Chapter 28

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