Then I remembered! Patterson was the second officer of the Jane , the mate of that schooner which had picked up Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters on the wreck of the Grampus , the Jane having reached Tsalal Island; the Jane which was attacked by natives and blown up in the midst of those waters.
So then it was all true? Edgar Poe's work was that of an historian, not a writer of romance? Arthur Gordon Pym's journal had actually been confided to him! Direct relations had been established between them! Arthur Pym existed, or rather he had existed, he was a real being! And he had died, by a sudden and deplorable death under 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 P
