CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH.
The Hurricane.--A Forced Departure.--Loss of an Anchor.--MelancholyReflections.--The Resolution adopted.--The Sand-Storm.--The BuriedCaravan.--A Contrary yet Favorable Wind.--The Return southward.--Kennedyat his Post.
At three o'clock in the morning the wind was raging. It beat down withsuch violence that the Victoria could not stay near the ground withoutdanger. It was thrown almost flat over upon its side, and the reedschafed the silk so roughly that it seemed as though they would tear it.
"We must be off, Dick," said the doctor; "we cannot remain in thissituation."
"But, doctor, what of Joe?"
"I am not likely to abandon him. No, indeed! and should the hurricanecarry me a thousand miles to the northward, I will return! But here weare endangering the safety of all."
"Must we go without him?" asked the Scot, with an accent of profoundgrief.
"And do you think, then," rejoined Ferguson, "that my heart does notbleed like your own? Am I not merely obeying an imperious necessity?"
"I am entirely at your orders," replied the hunter; "let us start!"
But their departure was surrounded with unusual difficulty. The anchor,which had caught very deeply, resisted all their efforts to disengageit; while the balloon, drawing in the opposite direction, increasedits tension. Kennedy could not get it free. Besides, in his presentposition, the manoeuvre had become a very perilous one, for the Victoriathreatened to break away before he should be able to get into the caragain.
The doctor, unwilling to run such a risk, made his friend get intohis place, and resigned himself to the alternative of cutting theanchor-rope. The Victoria made one bound of three hundred feet into theair, and took her route directly northward.
Ferguson had no other choice than to scud before the storm. He foldedhis arms, and soon became absorbed in his own melancholy reflections.
After a few moments of profound silence, he turned to Kennedy, who satthere no less taciturn.
"We have, perhaps, been tempting Providence," said he; "it does notbelong to man to undertake such a journey!"--and a sigh of grief escapedhim as he spoke.
"It is but a few days," replied the sportsman, "since we werecongratulating ourselves upon having escaped so many dangers! All threeof us were shaking hands!"
"Poor Joe! kindly and excellent disposition! brave and candid heart!Dazzled for a moment by his sudden discovery of wealth, he willinglysacrificed his treasures! And now, he is far from us; and the wind iscarrying us still farther away with resistless speed!"
"Come, doctor, admitting that he may have found refuge among the laketribes, can he not do as the travellers who visited them before us,did;--like Denham, like Barth? Both of those men got back to their owncountry."
"Ah! my dear Dick! Joe doesn't know one word of the language; he isalone, and without resources. The travellers of whom you speak did notattempt to go forward without sending many presents in advance of themto the chiefs, and surrounded by an escort armed and trained forthese expeditions. Yet, they could not avoid sufferings of the worstdescription! What, then, can you expect the fate of our companion to be?It is horrible to think of, and this is one of the worst calamities thatit has ever been my lot to endure!"
"But, we'll come back again, doctor!"
"Come back, Dick? Yes, if we have to abandon the balloon! if weshould be forced to return to Lake Tchad on foot, and put ourselves incommunication with the Sultan of Bornou! The Arabs cannot have retaineda disagreeable remembrance of the first Europeans."
"I will follow you, doctor," replied the hunter, with emphasis. "Youmay count upon me! We would rather give up the idea of prosecutingthis journey than not return. Joe forgot himself for our sake; we willsacrifice ourselves for his!"
This resolve revived some hope in the hearts of these two men; they feltstrong in the same inspiration. Ferguson forthwith set every thing atwork to get into a contrary current, that might bring him back againto Lake Tchad; but this was impracticable at that moment, and even toalight was out of the question on ground completely bare of trees, andwith such a hurricane blowing.
The Victoria thus passed over the country of the Tibbous, crossed theBelad el Djerid, a desert of briers that forms the border of the Soudan,and advanced into the desert of sand streaked with the long tracksof the many caravans that pass and repass there. The last line ofvegetation was speedily lost in the dim southern horizon, not far fromthe principal oasis in this part of Africa, whose fifty wells are shadedby magnificent trees; but it was impossible to stop. An Arab encampment,tents of striped stuff, some camels, stretching out their viper-likeheads and necks along the sand, gave life to this solitude, but theVictoria sped by like a shooting-star, and in this way traversed adistance of sixty miles in three hours, without Ferguson being able tocheck or guide her course.
