Cinq semaines en ballon. English

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.

  The Wind dies away.--The Vicinity of the Desert.--The Mistake inthe Water-Supply.--The Nights of the Equator.--Dr. Ferguson'sAnxieties.--The Situation flatly stated.--Energetic Replies of Kennedyand Joe.--One Night more.

  The balloon, having been made fast to a solitary tree, almost completelydried up by the aridity of the region in which it stood, passed thenight in perfect quietness; and the travellers were enabled to enjoy alittle of the repose which they so greatly needed. The emotions of theday had left sad impressions on their minds.

  Toward morning, the sky had resumed its brilliant purity and its heat.The balloon ascended, and, after several ineffectual attempts, fell intoa current that, although not rapid, bore them toward the northwest.

  "We are not making progress," said the doctor. "If I am not mistaken,we have accomplished nearly half of our journey in ten days; but, at therate at which we are going, it would take months to end it; and that isall the more vexatious, that we are threatened with a lack of water."

  "But we'll find some," said Joe. "It is not to be thought of that weshouldn't discover some river, some stream, or pond, in all this vastextent of country."

  "I hope so."

  "Now don't you think that it's Joe's cargo of stone that is keeping usback?"

  Kennedy asked this question only to tease Joe; and he did so themore willingly because he had, for a moment, shared the poor lad'shallucinations; but, not finding any thing in them, he had fallen backinto the attitude of a strong-minded looker-on, and turned the affairoff with a laugh.

  Joe cast a mournful glance at him; but the doctor made no reply. He wasthinking, not without secret terror, probably, of the vast solitudesof Sahara--for there whole weeks sometimes pass without the caravansmeeting with a single spring of water. Occupied with these thoughts, hescrutinized every depression of the soil with the closest attention.

  These anxieties, and the incidents recently occurring, had not beenwithout their effect upon the spirits of our three travellers. Theyconversed less, and were more wrapt in their own thoughts.

  Joe, clever lad as he was, seemed no longer the same person since hisgaze had plunged into that ocean of gold. He kept entirely silent,and gazed incessantly upon the stony fragments heaped up in thecar--worthless to-day, but of inestimable value to-morrow.

  The appearance of this part of Africa was, moreover, quite calculatedto inspire alarm: the desert was gradually expanding around them; notanother village was to be seen--not even a collection of a few huts; andvegetation also was disappearing. Barely a few dwarf plants could now benoticed, like those on the wild heaths of Scotland; then came the firsttract of grayish sand and flint, with here and there a lentisk tree andbrambles. In the midst of this sterility, the rudimental carcass of theGlobe appeared in ridges of sharply-jutting rock. These symptoms of atotally dry and barren region greatly disquieted Dr. Ferguson.

  It seemed as though no caravan had ever braved this desert expanse, orit would have left visible traces of its encampments, or the whitenedbones of men and animals. But nothing of the kind was to be seen, andthe aeronauts felt that, ere long, an immensity of sand would cover thewhole of this desolate region.

  However, there was no going back; they must go forward; and, indeed, thedoctor asked for nothing better; he would even have welcomed a tempestto carry him beyond this country. But, there was not a cloud in the sky.At the close of the day, the balloon had not made thirty miles.

  If there had been no lack of water! But, there remained only threegallons in all! The doctor put aside one gallon, destined to quench theburning thirst that a heat of ninety degrees rendered intolerable. Twogallons only then remained to supply the cylinder. Hence, they couldproduce no more than four hundred and eighty cubic feet of gas; yet thecylinder consumed about nine cubic feet per hour. Consequently, theycould not keep on longer than fifty-four hours--and all this was amathematical calculation!

  "Fifty-four hours!" said the doctor to his companions. "Therefore, as Iam determined not to travel by night, for fear of passing some streamor pool, we have but three days and a half of journeying during which wemust find water, at all hazards. I have thought it my duty to make youaware of the real state of the case, as I have retained only onegallon for drinking, and we shall have to put ourselves on the shortestallowance."

