CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
Strange Sounds.--A Night Attack.--Kennedy and Joe in the Tree.--TwoShots.--"Help! help!"--Reply in French.--The Morning.--TheMissionary.--The Plan of Rescue.
The night came on very dark. The doctor had not been able to reconnoitrethe country. He had made fast to a very tall tree, from which he coulddistinguish only a confused mass through the gloom.
As usual, he took the nine-o'clock watch, and at midnight Dick relievedhim.
"Keep a sharp lookout, Dick!" was the doctor's good-night injunction.
"Is there any thing new on the carpet?"
"No; but I thought that I heard vague sounds below us, and, as I don'texactly know where the wind has carried us to, even an excess of cautionwould do no harm."
"You've probably heard the cries of wild beasts."
"No! the sounds seemed to me something altogether different from that;at all events, on the least alarm don't fail to waken us."
"I'll do so, doctor; rest easy."
After listening attentively for a moment or two longer, the doctor,hearing nothing more, threw himself on his blankets and went asleep.
The sky was covered with dense clouds, but not a breath of air wasstirring; and the balloon, kept in its place by only a single anchor,experienced not the slightest oscillation.
Kennedy, leaning his elbow on the edge of the car, so as to keep an eyeon the cylinder, which was actively at work, gazed out upon the calmobscurity; he eagerly scanned the horizon, and, as often happens tominds that are uneasy or possessed with preconceived notions, he fanciedthat he sometimes detected vague gleams of light in the distance.
At one moment he even thought that he saw them only two hundred pacesaway, quite distinctly, but it was a mere flash that was gone as quicklyas it came, and he noticed nothing more. It was, no doubt, one of thoseluminous illusions that sometimes impress the eye in the midst of veryprofound darkness.
Kennedy was getting over his nervousness and falling into his wanderingmeditations again, when a sharp whistle pierced his ear.
Was that the cry of an animal or of a night-bird, or did it come fromhuman lips?
Kennedy, perfectly comprehending the gravity of the situation, was onthe point of waking his companions, but he reflected that, in any case,men or animals, the creatures that he had heard must be out of reach.So he merely saw that his weapons were all right, and then, with hisnight-glass, again plunged his gaze into space.
It was not long before he thought he could perceive below him vagueforms that seemed to be gliding toward the tree, and then, by the aid ofa ray of moonlight that shot like an electric flash between two massesof cloud, he distinctly made out a group of human figures moving in theshadow.
The adventure with the dog-faced baboons returned to his memory, and heplaced his hand on the doctor's shoulder.
The latter was awake in a moment.
"Silence!" said Dick. "Let us speak below our breath."
"Has any thing happened?"
"Yes, let us waken Joe."
The instant that Joe was aroused, Kennedy told him what he had seen.
"Those confounded monkeys again!" said Joe.
"Possibly, but we must be on our guard."
"Joe and I," said Kennedy, "will climb down the tree by the ladder."
"And, in the meanwhile," added the doctor, "I will take my measures sothat we can ascend rapidly at a moment's warning."
"Agreed!"
"Let us go down, then!" said Joe.
"Don't use your weapons, excepting at the last extremity! It would be auseless risk to make the natives aware of our presence in such a placeas this."
Dick and Joe replied with signs of assent, and then letting themselvesslide noiselessly toward the tree, took their position in a fork amongthe strong branches where the anchor had caught.
For some moments they listened minutely and motionlessly among thefoliage, and ere long Joe seized Kenedy's hand as he heard a sort ofrubbing sound against the bark of the tree.
"Don't you hear that?" he whispered.
"Yes, and it's coming nearer."
"Suppose it should be a serpent? That hissing or whistling that youheard before--"
"No! there was something human in it."
"I'd prefer the savages, for I have a horror of those snakes."
"The noise is increasing," said Kennedy, again, after a lapse of a fewmoments.
"Yes! something's coming up toward us--climbing."
"Keep watch on this side, and I'll take care of the other."
"Very good!"
