"
By this time Doctor Castleton was pacing up and down the room, stopping
now and then to look at an engraving on the wall, taking up and
replacing books, seeing everything. I could not but feel that already
the curiosity which had impelled him to "run in" was satisfied, and that
he would soon be going. A minute after his last recorded words, Dirk
Peters seemed to have dropped completely from his mind. I was wholly
absorbed with the thought that Dirk Peters might be within our reach;
and that if he really was, it was possible that we might learn whether
Pym and he had reached the South Pole, and if so, what they had there
discovered. It was plainly evident that the mind of Doctor Bainbridge
was deeply engaged with the same subject. I was anxious to know what he
thought of Castleton's statement; for the more I discussed the matter
within myself, the more I felt inclined to believe that Castleton was
not making a mistake. But Castleton was certainly now not thinking of
Peters. I could, amid my thoughts, hear him declaiming,
"Yes, sir; England is a mighty power. Her navy, sir, can--and mark me,
it will--sweep France and Russia and Prussia and Austria and Italy from
the ocean as--as a shar--a wha--a huge and voracious swordfish sweeps
before its imperious onslaught, with unerring certainty and cyclonic
power, a whole school of sneaking mackerel or codfish from the pathway
fixed for it by Eternal Destiny.
Pages:
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56