"We cannot halt, we cannot alight!" said the doctor; "not a tree, not aninequality of the ground! Are we then to be driven clear across Sahara?Surely, Heaven is indeed against us!"
He was uttering these words with a sort of despairing rage, whensuddenly he saw the desert sands rising aloft in the midst of a densecloud of dust, and go whirling through the air, impelled by opposingcurrents.
Amid this tornado, an entire caravan, disorganized, broken, andoverthrown, was disappearing beneath an avalanche of sand. The camels,flung pell-mell together, were uttering dull and pitiful groans; criesand howls of despair were heard issuing from that dusty and stiflingcloud, and, from time to time, a parti-colored garment cut the chaosof the scene with its vivid hues, and the moaning and shrieking soundedover all, a terrible accompaniment to this spectacle of destruction.
Ere long the sand had accumulated in compact masses; and there, where sorecently stretched a level plain as far as the eye could see, rose nowa ridgy line of hillocks, still moving from beneath--the vast tomb of anentire caravan!
The doctor and Kennedy, pallid with emotion, sat transfixed by thisfearful spectacle. They could no longer manage their balloon, which wentwhirling round and round in contending currents, and refused to obeythe different dilations of the gas. Caught in these eddies of theatmosphere, it spun about with a rapidity that made their heads reel,while the car oscillated and swung to and fro violently at the sametime. The instruments suspended under the awning clattered together asthough they would be dashed to pieces; the pipes of the spiral bentto and fro, threatening to break at every instant; and the water-tanksjostled and jarred with tremendous din. Although but two feet apart,our aeronauts could not hear each other speak, but with firmly-clinchedhands they clung convulsively to the cordage, and endeavored to steadythemselves against the fury of the tempest.
Kennedy, with his hair blown wildly about his face, looked on withoutspeaking; but the doctor had regained all his daring in the midst ofthis deadly peril, and not a sign of his emotion was betrayed in hiscountenance, even when, after a last violent twirl, the Victoria stoppedsuddenly in the midst of a most unlooked-for calm; the north wind hadabruptly got the upper hand, and now drove her back with equal rapidityover the route she had traversed in the morning.
"Whither are we going now?" cried Kennedy.
"Let us leave that to Providence, my dear Dick; I was wrong in doubtingit. It knows better than we, and here we are, returning to places thatwe had expected never to see again!"
The surface of the country, which had looked so flat and level when theywere coming, now seemed tossed and uneven, like the ocean-billows aftera storm; a long succession of hillocks, that had scarcely settled totheir places yet, indented the desert; the wind blew furiously, and theballoon fairly flew through the atmosphere.
The direction taken by our aeronauts differed somewhat from that ofthe morning, and thus about nine o'clock, instead of finding themselvesagain near the borders of Lake Tchad, they saw the desert stillstretching away before them.
Kennedy remarked the circumstance.
"It matters little," replied the doctor, "the important point is toreturn southward; we shall come acro
ss the towns of Bornou, Wouddie, orKouka, and I should not hesitate to halt there."
"If you are satisfied, I am content," replied the Scot, "but Heavengrant that we may not be reduced to cross the desert, as thoseunfortunate Arabs had to do! What we saw was frightful!"
"It often happens, Dick; these trips across the desert are far moreperilous than those across the ocean. The desert has all the dangers ofthe sea, including the risk of being swallowed up, and added thereto areunendurable fatigues and privations."
"I think the wind shows some symptoms of moderating; the sand-dust isless dense; the undulations of the surface are diminishing, and the skyis growing clearer."
"So much the better! We must now reconnoitre attentively with ourglasses, and take care not to omit a single point."
"I will look out for that, doctor, and not a tree shall be seen withoutmy informing you of it."
And, suiting the action to the word, Kennedy took his station, spy-glassin hand, at the forward part of the car.