There they were, isolated at the top of one of the larger branchesshooting out in the midst of one of those miniature forests calledbaobab-trees. The darkness, heightened by the density of the foliage,was profound; however, Joe, leaning over to Kennedy's ear and pointingdown the tree, whispered:
"The blacks! They're climbing toward us."
The two friends could even catch the sound of a few words uttered in thelowest possible tones.
Joe gently brought his rifle to his shoulder as he spoke.
"Wait!" said Kennedy.
Some of the natives had really climbed the baobab, and now they wereseen rising on all sides, winding along the boughs like reptiles, andadvancing slowly but surely, all the time plainly enough discernible,not merely to the eye but to the nostrils, by the horrible odors of therancid grease with which they bedaub their bodies.
Ere long, two heads appeared to the gaze of Kennedy and Joe, on a levelwith the very branch to which they were clinging.
"Attention!" said Kennedy. "Fire!"
The double concussion resounded like a thunderbolt and died away intocries of rage and pain, and in a moment the whole horde had disappeared.
But, in the midst of these yells and howls, a strange, unexpected--naywhat seemed an impossible--cry had been heard! A human voice had,distinctly, called aloud in the French language--
"Help! help!"
Kennedy and Joe, dumb with amazement, had regained the car immediately.
"Did you hear that?" the doctor asked them.
"Undoubtedly, that supernatural cry, 'A moi! a moi!' comes from aFrenchman in the hands of these barbarians!"
"A traveller."
"A missionary, perhaps."
"Poor wretch!" said Kennedy, "they're assassinating him--making a martyrof him!"
The doctor then spoke, and it was impossible for him to conceal hisemotions.
"There can be no doubt of it," he said; "some unfortunate Frenchman hasfallen into the hands of these savages. We must not leave this placewithout doing all in our power to save him. When he heard the soundof our guns, he recognized an unhoped-for assistance, a providentialinterposition. We shall not disappoint his last hope. Are such yourviews?"
"They are, doctor, and we are ready to obey you."
"Let us, then, lay our heads together to devise some plan, and in themorning we'll try to rescue him."
"But how shall we drive off those abominable blacks?" asked Kennedy.
"It's quite clear to me, from the way in which they made off, that theyare unacquainted with fire-arms. We must, therefore, profit by theirfears; but we shall await daylight before acting, and then we can formour plans of rescue according to circumstances."
"The poor captive cannot be far off," said Joe, "because--"
"Help! help!" repeated the voice, but much more feebly this time.
"The savage wretches!" exclaimed Joe, trembling with indignation."Suppose they should kill him to-night!"
"Do you hear, doctor," resumed Kennedy, seizing the doctor's hand."Suppose they should kill him to-night!"
"It is not at all likely, my friends. These savage tribes kill theircaptives in broad daylight; they must have the sunshine."
"Now, if I were to take advantage of the darkness to slip down to thepoor fellow?" said Kennedy.
"And I'll go with you," said Joe, warmly.
"Pause, my friends--pause! The suggestion does honor to your heartsand to your courage;
but you would expose us all to great peril, and dostill greater harm to the unfortunate man whom you wish to aid."
"Why so?" asked Kennedy. "These savages are frightened and dispersed:they will not return."
"Dick, I implore you, heed what I say. I am acting for the common good;and if by any accident you should be taken by surprise, all would belost."
"But, think of that poor wretch, hoping for aid, waiting there, praying,calling aloud. Is no one to go to his assistance? He must think that hissenses deceived him; that he heard nothing!"
"We can reassure him, on that score," said Dr. Ferguson--and, standingerect, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, he shouted at the top ofhis voice, in French: "Whoever you are, be of good cheer! Three friendsare watching over you."
A terrific howl from the savages responded to these words--no doubtdrowning the prisoner's reply.
"They are murdering him! they are murdering him!" exclaimed Kennedy."Our interference will have served no other purpose than to hasten thehour of his doom. We must act!"
"But how, Dick? What do you expect to do in the midst of this darkness?"
"Oh, if it was only daylight!" sighed Joe.
"Well, and suppose it were daylight?" said the doctor, in a singulartone.
"Nothing more simple, doctor," said Kennedy. "I'd go down and scatterall these savage villains with powder and ball!"
