"Drifting since the 3rd of June north of Tsalal Island. . . . Still there . . . Captain William Guy and five of the men of the _Jane_--the piece of ice I am on is drifting across the iceberg . . . food will soon fail me. . . . Since the 13th of June . . . my last resources exhausted . . . to-day . . . 16th of June . . . I am going to die." So then for nearly three months Patterson's body had lain on the surface of this ice-waif which we had met on our way from the Kerguelens to Tristan d'Acunha! Ah! why had we not saved the mate of the _Jane_! I had to yield to evidence. Captain Len Guy, who knew Patterson, had recognized him in this frozen corpse! It was indeed he who accompanied the captain of the _Jane_ when he had interred that bottle, containing the letter which I had refused to believe authentic, at the Kerguelens. Yes! for eleven years, the survivors of the English schooner had been cast away there without any hope of succour. Len Guy turned to me and said,-- "Do you believe--_now_?" "I believe," said I, falteringly; "but Captain William Guy of the _Jane_, and Captain Len Guy of the _Halbrane_--" "Are brothers!" he cried in a loud voice, which was heard by all the crew. Then we turned our eyes once more to the place where the lump of ice had been floating; but the double influence of the solar rays and the waters in this latitude had produced its effect, no trace of the dead man's last refuge remained on the surface of the sea. CHAPTER VII. TRISTAN D'ACUNHA. Four days later, the _Halbrane_ neared that curious island of Tristan d'Acunha, which may be described as the big boiler of the African seas. By that time I had come to realize that the "hallucination" of Captain Len Guy was a truth, and that he and the captain of the _Jane_ (also a reality) were connected with each other by this ocean waif from the authentic expedition of Arthur Pym. My last doubts were buried in the depths of the ocean with the body of Patterson. And now, what was Captain Len Guy going to do? There was not a shadow of doubt on that point. He would take the _Halbrane_ to Tsalal Island, as marked upon Patterson's note-book. His lieutenant, James West, would go whithersoever he was ordered to go; his crew would not hesitate to follow him, and would not be stopped by any fear of passing the limits assigned to human power, for the soul of their captain and the strength of their lieutenant would be in them.