not devoid of vanity.

“It was then,” I resumed, “that Captain Guy resolved to carry out a project he had long cherished, and in which he was encouraged by a certain passenger who was on board the Jane⁠—”

“Arthur Gordon Pym,” exclaimed Glass, “and his companion, one Dirk Peters; the two had been picked up at sea by the schooner.”

“You knew them, Mr. Glass?” I asked eagerly.

“Knew them, Mr. Jeorling? I should think I did, indeed! That Arthur Pym was a strange person, always wanting to rush into adventures⁠—a real rash American, quite capable of starting off to the moon! Has he gone there at last?”

“No, not quite, Mr. Glass, but, during her voyage, the schooner, it seems, did clear the polar circle, and pass the ice-wall. She got farther than any ship had ever done before.”

“What a wonderful feat!”

“Yes. Unfortunately, the Jane did not return. Arthur Pym and William Guy escaped the doom of the Jane and the most of her crew. They even got back to America, how I do not know. Afterwards Arthur Pym died, but under what circumstances I am ignorant. As for the half-breed, after having retired to Illinois, he went off one day without a word to anyone and no trace of him has been found.”

“And William Guy?” asked Mr. Glass.

I related the finding of the body of Patterson, the mate of the Jane, and I added that everything led to the belief that the captain of the Jane and five of his companions were still living on an island in the austral regions, at less than six degrees from the Pole.

“Ah, Mr. Jeorling,” cried Glass, “if some day William Guy and his sailors might be saved! They seemed to me to be such fine fellows.”

“That is just what the Halbrane is certainly going to attempt, so soon as she is ready, for her captain, Len Guy, is William Guy’s own brother.”

“Is it possible? Well, although I do not know Captain Len Guy, I venture to assert that the brothers do not resemble each other⁠—at least in their behaviour to the Governor of Tristan d’Acunha!”

It was plain that the Governor was profoundly mortified, but no doubt he consoled himself by the prospect of selling his goods at twenty-five percent above their value.

One thing was certain: Captain Len Guy had no intention of coming ashore. This was the more singular, inasmuch as he could not be unaware that the Jane had put in at Tristan d’Acunha before proceeding to the southern seas. Surely he might be expected to put himself in communication with the last European who had shaken hands with his brother!

Nevertheless, Captain Len Guy remained persistently on board his ship, without even going on deck; and, looking through the glass skylight of his cabin, I saw him perpetually stooping over the table, which was covered with open books and outspread charts. No doubt the charts were those of the austral latitudes, and the books were narratives of the precursors of the Jane in those mysterious regions of the south.

On the table lay also a volume which had been read and reread a hundred times. Most of its pages were dogs’-eared and their margins were filled with pencilled notes. And on the cover shone the title in brightly gilded letters:

The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym.

VIII Bound for the Falklands

On the 8th of September, in the evening, I had taken leave of His Excellency the Governor-General of the Archipelago of Tristan d’Acunha⁠—for such is the official title bestowed upon himself by that excellent fellow, Glass, ex-corporal of artillery in the British Army. On the following day, before dawn, the Halbrane sailed.

After we had rounded Herald Point, the few houses of Ansiedlung disappeared behind the extremity of Falmouth Bay. A fine breeze from the east carried us along gaily.

During the morning we left behind us in succession Elephant Bay, Hardy Rock, West Point, Cotton Bay, and Daly’s Promontory; but it took the entire day to lose sight of the volcano of Tristan d’Acunha, which is eight thousand feet high; its