Nevertheless I did not want to vex Len Guy, and perhaps drive him still more mad. Accordingly I appeared entirely convinced that he was speaking words of sober seriousness, even when he added,-- "You are aware that in the narrative mention is made by the captain of the schooner on which Arthur Pym had embarked, of a bottle containing a sealed letter, which was deposited at the foot of one of the Kerguelen peaks?" "Yes, I recall the incident." "Well, then, in one of my latest voyages I sought for the place where that bottle ought to be. I found it and the letter also. That letter stated that the captain and Arthur Pym intended to make every effort to reach the uttermost limits of the Antarctic Sea!" "You found that bottle?" "Yes!" "And the letter?" "Yes!" I looked at Captain Len Guy. Like certain monomaniacs he had come to believe in his own inventions. I was on the point of saying to him, "Show me that letter," but I thought better of it. Was he not capable of having written the letter himself? And then I answered,-- "It is much to be regretted, captain, that you were unable to come across Dirk Peters at Vandalia! He would at least have informed you under what conditions he and Arthur Pym returned from so far. Recollect, now, in the last chapter but one they are both there. Their boat is in front of the thick curtain of white mist; it dashes into the gulf of the cataract just at the moment when a veiled human form rises. Then there is nothing more; nothing but two blank lines--" "Decidedly, sir, it _is_ much to be regretted that I could not lay my hand on Dirk Peters! It would have been interesting to learn what was the outcome of these adventures. But, to my mind, it would have been still more interesting to have ascertained the fate of the others." "The others?" I exclaimed almost involuntarily. "Of whom do you speak?" "Of the captain and crew of the English schooner which picked up Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters after the frightful shipwreck of the _Grampus_, and brought them across the Polar Sea to Tsalal Island--" "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?" "Who can tell?" replied the captain in a voice hoarse from emotion. "Who can say but that some of the unfortunate creatures survived, and contrived to escape from the natives?" "In any case," I replied, "it would be difficult to admit that those who had survived could still be living." "And why?" "Because the facts we are discussing are eleven years old."