 CHAPTER XXI. The night came on very dark. The doctor had not been able to recognize the country. He had made fast to a very tall tree from which he could distinguish only a confused mass through the gloom. As usual he took the nine o'clock watch and at midnight Dick relieved him. Keep a short look out Dick, was the doctor's good night in Junction. Is there any new thing you'll knew on the carpet? No, but I thought that I heard vague sounds below us, and as I don't know exactly where the wind has carried us to, even an excessive caution would do no harm. You've probably heard the cries of wild beasts. No, the sounds seem to me something altogether different from that. At all events, on the least alarm don't fail to awaken 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 wanted to sleep. The sky was covered with dense clouds, but not a breath of air was stirring, and the bloom kept in its place by only a single anchor, experiencing not the slightest oscillation. Kennedy, leaning his elbow on the edge of the car, saw as to keep an eye out of the cylinder, which was actively at work, gazed out upon the calm obscurity. He eagerly scanned the horizon, and as often heavens to minds that are an easy or possessed with preconceived notions. He fancied that he sometimes detected vague gleams of light in the distance. At one moment he even thought he saw them only two hundred paces away, quite distinctly, but it was a mere flash that was gone as quickly as it came, and he had noticed nothing more. It was no doubt one of those luminous illusions that sometimes impressed the eye in the midst of very profound darkness. Kennedy was getting over his nervousness and falling into his wandering meditations again, when a sharp whistle pierced his ear. Was that the cry of an animal, or of a nightbird, or did it come from human lips? Kennedy, perfectly comprehending the gravity of the situation, was on the point of waking his companions, but he reflected that, in any case, men or animals, the creatures that he heard must be out of reach. So he merely saw that his weapons were all right, and then, with his nightglass, again plunged his gaze into space. It was not long before he thought he could be seen below him, vague forms that seemed to be gliding toward the tree, and then, by the aid of a ray of moonlight that shot like an electric flash between two masses of cloud, he distinctly made out a group of human figures moving in the shadow. The adventure, with the dog faced by women's return to his memory, and he placed his hand on the doctor's shoulder. The latter was awake in a moment. "'Silence,' said Dick. "'Let us speak below our breath.' "'Has anything happened?' "'Yes, let us awaken, Joe.' The instant that Joe was aroused, Kennedy told him what he had seen. "'Those confused 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, as the doctor, I will take my measures so that we can ascend rapidly at the moment's warning. "'Agreed. Let us go down, then,' said Joe. "'Don't use your weapons, excepting at the last extremity. It will be a useless risk to make the natives aware of our presence in such a place as this.' Dick and Joe replied with signs of assent, and then, letting themselves slide noiselessly down the tree, took their position in a fork among the strong branches where the anchor had caught. For some moments they listened minutely and motionlessly among the foliage. And there along Joe sees Kennedy's hand as he heard a sort of rubbing 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 what you heard before. No, there was something human in it. I prefer the savages, for I have a horror of those snakes. The noise is increasing,' said Kennedy, again after a lapse of a few moments. "'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 branches, shooting out in the midst of one of those miniature forests called Baobab trees. The darkness, heightened by the density of the foliage, was profound. However, Joe, leading over to Kennedy's ear and pointing down the tree, whispered, "'The blacks! They're climbing towards us. The two friends could even catch the sound of a few words uttered in the lowest possible tones. Joe gently brought his rifle to his shoulders,' he spoke. "'Wait,' said Kennedy. Some of the natives had really climbed the Baobab, and now they were seen rising on all sides, winding along the bowels like reptiles, and advancing slowly but surely, all the time plainly enough discernible, not merely to the eye but to the nostrils, by the horrible odors of the rancid grease with which they devolved their bodies. Air long, two heads appeared to the gates of Kennedy and Joe, on a level with the very branch to which they were clinging. "'Attention,' said Kennedy. "'Fire!' The double concussion resounded like a thunderbolt, and died away into cries of rage and pain, and in a moment the whole horror had disappeared. But in the midst of these yells and howls, a strange, unexpected, nay, what seemed an impossible cry had been heard. A human voice had distinctly called aloud in the French language, "'Help! Help!' Kennedy and Joe, done with amazement, have again the car immediately. "'Did you hear that?' the doctor asked them. Undoubtedly that supernatural cry, "'Amois, amois,' comes from a Frenchman in the hands of these barbarians. A traveller. A missionary, perhaps.' Poor wretch, said Kennedy. They were assassinating him, making a martyr of him. The doctor then spoke, and it was impossible for him to conceal his emotions. "'There can be no doubt of it,' he said. Some unfortunate Frenchman has fallen into the hands of these savages. We must not leave this place without doing all in our power to save him. When he heard the sound of our guns, he recognized an unhoved force assistance, a providential interposition. We shall not disappoint in his last hope. Are such your views? They are a doctor, and we are ready to obey you. Let us then lay our heads together to devise some plan, and in the morning 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 they are unacquainted with firearms. We must therefore profit by their fears, but we shall await daylight before acting, and then we can form our 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 Dr. Resume 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 their captives in broad daylight. They must have the sunshine. Now, if I were to take advantage of the darkness to slip down to the poor fellow,' said Kennedy, "'And I'll go with you,' said Joe warmly. "'Pause, my friends. Pause. The suggestion does honour to your hearts and to your courage, but you would expose us all to great peril, and do still great harm to the unfortunate man who 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 be lost. But think of that poor rich hoping for aid, waiting there, praying, calling aloud. Is no one to go to his assistance? He must think that his senses deceived him, that he erred nothing. We can reassure him on that score,' said Dr. Ferguson. And standing erect, making a speaking trumpet of his hands, he shouted the top of his voice in French. "'Whoever you are, be of good cheer. Three friends are watching over you.' A terrific howl from the savages responded to these words, no doubt drowning 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 the hour of his doom. We must act. But how, Dick, what do you expect to do in the midst of darkness?' "'Oh, if only it was daylight,' sighed Joe. "'Well, and suppose it were daylight,' said the doctor, in a singular tone. "'Nothing more simple,' said Kennedy. "'I'd go down and scatter all 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 prisoner to make his escape in a certain direction that we'd grieve 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 a note to it, or I'd just call out to him in a loud voice, what you want him to do, because these black fellows don't understand the language that you'd speak in. Your plans are impracticable, my dear friends. The greatest difficulty would be for this poor fellow to escape at all, even admitting that he should manage to elude the vigilance of his captors. As for you, my dear Dick, with determined daring and profiting by their alarm at our firearms, your project might possibly succeed, but word to fail, you would be lost, and we should have two persons to save instead of one. No, we must put all the chances on our side and go to work differently. "'But let us act at once,' said the hunter. "'Perhaps we may,' said the Doctor, throwing considerable stress upon the words. "'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 two companions looked at him with much emotion, for they were greatly excited by the strangeness of the situation. Ferguson at last resumed. "'Here is my plan. We have two hundred pounds of ballast left, since the bags we brought with us are still untouched. I'll suppose that this prisoner, who is evidently exhausted by suffering, weighs as much as one of us. There will still remain sixty pounds of ballast to throw out in case we should want to ascend suddenly. "'How do you expect to manage the balloon?' asked Kennedy. "'This is the idea, Dick. You'll admit that if I can get to the prisoner and throw out a quantity of ballast, equal to his weight, I shall have in no way as old of the equilibrium of the balloon. But then if I want to get a rapid ascension, so as to escape these savages, I must deploy means more energetic than the cylinder. Well then, in throwing out this over-plus of ballast, at a given moment I am certain to rise with great rapidity. That's plain enough. Yes, but there is one drawback. It consists in the fact that in order to descend after that, I should have to part with a quantity of gas proportionate to the surplus ballast that I had thrown out. Now, the gas is precious, but we must not haggle over it when the life of a fellow creature is at stake. You're right, sir. We must do everything in our power to save him. Let us work, then, and get these bags all arranged on the rim of the car, so that they may be thrown overboard at one movement. But this darkness, it hides our preparations, and will be dispersed only when they are finished. Take care to have all our weapons closed at hand. Perhaps we may have to fire, so we have one shot at the rifle, four for the two muskets, twelve in the two rovers, or seventeen in all, which might be fired in a quarter of a minute. But perhaps we shall not have to resort to all this noisy work. Are you ready? We're ready, responded Joe. This actual place is requested, and the arms were put in good order. Very good said the doctor. Have an eye to everything. Joe will see to throwing out the ballast, and Dick will carry off the prisoner. But let nothing be done until I give the word. Joe will first detach the anchor, and then quickly make his way to the car. Joe let himself slide down the rope, and in a few moments reappeared at his post, while the balloon, thus liberated, hung almost motionless in the air. In the meantime, the doctor assured himself of the presence of a sufficient quantity of gas in the mixing tank to feed the cylinder, if