“To my regret, captain,” I replied, but with reserve, for I wanted him to make the running.
“I beg you to excuse me,” he resumed, “I have so many things to occupy me and make me anxious. A plan of campaign to organize, in which nothing must be unforeseen or unprovided for. I beg you not to be displeased with me—”
“I am not, I assure you.”
“That is all right, Mr. Jeorling; and now that I know you, that I am able to appreciate you, I congratulate myself upon having you for a passenger until our arrival at the Falklands.”
“I am very grateful, captain, for what you have done for me, and I feel encouraged to—”
The moment seemed propitious to my making my proposal, when Captain Len Guy interrupted me.
“Well, Mr. Jeorling,” he asked, “are you now convinced of the reality of the voyage of the Jane, or do you still regard Edgar Poe’s book as a work of pure imagination?”
“I do not so regard it, captain.”
“You no longer doubt that Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters have really existed, or that my brother William Guy and five of his companions are living?”
“I should be the most incredulous of men, captain, to doubt either fact, and my earnest desire is that the favour of Heaven may attend you and secure the safety of the shipwrecked mariners of the Jane.”