I then appealed
for a moment more of time, and for consent to ask the patient a question
or two; and my appeal was granted. I stepped close to the bedside, and
looking down into the eyes that looked up into mine, asked the old man
if his name was Dirk Peters; to which he answered affirmatively. I then
asked him if he had in the year 1827 sailed from the port of Nantucket,
on the brig 'Grampus,' under Captain Bernard, in company, among others,
with a youth named A. Gordon Pym? And a moment later I wished that I had
been less abrupt in my questioning. Peters did manage quite coolly and
rationally to answer "Yes" to all my questions. But at the words "Pym,"
"Bernard," "Grampus," his eyes began, in appearance, to start from their
sockets; those awful teeth gleamed from that cavernous mouth, as he
uttered demoniac yell on yell, and raised himself to a sitting posture
in the bed. I thought his eyeballs must certainly burst, as he looked
off into nothingness wildly, as if a troop of fiends were rushing upon
him.
"Great God!" he screamed, "there, there--she's gone. Ah," quieting a
little; "ah; the old man with the eyes of a god, and the cubes of
crystal with the limpid liquid of heaven.
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