"Sir," replied the captain, "since Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters were able to advance beyond Tsalal Island farther than the eighty-third parallel, since they found means of living in the midst of those Antarctic lands, why should not their companions, if they were not all killed by the natives, if they were so fortunate as to reach the neighbouring islands sighted during the voyage--why should not those unfortunate countrymen of mine have contrived to live there? Why should they not still be there, awaiting their deliverance?" "Your pity leads you astray, captain," I replied. "It would be impossible." "Impossible, sir! And if a fact, on indisputable evidence, appealed to the whole civilized world; if a material proof of the existence of these unhappy men, imprisoned at the ends of the earth, were furnished, who would venture to meet those who would fain go to their aid with the cry of ‘Impossible!'" Was it a sentiment of humanity, exaggerated to the point of madness, that had roused the interest of this strange man in those shipwrecked folk who never had suffered shipwreck, for the good reason that they never had existed? Captain Len Guy approached me anew, laid his hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear,-- "No, sir, no! the last word has not been said concerning the crew of the _Jane_." Then he promptly withdrew. The _Jane_ was, in Edgar Poe's romance, the name of the ship which had rescued Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters from the wreck of the _Grampus_, and Captain Len Guy had now uttered it for the first time. It occurred to me then that Guy was the name of the captain of the _Jane_, an English ship; but what of that? The captain of the _Jane_ never lived but in the imagination of the novelist, he and the skipper of the _Halbrane_ have nothing in common except a name which is frequently to be found in England. But, on thinking of the similarity, it struck me that the poor captain's brain had been turned by this very thing. He had conceived the notion that he was of kin to the unfortunate captain of the _Jane_! And this had brought him to his present state, this was the source of his passionate pity for the fate of the imaginary shipwrecked mariners! It would have been interesting to discover whether James West was aware of the state of the case, whether his chief had ever talked to him of the follies he had revealed to me. But this was a delicate question, since it involved the mental condition of Captain Len Guy; and besides, any kind of conversation with the lieutenant was difficult. On the whole I thought it safer to restrain my curiosity. In a few days the schooner would reach Tristan d'Acunha, and I should part with her and her captain for good and all. 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!