necessary, without there being any need of resorting for some time to the Bunsen battery. He then took out the two perfectly isolated conducting 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 they kept perfectly silent. When the doctor had finished, he stood up erect in 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 an insupportable glow between the two point ends of charcoal, and a huge jet of electric radiance literally broke the darkness of the light. Oh, ejaculate the astonished friends! Not a word cautioned the doctor. by Alexi Talander, Davis, California. Five weeks in a balloon, or journeys and discoveries in Africa, by Three Englishmen, by Jules Veren, translated by William Lackland. Chapter 22 The Jet of Light The Missionary The Rescue and Array of Electricity A Lazarus Priest But Little Hope The Doctor's Care A Life of Self-Denial Passing a Volcano Dr. Ferguson darted his powerful electric jet toward various points of space, and caused it to rest on a spot from which shouts of terror were heard. His companions fixed their gaze eagerly on the place. The baobab of which the balloon was hanging almost motionless stood in the center of a clearing, where between fields of Indian corn and sugarcane were seen some fifty low, conical huts, around which swarmed a numerous tribe. A hundred feet below the balloon stood a large post or stake, and on its foot lay a human being. A young man of thirty years or more, with long black hair, half-naked, wasted in wand, bleeding, covered with wounds, his head bowed over upon his breast, as Christ was, when he hung upon the cross. The hair cut short at the top of his skull still indicated the place of a half-effaced hauncher. A missionary, a priest, exclaimed Joe. Poor unfortunate man, said Kennedy. We must save him, Dick, respond of the Doctor. We must save him. The crowd of blacks, when they saw the balloon over their heads, like a huge comet with a train of dazzling light, were seized with the terror that they may be readily imagined. Upon hearing their cries, the prisoner raised his head. His eyes gleamed with sudden hope, and without too thoroughly comprehending what was taking place, he stretched out his hands to his unexpected deliverers. He is alive, exclaimed Ferguson. God be appraised. The sourges have got a fine scare, and we shall save him. Are you ready, friends? Ready, Doctor, at the word. Joe, shut off the cylinder. The Doctor's order was executed. An almost imperceptible breath of air impaled the balloon directly over the prisoner, at the same time that it gently lowered with the contraction of the gas. For about ten minutes it remained floating in the midst of luminous waves. For Ferguson continued to flash right down upon the throng, his glowing sheath of rays, which here and there marked out swift and vivid sheets of light. The tribe, under the influence of indescribable terror, disappeared little by little in the huts, and there was complete solitude around the stake. The Doctor had therefore been right in counting upon the fantastic appearance of the balloon, throwing out rays as vivid as the suns through this intense gloom. The car was approaching the ground, but a few of the sourges more audacious than the rest, guessing that their victim was about to escape from their clutches, came back with loud yells, and Kennedy seized the rifle. The Doctor, however, besought him not to fire. The priest on his knees, for he had not the strength to stand erect, was not even fastened to the stake, his weakness rendering that precaution superfluous. At the instant when the car was close to the ground, the brawny scot, laying aside his rifle, and seizing the priest around the waist, lifted him into the car, while at the same moment, Joe tossed over the two hundred pounds of ballast. The Doctor had expected to ascend rapidly, but contrary to his calculations, the balloon, after going up some three or four feet, reigned there perfectly motionless. What holds us, he asked, with an accent of terror? Some of the savages were running toward them, uttering ferocious cries. Aha! said Joe, one of those cursed blacks is hanging into the car. Dick, Dick, cried the Doctor, the water tank. Kennedy caught his friend's idea on the instant, and snatching up with desperate strength, one of the water tanks weighing about one hundred pounds, he tossed it overboard. The balloon thus suddenly lightened, made a leap of three hundred feet into the air, and the howlings of the tribe, whose prisoner thus escaped them in a blaze of dazzling light. Hurrah! shouted the Doctor's comrades. Suddenly the balloon took a fresh leap, which carried it up to an elevation of a thousand feet. What's that, said Kennedy, who had nearly lost his balance? Oh, nothing, only that back-villain is leaving us. Reply the Doctor, tranquilly, and Joe, leaning over, saw the savage that had clung to the car, whirling away over and over, with his arms outstretched in the air, and presently dashed to pieces on the ground. The Doctor then separated his electric wires, and everything was again buried in profound obscurity. It was now one o'clock in the morning. The Frenchman, who had swooned away at length, opened his eyes. You were saved, with the Doctor's first words. Saved? he said with a sad smile, replied in English. Saved from a cool death, my brethren, I thank you, but my days are numbered nay, even my hours, and I have but little longer to live. With this the missionary, again yielding to exhaustion, relapsed into his fading fit. He is dying, said Kennedy. No, replied the Doctor, bedding over him. But he is very weak, so let us lay him under the awning. And they did gently deposit on their blankest that poor wasted body, covered with scarless and wounds, still bleeding, where fire and still had, in twenty places, left their agonizing marks. The Doctor, taking an old handkerchief, quickly prepared a little lint, which he spread over the wounds, after having washed them. These rapid attentions were bestowed with the celerity and skill of a practice surgeon, and when they were complete the Doctor, taking a cordial from his medicine chest, poured a few drops upon his patient's lips. The latter feverly pressed his kind hands, and scarcely had the strength to say, thank you, thank you. The Doctor comprehended that he must be left perfectly quiet, so he closed the fold to the awning, and resumed the guidance of the balloon. The latter, after taking into account the weight of the new passenger, had been lightened of one hundred and eighty pounds, and therefore kept aloft without the aid of the cylinder. At the first dawn of day a current drew a jelly toward the west-northy west. The Doctor went in under the awning for a moment or two to look at his still-asleeping patient. May Heaven spare the life of our new companion. Have you any hopes, said the Scott? Yes, Dick, with care in this pure fresh atmosphere. How that man has suffered, said Joe, with feeling. He did bolder things than we've done in venturing all alone among those savage tribes. That cannot be questioned, ascended the hunter. During the entire day the Doctor would not allow the sleep of his patient to be disturbed. It was really a long stupor, broken only by an occasional murmur of pain that continued to disquiet and agitate the Doctor greatly. Toward the evening the balloon remained stationary in the midst of the gloom, and during the night while Kennedy and Joe relieved each other in carefully attending the sick man, Ferguson kept watch over the safety of all. By the morning of the next day the balloon had moved very slightly to the westward. The dawn came out pure and magnificent. The sick man was able to call his friends with a stronger voice. They raised the curtain to the awning, and he inhaled with delight the keen morning air. How do you feel today? asked the Doctor. Better, perhaps, he replied. But you, my friends, I have not seen you yet, accepting in a dream. I can indeed scarcely recall what has occurred. Who are you? that your names may not be forgotten in my dying prayers. We are English travellers, replied Ferguson. We are trying to cross Africa in a balloon, and on our way we have had the good fortune to rescue you. Silence has its hero, said the missionary. But a religionist martyrs rejoined the Scott. Are you a missionary, asked the Doctor? I am a priest of the Lazarus Mission. Heaven sent you to me. Heaven be praised. The sacrifice of my life had been accomplished. But you come from Europe. Tell me about Europe, about France. I have been without news for the last five years. Five years, alone, and among these savages, exclaimed Kennedy with amazement. They are souls to redeem, ignorant and barbarous brethren, whom religion alone can instruct and civilize. Dr. Ferguson, yielding to the priest's request, talked to him long and fully about France. He listened eagerly, and his eyes filled with tears. He seized Kennedy's and Joe's hands by turns on in his own, which were burning with fever. The Doctor prepared him some tea, and he drank it with satisfaction. After that he had strength enough to raise himself up a little, and smiled with pleasure at seeing himself born alone through so pure a sky. You are daring travellers, he said, and you will succeed in your bold enterprise. You will again behold your relatives, your friends, your country, you. At this moment the weakness of the young missionary became so extreme that they had to lay him again on the bed, where a prostration lasting for several hours held him like a dead man under the eye of Dr. Ferguson. The latter could not suppress his emotion, for he felt that his life, now as in his charge, was ebbing away, where they then so soon to lose him, whom they had snatched from an agonizing death. The Doctor again washed and dressed the young martyr's frightful wounds, and had to sacrifice nearly his whole stock of water to refresh his burning limbs. He surrounded him with the tenderest and most intelligent care, until it let the sick man revive little by little in his arms, and recovered his consciousness, if not his strength. The Doctor was able to gather something of his history from his broken murmurs. Speaking in your native language, he said to the sufferer, I understand it, and I will fatigue you less. The missionary was a poor young man from the village of Adodon, in Brittany, in the more behind country. His earliest instincts had drawn him toward an ecclesiastical career, but to his life of self-sacrifice he was also desirous of joining a life of danger, by enaming the mission of the Order of Priesthood, of which St. Vincent de Paul was the founder, and at twenty he quitted his country for the inhospitable shores of Africa. From the sea coast, overcoming obstacles, little by little, braving all privations, pushing onward a foot and praying, he had advanced to the very center of those tribes that dwell among the tributary streams of the upper Nile. For two years his faith was spumed, his zeal denied recognition, his charities taken an ill part, and he remained a prisoner to one of the cruelest tribes of the