And Dirk Peters struck his breast violently.
Then he resumed:
“Yes! I am always afraid it may escape me during my sleep, and that someone will hear it, for I dream of it, and in dreaming—”
“You dream,” I replied, “and of what?”
“Of him, of him. Therefore it is that I sleep in corners, all alone, for fear that his true name should be discovered.”
Then it struck me that the half-breed was perhaps about to respond to an inquiry which I had not yet made—why he had gone to live at the Falklands under the name of Hunt after leaving Illinois?
I put the question to him, and he replied,—
“It is not that; no, it is not that I wish—”
“I insist, Dirk Peters, and I desire to know in the first place for what reason you did not remain in America, for what reason you chose the Falklands—”
“For what reason, sir? Because I wanted to get near Pym, my poor Pym—because I hoped to find an opportunity at the Falklands of embarking on a whaling ship bound for the southern sea.”