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Page 12
'How little do we know that which we are,
How less what we may be.'
But here we are; and I know by the face of that old neighbor-woman
looking from the doorway there that our man still lives."
We drew up in front of a small building some sixteen feet square, the
walls of which consisted of huge logs piled one upon another and
mortised at the corners. The doctor entered, leaving me seated in the
buggy. But soon he came to the door, and signalled for me. As I entered
the house I heard a voice say, "Yes, doctor, the old hulk's still
afloat--water-logged, but still afloat." Looking in the direction of the
voice, I saw on a bed in one corner of the room an old beardless man. I
had not a second's doubt that Dirk Peters of the 'Grampus,' sailor,
mutineer, explorer of the Antarctic Sea, patron and friend of A. Gordon
Pym, was before me. His body up to the waist was covered with an old
blanket; but I felt certain that he was less than five feet in height,
and felt quite positive that he would not then measure more than four
and a half feet. His height in 1827 was, Poe states, four feet and eight
inches. One of the old man's arms lay exposed by his side, and the
finger-ends reached below the knee; while his hand, spread out on the
blanket, would have covered the area of a small ham. His shoulders and
neck, and the one bare arm visible, were indicative of vast muscular
strength. There was the enormous head mentioned by Poe; and there was
the completely bald scalp, exposed, as by a semi-automatic movement of
respect he raised his hand to his head and removed a section of woolly
sheepskin; and there, too, was the indenture in the crown; there the
enormous mouth, spreading from ear to ear, with the lips which, as he
gave a chuckle, and the wrinkles about his eyes evinced a passing facial
contortion, I saw to be wholly wanting in pliancy. There was the
expression, fixed at least as far as the mouth and lower face was
concerned, the protruding teeth, and the grotesque appearance of a smile
such as a demon might have smiled over ruined innocence. Oh, there was
no possibility of a mistake. Doctor Castleton glanced at me
questioningly, but confidently; and I lowered my head in assent. But if
I expected to have an opportunity of learning much of anything from
Peters, I was mistaken. Doctor Castleton was almost ready to depart
before I had finished my visual examination of the old man. I heard the
aged neighbor-woman, a coal miner's wife, who had as an act of kindness
come in to assist the invalid, say, looking at the poor old fellow:
"My mon stayed wi' he the night, dochter. The poor mon, he had delerion
bad. He thot hesel' on a mountain o' ice, wi' tha mountain o' ice on
other like mountain o' salt, a lookin' at devils i' hell. But sin' tha
light o' day. Tha good mon's hesel' agin."
Doctor Castleton had produced from the recesses of a large medicine case
certain pills and powders, had given his directions, and was actually
about to leave without giving me an opportunity, or seeming to think
that I desired an opportunity, of speaking with Peters. I then appealed
for a moment more of time, and for consent to ask the patient a question
or two; and my appeal was granted. I stepped close to the bedside, and
looking down into the eyes that looked up into mine, asked the old man
if his name was Dirk Peters; to which he answered affirmatively. I then
asked him if he had in the year 1827 sailed from the port of Nantucket,
on the brig 'Grampus,' under Captain Bernard, in company, among others,
with a youth named A. Gordon Pym? And a moment later I wished that I had
been less abrupt in my questioning. Peters did manage quite coolly and
rationally to answer "Yes" to all my questions. But at the words "Pym,"
"Bernard," "Grampus," his eyes began, in appearance, to start from their
sockets; those awful teeth gleamed from that cavernous mouth, as he
uttered demoniac yell on yell, and raised himself to a sitting posture
in the bed. I thought his eyeballs must certainly burst, as he looked
off into nothingness wildly, as if a troop of fiends were rushing upon
him.
"Great God!" he screamed, "there, there--she's gone. Ah," quieting a
little; "ah; the old man with the eyes of a god, and the cubes of
crystal with the limpid liquid of heaven. Oh," his voice again raised to
piercing screams, "Oh, she's gone, and he loves her--and I love him. Now
man, they called you the human baboon--be more than man!--I loved the
boy--I tell you, I loved him from the first. I saved him once--aye, a
dozen times--but not like this--not from hell. Scale the chasms of salt,
and climb the lava cliffs, and--but the lake of fire at the bottom--the
old man--and the abyss, my God, the abyss! The snow-drift beard--the
godlike eyes"--his voice then quieting for a few words. "Ah, mother,
mother, mother." Then in a deep, earnest tone, "I'll be a human baboon,
and I'll do what man never yet did, nor beast--yes, and what never in
time will man do again."
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