"My brother, my poor brother!"
On a little reflection, however, my mind refused to admit certain things. How was this catastrophe to be reconciled with Patterson's memoranda? The entries in his note-book stated explicitly that the mate of the Jane had left his companions on Tsalal Island seven months previously. They could not then have perished in this earthquake, for the state of the bones proved that it had taken place several years earlier, and must have occurred after the departure of Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters, since no mention of it was made in the narrative of the former.
These facts were, then, irreconcilable. If the earthquake was of recent date, the presence of those time-bleached skeletons could not be attributed to its action. In any case, the survivors of the Jane were not