Nyambara, the object of every species of maltreatment. But still he went on teaching, instructing and praying, the tribe having been dispersed, and he left for dead, in one of those combats which are so frequent between the tribes, instead of retracing his steps, he persisted in his evangelical mission. His most tranquil time was when he was taken for a madman. Meanwhile he had made himself familiar with the idioms of the country, and he catacysed in them. At length during two more long years he traversed these barbarous regions, impelled by that superhuman energy that comes from God. For a year past he had been residing with that tribe of the Nyanyams, known as the Barafri, one of the wildest and most ferocious of them all. The chief having died a few days before our travellers appeared, his sudden death was attributed to the missionary, and the tribe resolved to emulate him. His sufferings had already continued for the space of forty hours, and, as the doctor had supposed, he was to have perished in the blaze of the noonday sun. When he heard the sound of firearms, nature got the best of him, and he had cried out, Help! Help! He then thought that he must have been dreaming when a voice that seemed to come from the sky had uttered words of consolation. I have no regrets, he said, for the life that is passing away from me, my life belongs to God. Hope still, said the doctor, We are near you, and we will save you now, as we saved you from the torches of the stake. I do not ask so much of Heaven, said the priests with designation. Blessed be God by having vowed safe to me the joy before I die of having pressed your friendly hands, and having heard once more the language of my country. The missionary here grew weak again, and the whole day went by between hope and fear. Kennedy deeply moved, and Joe drawing his hand over his eyes more than once when he thought that no one saw him. The blue made little progress, and the wind seemed as though unwilling to jostle its precious burden. Toward evening, Joe discovered a great light in the west. Under more elevated latitudes, it might have been mistaken for an immense auror borealis, for the sky appeared on fire. The doctor very attentively examined the phenomenon. It is perhaps a little volcano of full activity, said he. But the wind is carrying us directly over it, replied Kennedy. Very well, we should cross it then at a safe height, said the doctor. Three hours later the Victoria was right among the mountains. Her exact position was twenty-four degrees, fifty minutes east along the Tude, and four degrees, forty-two minutes north latitude. In front of her a volcanic crater was pouring forth, torrents of melted lava, and hurling masses of rock to an enormous height. There were jets too of liquid fire that fell back in dazzling cascades. A superb and dangerous spectacle, for the wind with unswerving certainty, was carrying the balloon directly toward this blazing atmosphere. This obstacle, which could not be turned, had to be crossed, so the cylinder was put to its utmost power, and the balloon rose to the height of six thousand feet, leaving between it and the volcano a space of more than three hundred fathoms. From his bed of suffering the dying missionary could contemplate that fire equator from which a thousand jets of dazzling flame were at that moment escaping. How grand it is, said he, and how infinite is the power of God, even in its most terrible manifestations. This overflow of blazing lava wrapped the sides of the mountain with a veritable drapery of flame. The lower half of the balloon glowed readily in the upper night, a torrent heat ascended to the car, and Dr. Ferguson made all possible haste to escape from this perilous situation. By ten o'clock the volcano could be seen, only as a red point on the horizon, and the balloon frankly pursued her course in a less elevated zone of the atmosphere. 5 Weeks in a Balloon Or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa By Three Englishmen By Jules Verne Translated by William Lackland Chapter 23 Joe in a fit of rage The death of a good man The night of watching by the body Bairness and drought The burial The quartz rocks Joe's hallucinations A precious ballast A survey of the gold-bearing mountains The beginning of Joe's despair A magnificent night overspread the earth, and the missionary lay quietly asleep in utter exhaustion. He'll not get over its side, Joe, poor young fellow, scarcely thirty years of age. He'll die in our arms. His breathing, which was so feeble before, is growing weaker still, and I can do nothing to save him, said the doctor despairingly. The infamous scoundrels exclaimed Joe, grinding his teeth, and one of those fits of rage that cave over him at long intervals, and to think that, in spite of all, this good man could find words only to pity them, to excuse to pardon them. Heaven has given him a lovely night, Joe. His last on earth, perhaps. He will suffer but little more after this, and his dying will be only a peaceful falling sleep. The dying man uttered some broken words, and the doctor once went to him. His breathing became difficult, and he asked for air. The curtains were drawn entirely back, and he inhaled with rapture the light breezes of that clear, beautiful night. The stars sent him their trembling rays, and the moon wrapped him in the white, windy sheet of its effulgence. My friend said he, in an enfeebled voice, I am going, may God work quite you, and bring you to your safe harbor. May he pay for me the debt of gratitude that I owe to you. You must still hope, replied Kennedy. This is but a passing fit of weakness. You will not die. How could anyone die on this beautiful summer night? Death is at hand, replied the missionary. I know it. Let me look it in the face. Death, the commencement of things eternal, is but the end of earthly cares. Place me upon my knees, my brethren, I beseech you. Kennedy lifted him up, and it was just dressing to see his weakened limbs bend under him. My God, my God, explained the dying apostle. Have pity on me. His countenance shone, for about that earth on which he had known no joys in the midst of that night which sent to him its softest radiance on the way to that heaven toward which he uplifted his spirit, as though in a miraculous assumption he seemed already to live and breathe in the new existence. His last gesture was a supreme blessing on his new friends of only one day, that he fell back into the arms of Kennedy whose countenance was bathed in hot tears. Dead, said the doctor bending over him, dead, and with one common accord the three friends knelt together in solemn prayer. Tomorrow was him the doctor, we shall bury him in the African soil, which he has besprinkled with his blood. During the rest of the night the body was watched, term by term, by the three travelers, and not a word disturbed the solemn silence. Each of them was weeping. The next day the wind came from the south, and the blue moved slowly over a vast plateau of mountains. There were extinct craters here, barren ravines, not a drop of water on those parched crests, piles of broken rocks, huge stony masses scattered hither and thither, and interspersed with whitish marl, all indicated the most complete sterility. Toward noon the doctor, for the purpose of burying the body, decided to descend into a ravine in the midst of some plutonic rocks of primitive formation. The surrounding mountains would shelter him and enable him to bring his car to the ground, but there was no tree in sight to which he could make it fast. But as he explained to Kennedy, it was now impossible for him to descend, except by releasing a quantity of gas proportionate to his loss of ballast at the time when he had rescued the missionary. He therefore opened the valve of the outside balloon. The hydrogen escaped, and the Victoria quietly descended into the ravine. As soon as the car touched the ground, the doctor shut the valve. Joe leaped out, holding on the while to the rim of the car with one hand, and with the other gathering a quantity of stones equal to his own weight. He could then use both hands, and it soon heaped into the car more than five hundred pounds of stones, which enabled both the doctor and Kennedy in their turn to get out. Thus the Victoria found herself balanced in her essential force insufficient to raise her. Moreover, it was not necessary to gather many of these stones, for the blocks were extremely heavy, so much so indeed that the doctor's attention was attracted by the circumstance. The soul, in fact, was bestrewing with quartz and perforitic rocks. This is a singular discovery, said the doctor, mentally. In the meanwhile, Kennedy and Joe had strolled away a few paces, looking up at a proper spot for the grave. The heat was extreme in this ravine, shut in as it was like a sort of furnace. The noon-day sun poured down its rays perpendicularly into it. The first thing to be done was to clear the surface of the fragments of rock that encumbered it, and then a quite deep grave had to be dug so that the wild animals should not be able to disinter the corpse. The body of the martyred missionary was then solemnly placed in it. The earth was thrown in over his remains, and above it masses of rock were deposited in rude resemblance to a tomb. The doctor, however, remained motionless and lost in his reflections. He did not even heed the call of his companions, nor did he return with them to seek a shelter from the heat of the day. What are you thinking about, Dr. S. Kennedy, about a singular freak of nature, a curious effect of chance? Do you know now in what kind of soil that man of self-enile, that poor one in spirit, has just been buried? No, what do you mean, doctor? The priests, who took the oath of perpetual poverty, now are poses in a goldmine. A goldmine, exclaimed Kennedy and Joe in one breath? Yes, a goldmine, said the doctor quietly. Those blocks which you are trampling underfoot, like worthless stones, contain gold ore of great purity. Impossible, impossible, repeated Joe. You would not have to look along among those fishes of slady schist without fighting peptides of considerable value. Joe at once rushed like a crazy man among the scattered fragments, and Kennedy was not long in following his example. Keep cool, Joe, said his master. Why, doctor, you speak of the thing quite at your ease. What, a philosopher of your middle? Ah, master, no philosophy holds good in this case. Come, come, let us reflect a little. What good would all this wealth do you? We cannot carry any of it away with us. We can't take any of it with us? Indeed. It's rather too heavy for our car. I even hesitated to tell you anything about it, for fear of exciting your regret. What, said Joe again, abandon these treasures, are fortune for us? Really for us? Our own? Leave it behind? Take care, my friend. Would you yield to the thirst for gold? Has not this dead man whom you have just helped to bury taught you the vanity of human affairs? All that is true, replied Joe, but gold. Mr. Kennedy, won't you help to gather up a trifle of