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- CHAPTER XXVIII.
Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc
Though abounding in details full of the savor of reality, Samoa’s
narrative did not at first appear altogether satisfactory. Not that it
was so strange; for stranger recitals I had heard.
But one reason, perhaps, was that I had anticipated a narrative quite
different; something agreeing with my previous surmises.
Not a little puzzling, also, was his account of having seen islands the
day preceding; though, upon reflection, that might have been the case,
and yet, from his immediately altering the Parki’s course, the Chamois,
unknowingly might have sailed by their vicinity. Still, those islands
could form no part of the chain we were seeking. They must have been
some region hitherto undiscovered.
But seems it likely, thought I, that one, who, according to his own
account, has conducted himself so heroically in rescuing the
brigantine, should be the victim of such childish terror at the mere
glimpse of a couple of sailors in an open boat, so well supplied, too,
with arms, as he was, to resist their capturing his craft, if such
proved their intention? On the contrary, would it not have been more
natural, in his dreary situation, to have hailed our approach with the
utmost delight? But then again, we were taken for phantoms, not flesh
and blood. Upon the whole, I regarded the narrator of these things
somewhat distrustfully. But he met my gaze like a man. While Annatoo,
standing by, looked so expressively the Amazonian character imputed to
her, that my doubts began to waver. And recalling all the little
incidents of their story, so hard to be conjured up on the spur of a
presumed necessity to lie; nay, so hard to be conjured up at all; my
suspicions at last gave way. And I could no longer harbor any
misgivings.
For, to be downright, what object could Samoa have, in fabricating such
a narrative of horrors—those of the massacre, I mean—unless to conceal
some tragedy, still more atrocious, in which he himself had been
criminally concerned? A supposition, which, for obvious reasons, seemed
out of the question. True, instances were known to me of half-
civilized beings, like Samoa, forming part of the crews of ships in
these seas, rising suddenly upon their white ship-mates, and murdering
them, for the sake of wrecking the ship on the shore of some island
near by, and plundering her hull, when stranded.
But had this been purposed with regard to the Parki, where the rest of
the mutineers? There was no end to my conjectures; the more I indulged
in them, the more they multiplied. So, unwilling to torment myself,
when nothing could be learned, but what Samoa related, and stuck to
like a hero; I gave over conjecturing at all; striving hard to repose
full faith in the Islander.
Jarl, however, was skeptical to the last; and never could be brought
completely to credit the tale. He stoutly maintained that the
hobgoblins must have had something or other to do with the Parki.
My own curiosity satisfied with respect to the brigantine, Samoa
himself turned inquisitor. He desired to know who we were; and whence
we came in our marvelous boat. But on these heads I thought best to
withhold from him the truth; among other things, fancying that if
disclosed, it would lessen his deference for us, as men superior to
himself. I therefore spoke vaguely of our adventures, and assumed the
decided air of a master; which I perceived was not lost upon the rude
Islander. As for Jarl, and what he might reveal, I embraced the first
opportunity to impress upon him the importance of never divulging our
flight from the Arcturion; nor in any way to commit himself on that
head: injunctions which he faithfully promised to observe.
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