  "Put us on short allowance, then, doctor," responded Kennedy, "but wemust not despair. We have three days left, you say?"

  "Yes, my dear Dick!"

  "Well, as grieving over the matter won't help us, in three days therewill be time enough to decide upon what is to be done; in the meanwhile,let us redouble our vigilance!"

  At their evening meal, the water was strictly measured out, and thebrandy was increased in quantity in the punch they drank. But they hadto be careful with the spirits, the latter being more likely to producethan to quench thirst.

  The car rested, during the night, upon an immense plateau, in whichthere was a deep hollow; its height was scarcely eight hundred feetabove the level of the sea. This circumstance gave the doctor some hope,since it recalled to his mind the conjectures of geographers concerningthe existence of a vast stretch of water in the centre of Africa. But,if such a lake really existed, the point was to reach it, and not a signof change was visible in the motionless sky.

  To the tranquil night and its starry magnificence succeeded theunchanging daylight and the blazing rays of the sun; and, from theearliest dawn, the temperature became scorching. At five o'clock inthe morning, the doctor gave the signal for departure, and, fora considerable time, the balloon remained immovable in the leadenatmosphere.

  The doctor might have escaped this intense heat by rising into a higherrange, but, in order to do so, he would have had to consume a largequantity of water, a thing that had now become impossible. He contentedhimself, therefore, with keeping the balloon at one hundred feet fromthe ground, and, at that elevation, a feeble current drove it toward thewestern horizon.

  The breakfast consisted of a little dried meat and pemmican. By noon,the Victoria had advanced only a few miles.

  "We cannot go any faster," said the doctor; "we no longer command--wehave to obey."

  "Ah! doctor, here is one of those occasions when a propeller would notbe a thing to be despised."

  "Undoubtedly so, Dick, provided it would not require an expenditure ofwater to put it in motion, for, in that case, the situation would beprecisely the same; moreover, up to this time, nothing practical of thesort has been invented. Balloons are still at that point where shipswere before the invention of steam. It took six thousand years to inventpropellers and screws; so we have time enough yet."

  "Confounded heat!" said Joe, wiping away the perspiration that wasstreaming from his forehead.

  "If we had water, this heat would be of service to us, for it dilatesthe hydrogen in the balloon, and diminishes the amount required in thespiral, although it is true that, if we were not short of the usefulliquid, we should not have to economize it. Ah! that rascally savage whocost us the tank!"*

  * The water-tank had been thrown overboard when the native clung to the car.

  "You don't regret, though, what you did, doctor?"

  "No, Dick, since it was in our power to save that unfortunate missionaryfrom a horrible death. But, the hundred pounds of water that we threwoverboard would be very useful to us now; it would be thirteen orfourteen days more of progress secured, or quite enough to carry us overthis desert."

  "We've made at least half the journey, haven't we?" asked Joe.

  "In distance, yes; but in duration, no, should the wind leave us; andit, even now, has a tendency to die away altogether."

  "Come, sir," said Joe, again, "we must not complain; we've gotalong pretty well, thus far, and whatever happens to me, I can't getdesperate. We'll find water; mind, I tell you so."

  The soil, however, ran lower from mile to mile; the undulations of thegold-bearing mountains they had left died away into the plain, like thelast throes of
exhausted Nature. Scanty grass took the place of thefine trees of the east; only a few belts of half-scorched herbage stillcontended against the invasion of the sand, and the huge rocks, thathad rolled down from the distant summits, crushed in their fall, hadscattered in sharp-edged pebbles which soon again became coarse sand,and finally impalpable dust.

  "Here, at last, is Africa, such as you pictured it to yourself, Joe! WasI not right in saying, 'Wait a little?' eh?"

  "Well, master, it's all natural, at least--heat and dust. It would befoolish to look for any thing else in such a country. Do you see," headded, laughing, "I had no confidence, for my part, in your forests andyour prairies; they were out of reason. What was the use of coming sofar to find scenery just like England? Here's the first time that Ibelieve in Africa, and I'm not sorry to get a taste of it."