all these millions? What could we do with them, Joe, said the hunter, unable to repress a smile? We did not come hither in search of fortune, and we cannot take one home with us. The millions are rather heavy, you know, resume the doctor, and it cannot very easily be put into one's pocket. But at least, said Joe, driven to his last defences, can we take some of that ore for ballast instead of sand? Very good, I consent, said the doctor. But you must not make too many rye faces when we come to throw some thousands of crowns worth overboard. Thousands of crowns, echoed Joe, is it possible that there is so much gold in them, and that all this is the same? Yes, my friend, this is a reservoir in which nature has been heaping up her wealth for centuries. There is enough here to enrich whole nations, an Australia and a California, both together in the midst of the wilderness. And the whole of it is to remain useless? Perhaps. But at all events, here's what I'll do to console you. That would be rather difficult to do, said Joe, with a contrite air. Listen, I will take the exact bearings of this spot, and give them to you, so that, upon your return to England, you can tell our countrymen about it, and let them have a share if you think that so much gold would make them happy. Ah, Master, I give up. I see that you are right, and that there is nothing else to be done. Let us fill our car with a precious mineral, and what remains, at the end of the trip, will be so much made. And Joe went to work. He did so too, with all his might, and soon collected more than a thousand pieces of quartz, which contained gold and clothes as though in an extremely hard crystal casket. The doctor watched him with a smile, and while Joe went on, he took the bearings and found that the missionaries' grave lay in twenty-two degrees, twenty-three minutes east longitude, and four degrees, fifty-five minutes north latitude. Then, casting one glance at the swelling of the soil, beneath which the body of the poor Frenchman were posed, he went back to his car. He would have erected a plain, rude cross over the tomb, left solitary thus in the midst of the African deserts, but not a tree was to be seen in the environs. God will recognize it, said Kennedy. An anxiety of another sort now began to steal over the doctor's mind. He would have given much of the gold before him for a little water, for he had to replace what had been thrown overboard when the nigger was carried up into the air. But it was impossible to find in these arid regions, and this reflection gave him great uneasiness. He had to feed his cylinder continually, and he even began to find that he had not enough to quench the thirst of his party. Therefore he determined to lose no opportunity of replenishing his supply. Upon getting back to the car he found a burden with the quartz blocks that Joe's greed had heaped in it. He got in, however, without saying anything. Kennedy took his customary place, and Joe followed, but not without casting a covetous glance of the treasures in the ravine. The doctor rekindled the light in the cylinder. The spiral became heated. The current of hydrogen came in in a few minutes, and the gas dilated, but the balloon did not stir an itch. Joe looked on uneasily, but kept silent. Joe said the doctor. Joe made a reply. Joe, don't you hear me? Joe made a sign that he heard, but he would not understand. Do me the kindness to throw out some of that quartz. But doctor, you gave me leave. I gave you leave to replace the ballast. That was all. But do you want to stay forever in this desert? Joe took as to despairing look at Kennedy, but the hunter put on an air of a man who could do nothing in the matter. Well, Joe, then your cylinder don't work, so they obstinate fellow. My cylinder. Is it lit, as you perceive? But the balloon will not rise until you have thrown off a little ballast. Joe scratched his ear, picked up a piece of quartz, the smallest in the lot, weighed and re-weighted, and tossed it up and down in his hands. It was a fragment of about three or four pounds. It lasted through it out, but the balloon did not bunch. Hmpf! said he. We're not going up yet. Not yet, said the doctor. Keep on throwing. Kennedy laughed. Joe now threw out some ten pounds, but the balloon stood still. Joe got very pale. Poor fellow, said the doctor. Mr. Kennedy, you and I weigh, unless I am mistaken, about four hundred pounds, so that you'll have to get rid of at least that weight, since it was put in here to make up for us. Throw away four hundred pounds, said Joe, piteously, and some more with it, or it can't rise. Come, courage, Joe. The brave fellow, heaving deep sighs, began at last to lighten the balloon. But from time to time he would stop and ask, are you going up? No, not yet, was the invariable response. It moved, said he at last. Keep on applying the doctor. It's going up, I'm sure. Keep on yet, said Kennedy. And Joe, picking up one more block, desperately tossed it out of the car. The balloon rose a hundred feet or so and, aided by the cylinder, soon passed above the surrounding summits. Now Joe resumed the doctor. The store remains a handsome fortune for you, and if we can only keep the rest of this with us until the end of our trip, there you are, rich for the balance of your days. Joe made no answer, but stretched himself out luxuriously on his heap of quartz. See, my dear Dick, the doctor went on. Just see the power of this metal over the cleverest lad in the world. What passions, what greed, what crimes, the knowledge of such a mind as that would cause. It is sad to think of it. By evening the balloon had made ninety miles to the westward, and was in a direct line fourteen hundred miles from Zanzibar. End of chapter twenty-three of five weeks in a balloon. Recording by Alex E. Tlander, Davis, California www.alexethalander.com Chapter twenty-four, or five weeks in a balloon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alex E. Tlander, Davis, California. Five weeks in a balloon, or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa, by Three Englishmen, by Jules Verne, translated by William Lackland. Chapter twenty-four. The wind dies away. The vicinity of the desert. The mistake in the water supply. The nights of the equator. Dr. Ferguson's anxieties. The situation flatly stated. Energetic replies of Kennedy and Joe. One night more. The balloon, having been made fast to a solitary tree, almost completely dried up by the humidity of the region in which it stood, past the night in perfect quietness, and the travelers were unable to enjoy a little of the repose, which they so greatly needed. The emotions of the day had left sad impressions on their minds. Toward morning, the sky had resumed its brilliant purity in its heat. The balloon ascended, and after several ineffectual attempts fell into a 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 the rate of which we are going, it would take months to end it, and that is all the more vexatious that we are threatened with a lack of water. They will find some, said Joe. It is not to be thought of that we shouldn't discover some river, some stream, or pond in all this vast extent of country. I hope so. Now don't you think that it's Joe's cargo of stone that is keeping us back? Kennedy asked this question only to tease Joe, and he did so the more willingly because he had, for a moment, shared the poor lad's hallucinations, but not finding anything in them, he had fallen back into the attitude of a strong-minded looker on and turned the affair off with a laugh. Joe cast a mournful glance at him, but the doctor made no reply. He was thinking, not without secret terror, probably, of the vast solitudes of Sahara, for their whole week sometimes passed without the caravans meeting with a single spring of water. Occupied with these thoughts, he scrutinized every depression of the soil with the closest attention. These anxieties, and the incidents recently occurring, had not been without their effect upon the spirits of our three travelers. They conversed less, and were more wrapped in their thrown thoughts. Joe, clever lad as he was, seemed no longer the same person since his gaze had plunged into that ocean of gold. He kept entirely silent, and gazed incessantly upon the stony fragments heaped up in the car, worthless today, but of inestimable value tomorrow. The appearance of this part of after was, moreover, quite calculated to inspire alarm. The desert was gradually expanding around them, that another village was to be seen, not even a collection of a few huts, and vegetation also was disappearing. Barely a few dwarf plants could now be noticed, like those on the wild heaths of Scotland. Then came the first tract of grayish sand and flint, with here and there a lintish tree and brambles. In the midst of this sterility, the rudimental carcass of the globe appeared in ridges of sharply jutting rocks. These symptoms of a totally dry and barren region greatly disquieted Dr. Ferguson. It seemed as though no caravan had ever braved this desert expanse, or would have left visible traces of its encampments, or the whiteened bones of many animals. But nothing of the kind was to be seen, and the aeronauts felt that the air long and immensity of sand would cover the whole of this desolate region. However, there was no going back. They must go forward, and indeed the doctor asked for nothing better. He would even have welcomed a tempest to 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 that had been no lack of water, but there remained only three gallons in all. The doctor put aside one gallon destined to quench the burning thirst that a heat of ninety degrees rented intolerable. Two gallons only there remained to supply the cylinder. Hence they could produce no more than 480 cubic feet of gas, yet the cylinder consumed about nine cubic feet per hour. Consequently they could not keep on longer than fifty-four hours. On all this was a mathematical calculation. Fifty-four hours said the doctor to his companions. Therefore, as I am determined not to travel by night, for fear of passing some stream of pool, we have but three days and a half of journeying, during which we must find water at all hazards. I have thought of my duty to make you aware of the real state of the case, as I have retained only one gallon for drinking, and we shall have to put ourselves on the shortest allowance. Put us on short allowance then, doctor, responded Kennedy, for we must 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 there will 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 the brandy was increased in quantity and the punch they drank, but they had to be careful with the spirits, the latter being more likely to produce than to quench thirst. The car rested, during the night, upon an immense plateau, in which there was a deep hollow. Its height was scarcely a hundred feet above the level of the sea. This circumstance gave the doctor some hope, since it recalled to his mind the conjectures of geographers, concerning the existence of a vast stretch of water in