Was he not capable of having written the letter himself?
And then I answered,-- "It is much to be regretted, captain, that you were unable to come across Dirk Peters at Vandalia! He would at least have informed you under what conditions he and Arthur Pym returned from so far.
Recollect, now, in the last chapter but one they are both there.
Their boat is in front of the thick curtain of white mist; it dashes into the gulf of the cataract just at the moment when a veiled human form rises.

Then there is nothing more; nothing but two blank lines--" "Decidedly, sir, it is much to be regretted that I could not lay my hand on Dirk Peters! It would have been interesting to learn what was the outcome of these adventures.

But, to my mind, it would have been still more interesting to have ascertained the fate of the others." "The others ?" I exclaimed almost involuntarily.

"Of whom do you speak ?" "Of the captain and crew of the English schooner which picked up Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters after the frightful shipwreck of the __Grampus__, and brought them across the Polar Sea to Tsalal Island--" "Captain," said I, just as though I entertained no doubt of the authenticity of Edgar Poe's romance, "is it not the case that all these men perished, some in the attack on the schooner, the others by the infernal device of the natives of Tsalal ?" "Who can tell ?" replied the captain in a voice hoarse from emotion.

"Who can say but that some of the unfortunate creatures survived, and contrived to escape from the natives ?" "In any case," I replied, "it would be difficult to admit that those who had survived could still be living." "And why ?" "Because the facts we are discussing are eleven years old." "Sir," replied the captain, "since Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters were able to advance beyond Tsalal Island farther than the eighty-third parallel, since they found means of living in the midst of those Antarctic lands, why should not their companions, if they were not all killed by the natives, if they were so fortunate as to reach the neighbouring islands sighted during the voyage--why should not those unfortunate countrymen of mine have contrived to live there?
Why should they not still be there, awaiting their deliverance ?" "Your pity leads you astray, captain," I replied.