Arthur Gordon Pym begins his story by meeting Augustus, the son of Captain Barnard. He became friends with this young man in high school in the city of Nantucket. Augustus already went with his father for whales to the southern part of the Pacific Ocean and told his friend a lot about sea adventures, fueling his desire to embark on the sea himself. He was about eighteen when Captain Barnard was once again preparing to sail to the southern seas, intending to take his son with him. The friends are developing a plan according to which Arthur should get on the Dolphin and only a few days later, when it will be impossible to turn back, appear before the captain.
August prepares a secret hideaway for a friend in the hold, having delivered food, water, a mattress and a lantern with a candle in advance. Conveniently located in an empty box, Arthur spends three days and three nights in the shelter, only occasionally getting out of the box to stretch his muscles. His friend still does not show up, and at first it doesn’t scare Arthur. However, from stale air, which is getting worse hour by hour, it falls into a semi-unconscious state, losing track of time. Food and water are coming to an end. He loses the candle. Arthur suspects that several weeks have passed.
Finally, when the young man had already mentally said goodbye to his life, Augustus appeared. It turns out that terrible events occurred on the ship during this time. Part of the crew, led by the assistant captain and black cocc, raised a riot. Law-abiding sailors, including Captain Barnard, were destroyed - killed and thrown overboard. Augustus managed to survive because of the sympathy for him of the lot of Dirk Peters - now a young man with him like a servant. Having hardly seized the moment, he went down to his friend, grabbing some food and drink and almost not hoping to find him alive. Promising to pay a visit at every opportunity. Augustus is again in a hurry to the deck, fearing that he might be caught.
Meanwhile, a split is ripening in the riot camp. Some of the rebels, led by the assistant captain, intend to piracy, the rest - Peters is adjacent to them - would prefer to do without open robbery. Gradually, the idea of piracy attracted an increasing number of sailors, and Peters became uncomfortable on the ship. It was then that Augustus tells him about a friend hidden in the hold who can be counted on. The three of them decide to capture the ship, playing on the prejudices and unclean conscience of the rebels. Taking advantage of the fact that none of the sailors knows Arthur’s face, Peter makes up the young man for one of the victims, and when he appears in the wardroom, the rioters are terrified. The operation to capture the ship is going well - now there are only three of them on the ship and the sailor Parker who joined them.
However, their misadventures do not end there. A terrible storm is rising. No one washes off overboard - they tied themselves well to the windlass, but there is no food or drink left on the broken ship. In addition, Augustus is seriously injured.
After many days of bad weather, calmness is established. Exhausted, hungry people are in a daze, silently awaiting death. Parker unexpectedly states that one of them must die so that others can live. Arthur is terrified, but the rest support the sailor, and the young man can only agree with the majority. Cast lots - Parker pulls a short sliver. He has no resistance and after a knife strike falls to the deck dead. Hating himself for his weakness, Arthur joins the bloody feast. Augustus dies a few days later, and soon after that Arthur and Peters are picked up by the English schooner Jane Guy.
The schooner goes to seal fishing in the southern seas, the captain also hopes for profitable trading operations with the natives, and therefore there is a large supply of beads, mirrors, flints, axes, nails, dishes, needles, chintz and other goods on board the vessel. The captain is not alien to research objectives: he wants to go as far as possible to the south to make sure the existence of the Antarctic continent. Arthur and Peters, who were surrounded by care on the schooner, are quickly recovering from the effects of recent deprivations.
After several weeks of sailing among the drifting ice, the forward observer notices the land - this is an island that is part of an unknown archipelago. When an anchor is dropped from a schooner, a canoe with the natives is sailing off the island at the same time. Savages make the sailors the most favorable impression - they seem very peaceful and willingly change their provisions for glass beads and simple household utensils. One thing is strange - the natives are clearly afraid of white objects and therefore do not want to approach sails or, for example, a bowl with flour. The appearance of white skin clearly inspires them with disgust. Seeing the peacefulness of the savages, the captain decides to winter on the island - in case the ice will delay the further advance of the schooner to the south.
The leader of the natives invites the sailors to go down to the shore and visit the village. Arming himself well and ordering no one to be allowed into the schooner in his absence, the captain, with a detachment of twelve people, where Arthur had also entered, landed on the island. Seen there amazes the sailors in amazement: neither trees, nor rocks, nor further water resemble what they are used to seeing. Their water is especially striking - colorless, it shimmers with all the colors of purple, like silk, exfoliating into many streaming veins.
The first trip to the village takes place safely, which cannot be said about the next - when the precautionary measures are no longer followed so carefully. As soon as the sailors entered the narrow gorge, the overhanging rocks that the natives had digged in advance collapsed, burying the entire detachment under themselves. Only Arthur and Peters manage to escape, who are behind, collecting nuts. Once on the edge, they get out of the rubble and see that the plain is literally teeming with savages, preparing to capture the schooner. Unable to warn the comrades, Arthur and Peter were forced to look with sorrow as the natives prevail - just five minutes after the siege began, the beautiful schooner was a miserable sight. Some confusion among the savages is caused by a scarecrow of an unknown animal with a white skin, caught by sailors in the sea near the island - the captain wanted to bring him to England. The natives take out the scarecrow ashore, surround them with a picket fence and scream deafeningly: "Tekeli!"
Hiding on the island, Arthur and Peters stumble upon stone wells leading to strange-shaped shafts - Arthur Pim gives drawings of the outlines of the shafts in his manuscript. But these galleries do not lead anywhere, and sailors lose interest in them. A few days later, Arthur and Peters manage to steal the savage pie and safely escape from the pursuers, taking the prisoner with them. From him, sailors learn that the archipelago consists of eight islands, that the black skins from which the clothes of soldiers are made belong to some huge animals that live on the island. When a sail of white shirts is attached to makeshift masts, the prisoner flatly refuses to help - white matter instills incredible fear into him. Trembling, he screams: "Tekeli-li!"
The course brings the cake to the south - the water suddenly warms, resembling the color of milk. The captive is worried and falls into unconsciousness. A strip of white fumes grows over the horizon, the sea sometimes rages, and then a strange glow appears over this place, and white ashes pour from the sky. Water becomes almost hot. On the horizon, the cries of birds are heard more and more often: "Tekeli!" A pie rushes into the white enveloping world, and here on its way a huge human figure in a shroud grows. And her skin is whiter than white ...
At this point, the manuscript breaks off. According to the publisher in the afterword, this is due to the sudden death of Mr. Pym.