the center of Africa. But if such a lake really existed, the point was to reach it, and on a sign of change was visible in the motionless sky. To the tranquil night at its starry magnificent succeeded the unchanging daylight and the blazing rays of the sun, and from the earliest dawn the temperature became scorching. At five o'clock in the morning the doctor gave the signal for departure, and for a considerable time the balloon remained immovable in the leaden atmosphere. The doctor might have escaped this intense heat by rising into a higher range, but in order to do so he would have had to consume a large quantity of water, a thing that had now become impossible. He contented himself, therefore, with keeping the balloon at one hundred feet from the ground, and at that elevation a feeble current drove it toward the western horizon. The breakfast consisted of a little dried meat and pimecan. By noon the Victoria had advanced only a few miles. We cannot go any faster, said the doctor. We no longer command. We have to obey. Ah, doctor, here is one of those occasions when a propeller would not be a thing to be despised. Undoubtedly so, Dick, provided it would not require an expenditure of water to put an emotion. For in that case this situation would be precisely the same, moreover, up to this time, nothing practical of the sort has been invented. Balloons are still at that point where ships were before the invention of steam. It took six thousand years to invent propellors and screws, so we have time enough yet. Confounded, he said, Joe, wiping away the perspiration that was streaming from his forehead. If we had water, this heat would be of service to us, for it dilates the hydrogen in the balloon and diminishes the amount required in the spiral. Although it is true that if we were not short of the useful liquid, we should not have to economise it. Ah, that rascally savage who cussed us the tank, asterisk, 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 the unfortunate missionary from a horrible death, but the hundred pounds of water that we threw overboard would be very useful to us now. It would be 13 or 14 days more progress secured, or quite enough to carry us over this desert. We have made it last half the journey, haven't we asked, Joe? In distance, yes, but in duration, no, should the wind leave us, and it, even now, has a tendency to die away altogether. Come, sir, said Joe again, we must not complain, we must go along pretty well, thus far, and whatever happens to me, I can't get desperate. We'll find water, mind, I'll tell you so. The soil, however, ran lower from mile to mile. The undulations of the gold-bearing mountains they had left died away into the plain, like the last throes of exhausted nature. Scanty grass took the place of the fine trees of the east, only a few belts of half-scorch herbage still contented against the invasions of the sand, and the huge rocks that have rolled down from the distant summit, crushed in their full, had scattered in sharp-edge pebbles, which soon again became coarse sand, and finally impassable dust. Here at last is Africa, such as you pictured it to yourself, Joe. Was I not right in saying, wait a little, eh? Well, Master, it's all natural at least, heat and dust. It will be foolish to look for anything else in such a country. Do you see, he added, laughing, I had no confidence for my part in your forests and your prairies. They were out of reason. What was the use of coming so far to find scenery just like England? Here's the first time I believe in Africa, and I'm not sorry to get a taste of it. Dward evening, the doctor calculated that the balloon had not made 20 miles during that whole burning day, and a heated gloom closed in upon it as soon as the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, which was traced to get the sky with all the precision of a straight line. The next day was Thursday, the first in May, but the days followed as each other with desperate monotony. Each morning was like the one that had preceded it. Noom poured down the same exhaustless rays, a night condensed in its shadow, the scattered heat which the ensuing day would again bequeathed to the succeeding night. The wind, now scarcely observable, was rather a gasp than a breath, and the morning could almost be foreseen when even that gasp would cease. The doctor reacted against the gloominess of the situation and retained all the coolness and self-possession of a disciplined heart. With his glass, he scrutinized every quarter of the horizon. He saw the last rising ground gradually melt into the dead level, and the last vegetation disappearing, while before him stretched the immensity of the desert. The responsibility resting upon him pressed sorely, but he did not allow his 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 alone of friendship and of duty. Had he done well on that? Was it not like attempting to tread forbidden paths? Was he not in this trip trying to pass the borders of the impossible? Had not the Almighty reserved for later ages the knowledge of this inhospitable continent? All these thoughts, the kind that arise in hours of discouragement, succeeded each other and multiplied it in his mind, and by an irresistible association of ideas, the doctor allowed himself to be carried beyond the bounds of logic and of reason. After having established in his own mind what he should not have done, the next question was what he should do then? Would it be impossible to retrace his steps? Were there not currents higher up that would waft him to less arid regions? Well-informed with regard to the countries of which he had passed, he was utterly ignorant of those to come, and thus his conscience speaking aloud to him, he resolved in his turn to speak frankly to his two companions. He thereupon laid the whole state of the case plenty before them. 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 they think 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 the 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 than I of the perils of the enterprise, but I did not want to see them from the moment that you determined to brave them. Under present circumstances my opinion is that we should persevere, go clear to the end. Besides, to return looks to me quite as perilous as the other course. So onward, then, you may count upon us. Thanks, my gallant friends, replied the doctor, with much real feeling. I expected such devotion as this, but I needed these encouraging words. Yet once again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. And with this, the three friends, warmly grasped each other by the hand. Now hear me, said the doctor. According to my solo observations, we are not more than three hundred miles from the Gulf of Guinea. The desert, therefore, cannot extend indefinitely since the coast is inhabited, and the country has been explored for some distance back into the interior. It needs be, we can direct our course to that quarter, and it seems out of the question that we should not come across some oases or some well where we could replenish our stock of water. But what we want now is the wind, for without it we are held here suspended in the air at a dead calm. Let us wait with resignation, said the hunter. But each of the party in his turn vanly scanned the space around him during that long worrisome day. Nothing could be seen to form the basis of a hope. The very last inequalities of the soil disappeared with the setting sun, whose horizontal rays stretched in long lines of fire over the flat immensity. It was the desert. Our aeronauts had scarcely gone a distance of fifteen miles, having expended as on the preceding day one hundred and thirty-five cubic feet of gas to feed the cylinder, and two pints of water out of the remaining eight had been sacrificed to the demands of intense thirst. The night passed quietly, too quietly indeed, but the doctor did not sleep. End of Chapter 4 of Five Weeks in a Balloon Recording by Alexi Tillander Davis, California www.alexitillander.com Chapter 25 of Five Weeks in a Balloon This is the Lebervox recording. All Lebervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on a volunteer, please visit www.lebervox.org Recording by Alexi Tillander Davis, California Five Weeks in a Balloon or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen by Jules Verne Translated by William Lackland Chapter 25 A Little Philosophy A Cloud on the Horizon In the midst of a fog The Strange Balloon An Exact View of the Victoria The Palm Trees Traces of a Caravan The Well in the Mids of the Desert On the morrow there was the same purity of sky the same stillness of the atmosphere The Balloon rose to an elevation of 500 feet but it had scarcely changed its position to the westward in any perceptible degree Where right in the open deserts said the doctor Look at that vast reach of sand What a strange spectacle What a singular arrangement of nature Why should there be in one place such extreme luxuriance of vegetation yonder and here this extreme eridity and that in the same latitude and under the same rays of the sun The why concerns me but little answered Kennedy The reason interests me less than the fact The thing is so That's the important part of it Oh it is well to philosophize a little dick It does no harm Let us philosophize then if you will We have time enough before us We are hardly moving The wind is afraid to blow It sleeps That will not last forever put in Joe I think I see some banks of clouds in the east Joe's writes to the doctor after he had taken a look Good said Kennedy Now for our clouds With a fine rain and a fresh wind to dash you didn't know our faces Well we'll see dick we'll see But this is Friday master And I'm afraid of Fridays While I hope that this very day you'll get over those notions I hope so master too Phew He added mopping his face Heat's a good thing especially in winter But in summer it don't do to take too much of it Don't you fear the effect of the sun's heat on our balloon? Ask Kennedy addressing the doctor No The gut departure coating resists much higher temperatures than even this With my spiral I have subjected it inside to as much as 158 degrees sometimes and the covering does not appear to have suffered A cloud, a real cloud, shouted Joe at this moment for that piercing eyesight of his beat all the glasses And in fact a thick bank of vapor now quite distinct could be seen slowly emerging above the horizon It appeared to be very deep and as it were puffed out It was in reality a conglomeration of smaller clouds The latter invariably retained their original formation and from this circumstance the doctor concluded that there was no current of air in their collected mass This compact body of vapor had appeared about 8 o'clock in the morning and by 11 it had already reached the height of the sun's disk The latter then disappeared entirely behind them Ricky Vale and the lower belt of cloud at the same moment lifted above the line in the horizon which was again disclosed in a full blaze of daylight It's only an isolated cloud