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“Captain,” said I, just as though I entertained no doubt of the authenticity of Edgar Poe’s romance, “is it not the case that all these men perished, some in the attack on the schooner, the others by the infernal device of the natives of Tsalal?”
I hope you will not make me regret that I consented to give you a passage on the Halbrane.” This was an effectual warning, so I made a sign of acquiescence. The matter promised to be curious. He went on, “When Edgar Poe’s narrative appeared in 1838, I was at New York.
In order to assure the soul for himself in advance, Satan attempts to purchase it from the owner while he is still living vivente corpore, as he tells the restaurateur in Poe’s story. As prince of this world he can easily grant even the most extravagant wishes of man in exchange for his soul. Office, wealth and pleasure are mainly the objects for which a man enters into a pact with the Evil One.
Hurliguerly did not exaggerate, and I had already remarked this. To employ an expression of Edgar Poe’s, Hunt had eyes like a falcon’s. “When he is not on the watch,” resumed the boatswain, “that savage leans all the time with his elbows on the side, as motionless as he is mute.
Never, however, could I lose the recollection that I had actually met and sailed with a man who took the fictions of Edgar Poe’s romance for sober fact. Never could I have looked for such an experience! On the 22nd of August the outline of Prince Edward’s Island was sighted, south latitude 46° 55’, and 37° 46’ east longitude.
The half-breed looked from one to the other of us, and shook his big head. “I don’t know,” he said. “What are you asking me about, captain? A curtain of vapour? Yes, perhaps, and also appearances of land towards the south.” Evidently Dirk Peters had never read Edgar Poe’s book, and very likely did not know how to read.
I willingly admit that the constant reading of Edgar Poe’s works, and reading them in this place in which his heroes delighted, had exercised an influence on me which I did not fully recognize. To-morrow, the forty-eight hours would be up, the last concession which the crew had made to my entreaties. “Things are not going as you wish?” the boatswain said to me just as I was leaving the deck.
“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.”
The scenery of the story is aptly laid in the land of Robert le Diable. Poe’s description of the devil is, on the whole, fully in accord with the universally accredited conception of his ordinary appearance. His brutal hoofs and savage horns and beastly tail are all there, only discreetly hid under a dress which any gentleman might wear.
Seated far aft in the ship, I read Edgar Poe’s book with sedulous attention, but I was not unaware of the fact that Hunt, whenever his duties furnished him with an opportunity, observed me pertinaciously, and with looks of singular meaning.
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