"Always! So many dangers shared! That makes brothers! No, it makes a father and his son! Yes! And I have seen America again, but Pym—poor Pym—he is still beyond there!"
"Dirk Peters," I asked, "have you any idea of the route which you and Arthur Pym followed in the boat after your departure from Tsalal Island?"
"None, sir! Poor Pym had no longer any instrument—you know—sea machines—for looking at the sun. We could not know, except that for the eight days the current pushed us towards the south, and the wind also. A fine breeze and a fair sea, and our shirts for a sail."
"Yes, white linen shirts, which frightened your prisoner Nu Nu—"
"Perhaps so—I did not notice. But if Pym has said so, Pym must be believed."
"And during those eight days you were able to supply yourselves with food?"
"Yes, sir, and the days after—we and the savage. You know—the three turtles that were in the boat. These animals contain a store of fresh water—and their flesh is sweet, even raw. Oh, raw flesh, sir!"
He lowered his voice, and threw a furtive glance around him. It would be impossible to describe the frightful expression of the half-breed's face as he thus recalled the terrible scenes of the Grampus. And it was not the expression of a cannibal of Australia or the New Hebrides but that of a man who is pervaded by an insurmountable horror of himself.
"Was it not on the 1st of March, Dirk Peters," I asked, "that you perceived for the first time the veil of grey vapour shot with luminous and moving rays?"