remarked the doctor It won't do to count much upon that Look Dick its shape is just the same as when we saw it this morning Then doctor there's to be neither rain nor wind at least for us I fear so The cloud keeps at a great height While doctor suppose we were to go in pursuit of this cloud since it refuses to burst upon us I fancy that to do so wouldn't help us much It would be a consumption of gas and consequently of water to little purpose But in our situation we must not leave anything untried Therefore let us ascend And with this the doctor put on a full head of flame from the cylinder and the dilation of the horizon occasioned by such sudden and intense heat sent the balloon rapidly aloft About 1500 feet from the ground it had encountered an opaque massive cloud and entered a dense fog suspended at that evillation But it did not meet with the least breath of wind This fog seemed even in destitute of humidity and the articles brought in contact with it were scarcely dampened in the slightest degree The balloon completely enveloped in the vapor gained a little increase of speed perhaps and that was all The doctor gloomily recognized what trifling success he had obtained from this maneuver and was relapsing into deep meditation when he heard Joe exclaim in terms of most intense astonishment Ah, by all that's beautiful What's the matter, Joe? Doctor, Mr. Kennedy Here's something curious What is it then? We are not alone up here There are rogues about They've stolen our invention Has he gone crazy, ask Kennedy? Joe stood there perfectly motionless the very picture of amazement Can the hot sun have orally affected the poor fellow's brains of the doctor turning to ward him? Will you tell me? Look, said Joe, pointing to a certain quarter of the sky By St. James exclaimed Kennedy in turn Why, who would have believed it? Look, look, doctor I see you said the doctor Very quietly Another balloon Another passengers Like ourselves And sure enough, there was another balloon about two hundred paces from them flooding in the air with its car and its aeronauts It was following exactly the same route as the Victoria Well, said the doctor Nothing remains for us but to make signals Take the flag, Kennedy, and show them our colors It seems that the travelers by the other balloon had just the same idea at the same moment for the same kind of flag repeated precisely the same salute with a hand that moved in just the same manner What does that mean, said Kennedy? They're apes, said Joe, imitating us It means, said the doctor, laughing, that it is you, Dick, yourself, making that signal to yourself Or in other words, that we see ourselves in the second balloon which is no other than the Victoria As to that bastard, with all respect to you, said Joe you'll never make me believe it Climb up on the edge of the car, Joe wave your arms and then you'll see Joe obeyed and all his gestures were instantaneously and exactly repeated It is merely the effect of the mirage, said the doctor and nothing else A simple optical phenomenon due to the unequal refraction of light by different layers of the atmosphere and that is all It's wonderful, said Joe who could not make up his mind to surrender but went on repeating his gesticulations What a curious sight Do you know, said Kennedy, that it's a real pleasure to have our view of our noble balloon in that style She's a beauty, isn't she? and how stately her movements as she sweeps along You may explain the matter as you like, continued Joe It's a strange thing anyhow But ere long this picture began to fade The clouds rose higher, leaving the balloon which made no further attempt to follow them and in about an hour they disappeared in the open sky The wind which had been scarcely perceptible seemed still to diminish and the doctor in perfect desperation descended toward the ground and all three of the travelers whom the incident just recorded had for a few moments diverted from their anxieties relapsed into gloomy meditation sweltering the wild beneath the scorching heat About four o'clock Joe described some objects standing out against the vast background of sand and soon was able to declare positively that there were two palm trees at no great distance Palm trees, exclaimed Ferguson Why then there's a spring, oh well He took up his glass and satisfied himself that Joe's eyes had not been mistaken At length he said over and over again Water, water, and we are saved for if we do move slowly still we move and we shall arrive at last Good master, but suppose we were to drink a mouthful in the meantime for this air is stifling Let us drink then, my boy No one waited to be coaxed a whole pint was swallowed then and there reducing the total remaining supply to three pints and a half Ah, that does one good, said Joe Wasn't it fine, Barclay and Perkins never turned out ill equal to that See the advantage of being put out on short allowance moralized the doctor It is not great after all we're toward a Kennedy and if I were never again to have the pleasure of drinking water I should agree on conditions that I should never be deprived of it At six o'clock the balloon was floating over the palm trees There were two shriveled, stunted, dried up specimens of trees two ghosts of palms without foliage and more dead than alive Ferguson examined them with terror At their feet could be seen the half-worn stones of a spring but these stones, pulverized by the baking heat of the sun seemed to be nothing now but impalpable dust There was not the slightest sign of moisture The doctor's heart shrank within him and he was about to communicate his thoughts to his companions when their exclamations attracted his attention As far as the eye could reach the eastward extended a long line of whiteened bones Pieces of skeletons surrounded the fountain A caravan had evidently made its way to that point marking its progress by its bleaching remains The weaker had fallen one by one upon the sand the stronger having at length reached this spring for which they panicked that had there found a horrible death Our travelers looked at each other and turned pale Let us not alight, said Kennedy Let us fly from this hideous spectacle There's not a drop of water here No, Dick As well past the night here as elsewhere Let us have a clear conscience in the matter We'll dig down to the very bottom of the well There has to have been a spring here and perhaps there's something left in it The Victoria touched the ground Joe and Kennedy put it into the car a quantity of sand equal to their weight and leapt out They then hastened to the well and penetrated to the interior by a flight of steps that was now nothing but dust The spring appeared to have been dry for years They dug down into a parched and powdery sand the very driest of all sand indeed There was not one trace of moisture The doctor saw them come up to the surface of the desert Saturated with perspiration, worn out, covered with fine dust Exhausted, discouraged, and despairing He then comprehended that their search had been fruitless He had expected as much and he kept silent for he felt that from this moment forth he must have courage and energy enough for three Joe brought up with him some pieces of a leather and bottle that had grown hard and horn-like with age and angrily flung them away among the bleaching bones of the caravan At supper not a word was spoken by our travellers and they even ate without appetite yet they had not up to this moment endured the real agonies of thirst and were in no desponding mood except for the future End of Chapter 5 of Five Weeks in a Balloon Recorded by Alex H. Tlander, Davis, California Chapter 26 of Five Weeks in a Balloon This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alex H. Tlander, Davis, California Five Weeks in a Balloon Or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa By Three Englishmen by Jules Verne Translated by William Lackland Chapter 26 One Hundred and Thirteen Degrees The Doctor's Reflections At Desperate Search The Cylinder Goes Out One Hundred and Twenty-Two Degrees Contemplation at the Desert A Night Walk Solitude Debility Joe's Prospects He Gives Himself One Day More The distance made by the balloon during the preceding day did not exceed ten miles and to keep it afloat, one hundred and sixty-two cubic feet of gas had been consumed. On Saturday morning, the Doctor again gave the signal for departure. The cylinder can work only six hours longer and if in that time we shall not find either a well or a spring of water, God alone knows what will become of us. No much wind this morning, Master said, Joe, but it will come up perhaps, he added, suddenly remarking the Doctor's ill-conceived depression. Vein Hope The atmosphere was at a dead calm, one of those comms which hold vessels captive in tropical seas. The heat had become intolerable and the thermometer in the shade under the awning indicated one hundred and thirteen degrees. Joe and Kennedy, reclining at full length near each other, tried, if not in slumber, at least in torpor, to forget their situation for their forced inactivity gave them periods of leisure far from pleasant. That bant is to be pitied the most who cannot wean himself from the gloomy reflections of biaxial work or some practical pursuit. But here there was nothing to look after, nothing to undertake, and they had to submit to the situation without having it in their power to ameliorate it. The pangs of thirst began to be severely felt. Brandy, far from appeasing this imperious necessity, augmented it, and richly merited the name of Tiger's Milk, applied to it by the African natives. Scarcely two pints of water remained, and that was heated. Each of the party devoured a few peches' drops with his gaze, yet neither of them dared to moisten his lips with them. Two pints of water in the midst of the desert. Then it was a Doctor Ferguson, buried in meditation, asked himself whether he had acted with prudence. Would he not have done better to have kept the water that he had decomposed in pure loss in order to sustain him in the air? He had gained a little distance, to be sure, but was he any nearer to his journey's end? What difference did sixty miles to the rear make in this region where there was no water to be had anywhere they were? The wind, should it rise, would blow there as it did here, only less strongly at this point if it came from the east. But hope urged him onward, and yet those two gallons of water, extended in vain, would have sufficed for nine days' halt in the desert, and what changes might not have occurred in nine days? Pabs too, while retaining the water, he might have ascended by throwing out ballast, at the cost merely of discharging some gas when he had again to descend. But the gas in his balloon was his blood, his very life. A thousand one such reflections world in succession through his brain, and resting his head between his hands, he sat there for hours without raising it. We must make one final effort, he said at last, about ten o'clock in the morning. We must endeavor just once more to find an atmospheric