nder circumstances not revealed before he had
completed the narrative of his extraordinary voyage. And what
parallel had he reached on leaving Tsalal Island with his companion,
Dirk Peters, and how had both of them been restored to their native
land, America?

I thought my head was turning, that I was going mad--I who accused
Captain Guy of being insane! No! I had not heard aright! I had
misunderstood? This was a mere phantom of my fancy!

And yet, how was I to reject the evidence found on the body of the
mate of the _Jane_, that Patterson whose words were supported by
ascertained dates? And above all, how could I retain a doubt, after
James West, who was the most self-possessed among us, had succeeded
in deciphering the following fragments of sentences:--

"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 C