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Page 35
[Footnote: See Narrative of A. Gordon Pym, in any complete edition of
Poe's Works.]
"Pym later had a clew to the meaning of these characters, and no doubt
recorded the facts in a later diary, many of the pages of which Poe
never saw. But if Pym and Peters had analyzed more closely the
indentures, they might have gained at least the shadow of an idea of the
meaning of these representations. Pym made a copy of them, as you know,
and Poe here gives us a fac-simile of that copy in his Narrative. Peters
now knows in a general way of what these indentures were significant,
and I will in a moment explain to you their general meaning; but first
look at this fac-simile."
I drew up my chair to the side of Doctor Bainbridge, and together we
looked at the representation of these indentures which Poe has furnished
us. Bainbridge continued:
"Now look at this first figure, which Pym says 'might have been taken
for the intentional, though rude, representation of a human figure
standing erect, with outstretched arm.' The arm, observe, is here--the
arm and forearm, to my mind, separated; and directly above and parallel
with the arm is an arrow; and if we trace out the points of the compass
as described in the diary, we find that the arm is pointing to the
south, the arrow is pointing to the north; or in other words, the arm
points to Hili-li; the arrow, by inference, back to the island on which
the indentures exist. Now among most savages the arrow, as a symbol,
represents war--a fight--individual or even tribal death.
"Many centuries preceding the time at which Pym and Peters stood
examining the indentures in the black marl, and at least five centuries
after the foundation of Hili-li, the natives of that zone of islands
almost surrounding the South Pole at a distance of from three hundred to
seven hundred miles, were affected by one of those waves of feeling
which perhaps once in a thousand or several thousand years sweeps aside
all the common inclinations of a people, and for some reason which lies
buried in unfathomable mystery moves them to a concerted action not only
unknown in the past of those who participate in it, but, so far as can
be conceived, also unknown to the ancestors of the actors. Such a wave
of impulse, when it comes, seems to affect all the individuals of every
division of a race. In the example to which I am alluding, the impulse
seemed spontaneously to move the inhabitants of islands far apart, and
apparently not in communication--certainly not in direct communication.
With the singleness of purpose and uniformity of action seen in an army
under command of a leader, the natives of a hundred antarctic islands
swarmed into ten thousand fragile boats, and directed their course
toward the south. Why toward the south? Did instinct tell them that by
such a course the various bands would converge to a union? They knew
not. The first few boats arrived at Hili-li. Nine of every ten of those
that began the journey were lost--but still, boats continued to arrive
at the islands of the Hili-li group. Then, and after five hundred years
of peace, the Hili-lites saw that they were to be overrun by barbarians,
as their history told them their ancestors had once, in distant lands,
been overrun. The Hili-lites did not have formidable weapons; but
fortunately those of the invaders were scarcely more efficient. The
conflict came to a hand to hand engagement. The invaders could not
return, even had they so desired; so they must fight and win, or die.
The Hili-lites had no place of retreat, even had they been willing to
flee; and they too must fight and win, or die. The invaders numbered
more than a hundred thousand men; the Hili-lites, about forty thousand
that were able to fight in such a battle. The latter armed themselves
with clubs about four feet long, one inch in diameter at the handle, two
inches in diameter at the farther extremity, and made of a wood similar
to the dense tropical lignum-vit� (almost an inconceivable growth in
that comparatively sunless region); and, for additional weapons, behind
natural and artificial barriers they heaped piles of lava-blocks, sharp,
jagged, and weighing each from one to five pounds. The invaders had a
few very flimsy bows, scarcely six arrows to each bow--and nothing else
in the way of weapons. From all sides, on came the invaders in their
frail boats, in one mad rush upon the main island of Hili-li, where the
Hili-lites had, including their women, children, and aged men, gathered.
"The invaders were ill-fed, tired out by a sea-voyage exhausting almost
past comprehension, ignorant, almost weaponless, and making a charge in
small boats; whilst for them the favorable elements in the coming battle
were that they possessed five men for each two of the defenders, and
were impelled by a mad, instinctive impulse to advance, similar to that
of a swarm of migratory locusts, which advances even through fire, and
though it require the charred bodies of ninety-nine thousand of their
number over which the remaining thousand may cross. The Hili-lites were
well-fed, not fatigued, intelligent, comparatively well-armed, and were
on land, prepared for the battle; whilst they possessed also the
inherited Roman spirit, once lost by their ancestors, but by the
descendants recovered amid new and pure surroundings.
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