  Toward evening, the doctor calculated that the balloon had not madetwenty miles during that whole burning day, and a heated gloom closedin upon it, as soon as the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, whichwas traced against the sky with all the precision of a straight line.

  The next day was Thursday, the 1st of May, but the days followed eachother with desperate monotony. Each morning was like the one that hadpreceded it; noon poured down the same exhaustless rays, and nightcondensed in its shadow the scattered heat which the ensuing daywould again bequeath to the succeeding night. The wind, now scarcelyobservable, was rather a gasp than a breath, and the morning couldalmost be foreseen when even that gasp would cease.

  The doctor reacted against the gloominess of the situation and retainedall the coolness and self-possession of a disciplined heart. With hisglass he scrutinized every quarter of the horizon; he saw the lastrising ground gradually melting to the dead level, and the lastvegetation disappearing, while, before him, stretched the immensity ofthe desert.

  The responsibility resting upon him pressed sorely, but he did not allowhis disquiet to appear. Those two men, Dick and Joe, friends of his,both of them, he had induced to come with him almost by the force aloneof friendship and of duty. Had he done well in that? Was it not likeattempting to tread forbidden paths? Was he not, in this trip, tryingto pass the borders of the impossible? Had not the Almighty reserved forlater ages the knowledge of this inhospitable continent?

  All these thoughts, of the kind that arise in hours of discouragement,succeeded each other and multiplied in his mind, and, by an irresistibleassociation of ideas, the doctor allowed himself to be carried beyondthe bounds of logic and of reason. After having established in his ownmind what he should NOT have done, the next question was, what he shoulddo, then. Would it be impossible to retrace his steps? Were therenot currents higher up that would waft him to less arid regions? Wellinformed with regard to the countries over which he had passed, he wasutterly ignorant of those to come, and thus his conscience speakingaloud to him, he resolved, in his turn, to speak frankly to his twocompanions. He thereupon laid the whole state of the case plainly beforethem; he showed them what had been done, and what there was yet to do;at the worst, they could return, or attempt it, at least.--What did theythink about it?

  "I have no other opinion than that of my excellent master," said Joe;"what he may have to suffer, I can suffer, and that better than he can,perhaps. Where he goes, there I'll go!"

  "And you, Kennedy?"

  "I, doctor, I'm not the man to despair; no one was less ignorant thanI of the perils of the enterprise, but I did not want to see them,from the moment that you determined to brave them. Under presentcircumstances, my opinion is, that we should persevere--go clear tothe end. Besides, to return looks to me quite as perilous as the othercourse. So onward, then! you may count upon us!"

  "Thanks, my gallant friends!" replied the doctor, with much realfeeling, "I expected such devotion as this; but I needed theseencouraging words. Yet, once again, thank you, from the bottom of myheart!"

  And, with this, the three friends warmly grasped each other by the hand.

  "Now, hear me!" said the doctor. "According to my solar observations,we are not more than three hundred miles from the Gulf of Guinea;the desert, therefore, cannot extend indefinitely, since the coast isinhabited, and the country has been explored for some distance back intothe interior. If needs be, we can direct our course to that quarter, andit seems out of the question that we should not come across some oasis,or some well, where we could replenish our stock of water. But, what wewant now, is the wind, for without it we are held here suspended in theair at a dead calm.

  "Let us wait with resignation," said the hunter.

  But, each of the party, in his turn, vainly scanned the space around himduring that long wearisome day. Nothing could be seen to form the basisof a hope. The very last inequalities of the soil disappeared with thesetting sun, whose horizontal rays stretched in long lines of fire overthe flat immensity. It was the Desert!

  Our aeronauts had scarcely gone a distance of fifteen miles, havingexpended, as on the preceding day, one hundred and thirty-five cubicfeet of gas to feed the cylinder, and two pints of water out of theremaining eight had been sacrificed to the demands of intense thirst.

  The night passed quietly--too quietly, indeed, but the doctor did notsleep!