current to bear us away from here, and to that end must risk our last resources. Therefore, while his companions slept, the doctor raised the hydrogen in the balloon to an elevated temperature, and the huge glow filling out by the dilation of the gas rose straight up in the perpendicular rays of the sun. The doctor searched vainly for a breath of wind from the height of one hundred feet to that of five miles. His starting point remained fairly right below him, and absolute calm seemed to rain up to the extreme limits of the breathing atmosphere. At length the feeding supply of water gave out, the cylinder was extinguished for lack of gas, the Bunsen battery ceased to work, and the balloon, shrinking together, gently descended to the sand, and the very place that the car had hollowed out there. It was noon, and solar observations gave nineteen degrees thirty-five minutes east longitude and six degrees fifty-one minutes north latitude, or nearly five hundred miles from Lake Chad, and more than four hundred miles from the western coast of Africa. On the balloon, taking ground, Kennedy and Joe worked from the stupor. We have halted, said the Scott. We had to do so, replied the doctor, gravely. His companions understood him. The level of the soil at that point corresponded with the level of the sea, and consequently the balloon remained in perfect equilibrium and absolute motionless. The weight of the three travelers was replaced with an equivalent quality of sand, and they got out of the car. Each was absorbed with his own thoughts, and for many hours neither of them spoke. Joe prepared their evening meal, which consisted of biscuit and pomegranate, and was hardly tasted by either of the party. A mouthful of scalding water from their little store completed this gloomy repast. During the night, none of them kept awake, yet none could be precisely said to have slept. On the morning they remained only half a pint of water, and this the doctor put away, all three having resolved not to touch it until the last extremity. It was not long, however, before Joe explained, I'm choking, and the heat is getting worse. I'm not surprised at that, though, he added, consoling the thermometer. One hundred and forty degrees. The sand scorched the meat, said the hunter, as though it had just come out of a furnace, and not a cloud in the sky of fire. It's enough to drive one mad. Let us not despair, as followed the doctor. In this latitude these intense heats are invariably followed by storms, and the latter come with the suddenness of lightning. Now withstanding this disheartening clearness of the sky, great atmospheric changes may take place in less than an hour. But, asked Kennedy, is there any sign whatever of that? Well, replied the doctor, I think that there is some slight symptom of a fall in the barometer. May heaven hearken to you, Samuel, for here we are, a pin to the ground, like a bird with broken wings. With this difference, however, my dear Dick, that our wings are unhurt, and I hope that we shall be able to use them again. Ah, wind, wind, exclaimed Joe, enough to carry us to a stream or a well, and we'll be all right. We have presuvisions enough, and with water we could wait a month without suffering. But thirst is a cruel thing. It was not thirst alone, but the unchanging side of the desert that fatigued the mind. There was not a variation in the surface of the soil, nor a hillock of sand, not a pebble to relieve the gaze. This unbroken level discouraged the beholder, and gave him that kind of malady called the Desert Sickness. The impassable monotony of the arid blue sky and the vast yellow expanse of the desert sand at length produced a sensation of horror. In this inflamed atmosphere, the heat appeared to vibrate as it does above a blazing hearth, while the mind grew desperate in contemplating the limitless calm and could see no reason why the thing should ever end, since immensity is a species of eternity. Thus at last our helpless travelers, deprived of water and this torrid heat, began to fill symptoms of mental disorder. Their eyes swat in their sockets, and their gaze became confused. When night came on, the doctor determined to combat this alarming tendency by rapid walking. His idea was to pace the sandy plain for a few hours, not in search of anything, but simply for exercise. Come along, he said to his companions. Believe me, it would do you good. Out of the questions said Kennedy, I could not walk a step, and I said Joe would rather sleep. But sleep or even rest would be dangerous to you, my friends. You must react against this tendency to stupor. Come with me. But the doctor could do nothing with them, and therefore set off alone, amid the starry clearness of the night. The first few steps he took were painful, for they were the steps in an enfeebled man, quite out of practice in walking. However, he quickly saw that the exercise would be beneficial to him, and pushed on several miles to the westward. Once in rapid motion, he felt his spirits greatly cheered, when suddenly a vertigo came over him. He seemed to be poised in the edge of an abyss. His knees bent under him. The vast solitude struck terror to his heart. He found himself the main mathematical point, the center of an infinite circumference. That is to say, a nothing. The balloon had disappeared entirely in the deepening gloom. The doctor, cool, impassable, reckless explorer that he was, felt himself at last seized with a nameless dread. He strove to retrace his steps, but in vain. He called aloud, not even in the neck over-applied, and his voice died out in the empty vastness of surrounding space, like a pebble cast into a bottomless gulf. Then down he sank, fainting, on the sand alone, amid the eternal silence of the desert. At midnight he came, too, in the arms of his faceful follower, Joe. The latter, uneasy at his master's prolonged absence, had set out after him, easily tracing him by the clear imprint of his feet in the sand, and have found him lying in his womb. What has been the matter, sir, was the first inquiry. Nothing, Joe, nothing. Only a touch of weakness. That's all. It's over now. Oh, it won't amount to anything, sir. I'm sure of that. But get up on your feet if you can. There, lean upon me, and let us get back to the balloon. And the doctor, leaning on Joe's arm, returned it on the track by which he had come. You were too bold, sir. It won't do to run such risks. You might have been robbed, he added, laughing. But, sir, calm now. Let us talk seriously. Speak, I am listening to you. We must positively make up our minds to do something. Our present situation cannot last more than a few days longer, and if we get no wind, we are lost. The doctor made no reply. Well, then, one of us must sacrifice himself for the good of all, and it is most natural that it should fall to me to do so. What are you to propose? What is your plan? A very simple one. It is to take provisions enough, and to walk right on until I come to some place, as I must do soon or later. In the meantime, if heaven sends you a good wind, you need not wait, but can start again. For my part, if I come to a village, I'll work my way through with a few Arabic words that you can write for me on a slip of paper. And I'll bring you help or lose my hide. What do you think of my plan? It is absolute folly, Joe, but whether you're noble heart, the thing is impossible. You will not leave us. But, sir, we must do something, and this plan can't do you any harm. For, I say again, you need not wait. And then, after all, I may succeed. No, Joe, no. We will not separate. That would only be adding sorrow to trouble. It was written that matters should be as they were, and it is very probably written that it shall be quite otherwise by and by. Let us wait then with resignation. So be it, master, but take notice of one thing. I give you a day longer, and I'll want wait after that. Today is Sunday. We might say Monday, as it is one o'clock in the morning. And if we don't get off by Tuesday, I'll run the risk. I've made up my mind to that. The doctor made no answer, and in a few minutes they got back to the car, where he took his place beside Kennedy, who lay there plunged in silence, so complete that it could not be considered sleep. Five weeks in a balloon, or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa, by Three Englishmen, by Jules Verne, translated by William Lackland, Chapter 27 Terrific Heat, hallucinations, the last drops of water, nights of despair, and attempted suicide, the Samoom, the Oasis, the Lion and Lioness. The doctor's first care on the morrow was to consult the barometer. He found that the mercury had scarcely undergone any perceptible depression. Nothing, he murmured. Nothing. He got out of the car and scrutinized the weather. There was only the same heat, the same cloudless sky, the same merciless drought. Must we then give up to despair, he exclaimed in agony? Joe did not open his lips. He was buried in his own thoughts, and playing the expedition he had proposed. Kennedy got up feeling very ill, and a parade of nervous agitation. He was suffering horribly with thirst, and his swollen tongue and lips could hardly articulate a syllable. The store rained a few drops of water. Each of them knew this, and each was thinking of it, and felt himself drawn toward them. But neither of the three dared to take a step. Those three men, friends and companions as they were, fixed their haggad eyes upon each other with an instinct of ferocious longing, which was the most plainly revealed in the hearty scot, whose vigorous constitution yielded the soonest to those unnatural privations. Throughout the day he was delirious, pacing up and down, uttering hoarse cries, gnawing his clenched fists, and ready to open his veins and drink his own hot blood. Ah, he cried! Land of thirst! Well might you be called the land of despair? Atlantis sank down in utter prostration, and his friends heard no other sound from him than the hissing of his breath between his parts and swollen lips. Toward evening Joe had his turn of delirium. The vast expanse of sand appeared to him an immense pond, full of clear and limpid water, and more than once he dashed himself upon the scorching waste to drink long drafts and rose again with his mouth clogged with hot dust. Curse on it he yelled in his madness, it's nothing but salt water. Then, while Ferguson and Kennedy lay there motionless, the resistless longing came over him to drain the last few drops of water that had been kept in reserve. The natural instinct proved too strong. He dragged himself toward the car on his knees. He cleared of the bottle containing the precious fluid. He gave one wild eager glance, seized the treasure-store and bore it to his lips. At that instant he heard a heart-rending cry close beside him. Water, water! It was Kennedy who'd crawled up close to him and was begging there upon his knees and weaving piteously. Joe himself in tears gave the poor wretch the bottle and Kennedy drained the last drop with savage haste. Thanks, he murmured hoarsely, but Joe did