to suppose that any of the crew had survived the cleverly-contrived collapse of the hill. Hence it came about that Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters on the one side, and William Guy and his companions on the other, were enabled to remain undisturbed in the labyrinths of Klock-Klock, where they fed on the flesh of bitterns—these they could catch with their hands—and the fruit of the nut-trees which grow on the hill-sides. They procured fire by rubbing pieces of soft against pieces of hard wood; there was a quantity of both within their reach.
After a whole week of this confinement, Arthur Pym and the half-breed had succeeded, as we know, in leaving their hiding-place, securing a boat, and abandoning Tsalal Island, but William Guy and his companions had not yet found an opportunity to escape.
After they had been shut up in the labyrinth for twenty-one days, the birds on which they lived began to fail them, and they recognized that their only means of escaping hunger—(they had not to fear thirst, for there was a spring of fresh water in the interior of the hill)—was to go down again to the coast, lay hands upon a native boat, and get out to sea. Where were the fugitives to go, and what was to become of them without provisions?—these were questions that had to be asked, and which nobody could answer. Nevertheless, they would not have hesitated to attempt the adventure if they could have a few hours of darkness; but, at that time of year, the sun did not as yet go down behind the horizon of the eighty-fourth parallel.
Death would probably have put an end to their misery had not the situation been changed by the following events.
On the 22nd of February, in the morning, William Guy and Patterson were talking together, in terrible perplexity
