“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At Vandalia, State of Illinois.”
“And it is from him that you have all this information concerning the voyage?”
“From him.”
“And he came back alone—alone—from that voyage, having left Arthur Pym.”
“Alone!”
“Speak, man—do speak!” I cried, impatiently. Then, in broken, but intelligible sentences, Hunt spoke,—
“Yes—there—a curtain of vapour—so the half-breed often said—understand me. The two, Arthur Pym and he, were in the Tsalal boat. Then an enormous block of ice came full upon them. At the shock Dirk Peters was thrown into the sea, but he clung to the ice block, and—understand me, he saw the boat drift with the current, far, very far, too far! In vain did Pym try to rejoin his companion, he could not; the boat drifted on and on, and Pym, that poor dear Pym, was carried away. It is he who has never come back, and he is there, still there!”
If Hunt had been the half-breed in person he could not have spoken with more heartfelt emotion of “poor Pym.”