"And you, Joe, what would you do?"
"I, master? why, I'd act more prudently, maybe, by telling the prisonerto make his escape in a certain direction that we'd agree upon."
"And how would you get him to know that?"
"By means of this arrow that I caught flying the other day. I'd tie anote to it, or I'd just call out to him in a loud voice what you wanthim to do, because these black fellows don't understand the languagethat you'd speak in!"
"Your plans are impracticable, my dear friends. The greatest difficultywould be for this poor fellow to escape at all--even admitting that heshould manage to elude the vigilance of his captors. As for you, mydear Dick, with determined daring, and profiting by their alarm at ourfire-arms, your project might possibly succeed; but, were it to fail,you would be lost, and we should have two persons to save insteadof one. No! we must put ALL the chances on OUR side, and go to workdifferently."
"But let us act at once!" said the hunter.
"Perhaps we may," said the doctor, throwing considerable stress upon thewords.
"Why, doctor, can you light up such darkness as this?"
"Who knows, Joe?"
"Ah! if you can do that, you're the greatest learned man in the world!"
The doctor kept silent for a few moments; he was thinking. His twocompanions looked at him with much emotion, for they were greatlyexcited by the strangeness of the situation. Ferguson at last resumed:
"Here is my plan: We have two hundred pounds of ballast left, sincethe bags we brought with us are still untouched. I'll suppose that thisprisoner, who is evidently exhausted by suffering, weighs as much as oneof us; there will still remain sixty pounds of ballast to throw out, incase we should want to ascend suddenly."
"How do you expect to manage the balloon?" asked Kennedy.
"This is the idea, Dick: you will admit that if I can get to theprisoner, and throw out a quantity of ballast, equal to his weight, Ishall have in nowise altered the equilibrium of the balloon. But, then,if I want to get a rapid ascension, so as to escape these savages,I must employ means more energetic than the cylinder. Well, then, inthrowing out this overplus of ballast at a given moment, I am certain torise with great rapidity."
"That's plain enough."
"Yes; but there is one drawback: it consists in the fact that, in orderto descend after that, I should have to part with a quantity of gasproportionate to the surplus ballast that I had thrown out. Now, thegas is precious; but we must not haggle over it when the life of afellow-creature is at stake."
"You are right, sir; we must do every thing in our power to save him."
"Let us work, then, and get these bags all arranged on the rim of thecar, so that they may be thrown overboard at one movement."
"But this darkness?"
"It hides our preparations, and will be dispersed only when they arefinished. Take care to have all our weapons close at hand. Perhaps wemay have to fire; so we have one shot in the rifle; four for the twomuskets; twelve in the two revolvers; or seventeen in all, which mightbe fired in a quarter of a minute. But perhaps we shall not have toresort to all this noisy work. Are you ready?"
"We're ready," responded Joe.
The sacks were placed as requested, and the arms were put in good order.
"Very good!" said the doctor. "Have an eye to every thing. Joe will seeto throwing out the ballast, and Dick will carry off the prisoner; butlet nothing be done until I give the word. Joe will first detach theanchor, and then quickly make his way back to the car."
Joe let himself slide down by the rope; and, in a few moments,reappeared at his post; while the balloon, thus liberated, hung almostmotionless in the air.
In the mean time the doctor assured himself of the presence of asufficient quantity of gas in the mixing-tank to feed the cylinder, ifnecessary, without there being any need of resorting for some timeto the Buntzen battery. He then took out the two perfectly-isolatedconducting-wires, which served for the decomposition of the water, and,searching in his travelling-sack, brought forth two pieces of charcoal,cut down to a sharp point, and fixed one at the end of each wire.
His two friends looked on, without knowing what he was about, but theykept perfectly silent. When the doctor had finished, he stood up erectin the car, and, taking the two pieces of charcoal, one in each hand,drew their points nearly together.
In a twinkling, an intense and dazzling light was produced, with aninsupportable glow between the two pointed ends of charcoal, and a hugejet of electric radiance literally broke the darkness of the night.
"Oh!" ejaculated the astonished friends.
"Not a word!" cautioned the doctor.