West now reminded us that it was imprudent to prolong our stay upon this Land of the Sphinx—a name to be retained. Time pressed, and a few days’ delay would have entailed our wintering at the foot of the ice-barrier.
The order to return to the beach had just been given, when the voice of the half-breed was again heard, as he cried out:
“There! There! There!”
We followed the sounds to the back of the monster’s right paw, and we found Dirk Peters on his knees, with his hands stretched out before an almost naked corpse, which had been preserved intact by the cold of these regions, and was as rigid as iron. The head was bent, a white beard hung down to the waist, the nails of the feet and hands were like claws.
How had this corpse been fixed to the side of the mound at six feet above the ground?
Across the body, held in place by its cross-belt, we saw the twisted barrel of a musket, half-eaten by rust.
“Pym—my poor Pym!” groaned Dirk Peters.
He tried to rise, that he might approach and kiss the ossified corpse. But his knees bent under him, a strangled sob seemed to rend his throat, with a terrible spasm his faithful heart broke, and the half-breed fell back—dead!
The story was easy to read. After their separation, the boat had carried Arthur Pym through these Antarctic regions! Like us, once he had passed beyond the south pole, he came into the zone of the monster! And there, while his boat was swept along on the northern current, he was seized by the magnetic fluid before he could get rid of the gun which was slung over his shoulder, and hurled against the fatal loadstone Sphinx of the Ice-realm.
Now the faithful half-breed rests under the clay of the Land of the Antarctic Mystery, by the side of his “poor Pym,” that hero whose strange adventures found a chronicler no less strange in the great American poet!