read. After their separation, the boat had
carried Arthur Pym through these Antarctic regions! Like us, once he
had passed beyond the south pole, he came into the zone of the
monster! And there, while his boat was swept along on the northern
current, he was seized by the magnetic fluid before he could get rid
of the gun which was slung over his shoulder, and hurled against the
fatal loadstone Sphinx of the Ice-realm.

Now the faithful half-breed rests under the clay of the Land of the
Antarctic Mystery, by the side of his "poor Pym," that hero
whose strange adventures found a chronicler no less strange in the
great American poet!

CHAPTER XXVI.
A LITTLE REMNANT.

That same day, in the afternoon, the _Paracuta_ departed from the
coast of the Land of the Sphinx, which had lain to the west of us
since the 21st of February.

By the death of Dirk Peters the number of the passengers was reduced
to twelve. These were all who remained of the double crew of the two
schooners, the first comprising thirty-eight men, the second,
thirty-two; in all seventy souls. But let it not be forgotten that
the voyage of the _Halbrane_ had been undertaken in fulfilment of a
duty to humanity, and four of the survivors of the _Jane_ owed their
rescue to it.

And now there remains but little to tell, and that must be related
as succinctly as possible. It is unnecessary to dwell upon our
return voyage, which was favoured by the constancy of the currents
and the wind to the northern course. The last part of the voyage was
accomplished amid great fatigue, suffering, and but it ended in our
safe deliverance from all these.

Firstly, a few days after our departure from the Land the Sphinx,
the sun set behind the western horizon reappear no more for the
whole winter. It was then the midst of the semi-darkness of the
austral night that the _Paracuta_ pursued her monotonous course. True,
the southern polar lights were frequently visible; but they were not
the sun, that single orb of day which had illumined our horizons
during the months of the Antarctic summer, and their capricious
splendour could not replace his unchanging light. That long darkness
of the poles sheds a moral and physical influence on mortals which no
one can elude, a gloomy and overwhelming impression almost impossible
to resist.

Of all the _Paracuta's_ passengers, the boatswain and Endicott only
preserved their habitual good-humour; those two were equally
insensible t