Just as he felt himself breathing his last sigh he heard his name pronounced, and a bottle of water was held to his lips. He swallowed the whole of its contents, and experienced the most exquisite of pleasures.
A few minutes later, Augustus Barnard, seated with his comrade in a corner of the hold, told him all that had occurred on board the brig.
Up to this point, I repeat, the story is admissible, but we have not yet come to the events which “surpass all probability by their marvellousness.”
The crew of the Grampus numbered thirty-six men, including the Barnards, father and son. After the brig had put to sea on the 20th of June, Augustus Barnard had made several attempts to rejoin Arthur Pym in his hiding-place, but in vain. On the third day a mutiny broke out on board, headed by the ship’s cook, a negro like our Endicott; but he, let me say at once, would never have thought of heading a mutiny.
Numerous incidents are related in the romance—the massacre of most of the sailors who remained faithful to Captain Barnard, then the turning adrift of the captain and four of those men in a small whaler’s boat when the ship was abreast of the Bermudas. These unfortunate persons were never heard of again.
Augustus Barnard would not have been spared, but for the intervention of the sailing-master of the Grampus. This sailing-master was a half-breed named Dirk Peters, and was the person whom Captain Len Guy had gone to look for in Illinois!
The Grampus then took a south-east course under the command of the mate, who intended to pursue the occupation of piracy in the southern seas.
These events having taken place, Augustus Barnard would again have joined Arthur Pym, but he had been shut up in the forecastle in irons, and told by the ship’s cook that he would not be allowed to come out until “the brig should be no longer a brig.” Nevertheless, a few days afterwards, Augustus contrived to get rid of his fetters, to cut through the thin partition between him and the hold, and, followed by Tiger, he tried to reach his friend’s hiding-place. He could not succeed, but the dog had scented Arthur Pym, and this suggested to Augustus the idea of fastening a note to Tiger’s neck bearing the words:
“I scrawl this with blood—remain hidden—your life depends on it—”
This note, as we have already learned, Arthur Pym had received. Just as he had arrived at the last extremity of distress his friend reached him.