“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!”