not hear him, for both alike had dropped fading on the sand. What took place during the fearful night neither of them knew, but on Tuesday morning, under those showers of heat, which the sun poured down upon them, the unfortunate men felt their limbs gradually drying up, and when Joe attempted to rise, he found it impossible. He looked around him, and the car or the doctor, completely overwhelmed, sat with his arms folded on his breast, gazing with idiotic fixin'ness upon some imaginary point in space. Kennedy was frightful to behold. He was rolling his head from right to left, like a wild beast in a cage. All at once his eyes rested on the butt of his rifle, which jutted above the rear of the car. Ah, he screamed, raising himself with a superhuman effort. Desperate and mad, he snatched out the weapon and turned the barrel toward his mouth. Kennedy shouted Joe, throwing himself upon his friend. Let go, hands off, moaned the scot, and a hoarse, grating voice, and then the two struggled desperately for the rifle. Let go or I'll kill you, repeated Kennedy, but Joe clung to him only the more fiercely, and they had been contending thus without the doctor seeing them for many seconds, when suddenly the rifle went off. At the sound of its discharge the doctor rose up erect, like a specter and glared around him. But all at once his glance grew more animated. He extended his hand toward the horizon, and in a voice no longer human shrieked, There! There! Off there! There was such fearful force in the cry that Kennedy and Joe released each other and both looked where the doctor pointed. The plane was agitated like the sea, shaken by the fury of a tempest. Billows of sand went tossing over each other amid blinding clouds of dust, an immense pillow was seen whirling toward them through the air from the southeast, with terrific velocity. The sun was disappearing behind an opaque veil of cloud whose enormous barrier extended clear to the horizon, while the grains of fine sand went gliding together with all the supple ease of liquid particles, and the rising dust tide gained more and more with every second. Ferguson's eyes gleamed with a rave, energetic hope. The Samoom he exclaimed. The Samoom repeated Joe, without exactly knowing what it meant. So much the better, said Kennedy, with the bitterness of despair. So much the better, we shall die. So much the better, echoed the doctor, for we shall live. And so, saying, he began rapidly to throw out the sand that encumbered the car, and lengthy's and companions understood him and took their places at his side. And now, Joe said to the doctor, throw out some fifty pounds of your ore there. Joe no longer hesitated, although he still felt a fleeting pang of regret. The balloon once began to ascend. It was high times, said the doctor. The Samoom, in fact, came rushing on them like a thunderbolt, and a moment later the balloon would have been crushed. It all ran to Adams, annihilated. The awful whirlwind was almost upon it, and it was already pelted with showers of sand, driven like hail by the storm. Out with more ballas, shouted the doctor. There, responded Joe, tossing over a huge fragment of quartz. With this the Victoria rose swiftly above the range of the whirling column, but caught in the vast displacement of the atmosphere, thereby occasioned. It was born along with the incalculable rapidity away before this foaming sea. The three travelers did not speak. They gazed in hope, and even felt refreshed by the breath of the tempest. About three o'clock the whirlwind ceased, the sand fairly again upon the desert. Four numberless little hillocks in the sky resumed its former twinklity. The balloon, which had again lost its momentum, was floating inside of one oasis. A sort of islet studded with green trees, thrown up upon the surface of this sandy ocean. Water will find water there, said the doctor, and instantly upon opening the upper valve he let some hydrogen escape, and slowly descended, taking the ground at about two hundred feet from the edge of the oasis. In four hours the travelers had swept over a distance of two hundred and forty miles. The car was at once balanced, and Kennedy, closely followed by Joe, leapt out. Take your guns with you, said the doctor. Take your guns, and be careful. Dick Grasser's rifle had Joe tick one of his fouling pieces. They then rapidly made for the trees, and disappeared onto the fresh verger, which announced the presence of abundant springs. As they hurried on they had not taken notice of certain large footprints and fresh tracks of some living creature marked there and there in the damp soil. Suddenly a dull roar was heard, not twenty paces from them. The roar of a lion, said Joe. Good for that, said the excited hunter. We'll fight him. A man feels strong when only a fight's in question. But be careful, Mr. Kennedy. Be careful. The lives of all depend on the life of one. But Kennedy no longer heard him. He was pushing on, his eyes blazing, his rifle cocked, fearful to behold in his daring rashness. There under a palm tree stood an enormous black main lion, crouching for a spring on his antagonists. Scarcely had he caught a glimpse of the hunter when he bounded through the air, but he had not touched the ground, air or bullet pierced his heart, and he fell to the earth dead. Hurrah! Hurrah! shouted Joe with a wild exultation. Kennedy rushed toward the well, slid down the dampened steps, and flung himself a full length by the side of a fresh spring, in which he plunged his parts' lips. Joe followed suit, and for some minutes nothing was heard but the sound they made with their mouths, drinking more like madden beasts than men. Take care, Mr. Kennedy, said Joe at last. Let us not overdo the thing, and he panted for breath. But Kennedy, without a word, drank on. He even plunged his hands, and then his head into the delicious tide. He fairly reveled in its coolness. But the doctor said, Joe, our friend, Dr. Ferguson. The one word recalled Kennedy to himself, and hastily flinging a flash they had brought with him. He started on a run up the steps of the well. But what was his amazement when he saw an opaque body of enormous dimensions blocking out the passage? Joe, who was close upon Kennedy's heels, recoiled with him. We are blocked in, and trapped. Impossible! What does that mean? Take out no time to finish. A terrific war made him only too quickly aware what foe confronted him. Another lion exclaimed Joe. A lioness, rather, said Kennedy. Ah, ferocious brute, he added. I'll settle you at a moment more, and swiftly reloaded his rifle. In another instant he fired his rifle, but the animal had disappeared. Onward shouted Kennedy. No, and opposed the other. That shot did not kill her. Her body would have rolled down the steps. She's up there, ready to spring upon the first of us who appears, and he would be a lost man. But what are we to do? We must get out of this, and the doctor is expecting us. Let us decoy the animal. Take my piece, and give me your rifle. What is your plan? You'll see. And Joe, taking off his linen jacket, hung it on the end of the rifle, and thrust it above the top of the steps. The lioness flung herself furiously upon it. Kennedy was on the alert for her, and his bullet broke her shoulder. The lioness, with a frightful howl of agony, rolled down the steps, overturning Joe and her fall. The poor fellow imagined that he could already feel the enormous pause of the savage beast in his flesh, when a second detonation resounded in the narrow passage, and Dr. Ferguson appeared at the opening, above with his gun in hand, and still smoking from the discharge. Joe leapt to his feet, glambered over the body of the dead lioness, and handed out the flasks full of sparkling water to his master. To carry it to his lips, and to half empty it at a draft, was the work of an instant, and the three travellers offered up thanks from the depths of their hearts to their Providence, who had so miraculously saved them. Chapter XXVIII. An evening of delight. Joe's culinary performance. A dissertation on raw meat. The narratives of James Bruce. Camping out. Joe's dreams. The barometer begins to fall. The barometer rises again. Preparations for departure. The tempest. The evening was lovely, and our three friends enjoyed it in the cool shade of the mimosas, after a substantial were passed, at which the tea and the punch were dealt out with no niggly hand. Kennedy had traversed the little domain in all his directions. He had ransacked every thicket and satisfied himself at the bloom-party where the only living creatures in this terrestrial paradise. So they stretched themselves upon their blankets, and passed a peaceful night that brought them forgetfulness of their past sufferings. On the morrow of May 7th, the sun shone with all his splendor, but his rays could not penetrate the dense screen of palm tree foliage, and as there was no lack of provisions, the doctor resolved to arraign where he was while waiting for a favorable wind. Joe had conveyed his portable kitchen to the oasis, and proceeded to indulge in any number of culinary combinations, using water all the time with the most perfused extravagance. What a strange succession of annoyances and enjoyments, moralized Kennedy. Such abundance is this after such privations, such luxury after such want. Ah, I nearly went mad. My dear Dick, replied the doctor, had it not been for Joe, he would not be sitting here today, discoursing on the instability of human affairs. Ho-hearted friend, said Kennedy, extending his hand to Joe. There's no occasion for all that, responded the latter. But you can take your revenge some time, Mr. Kennedy, always herping that you may never have occasion to do the same for me. It's a poor constitution this of ours to succumb to so little, philosophized Dr. Ferguson. So little water, you mean, doctor, and opposed Joe. That element must be very necessary to life. Undoubtedly, and persons deprived of food hold out longer than those deprived of water. I believe it. Besides, when needs must, one can eat anything he comes across, even his fellow creatures. Although that must be a kind of food that's pretty hard to digest. The savages don't boggle much about it, said Kennedy. Yes, but then they are savages, and accustomed to devouring raw meat. It's something that I'd find very disgusting from my part. It is disgusting enough to the doctor, that's a fact, and so much so indeed that nobody believed the narratives of the earliest travelers in Africa, who brought back word that many tribes in that continent subsisted upon raw meat, and people generally refused to credit this statement. It was under such circumstances that a very singular adventure befell James Bruce. Tell it to us, doctor, we've time enough to hear it, said Joe, stretching himself alluptiously on the cool green sword. By all means, James Bruce was a Scotchman of Stringlinshire, who between 1768 and 1772 traversed all Abyssinia, as far as Lake Chiana, in search of the sources of the Nile. He afterward returned to England, but did not publish an account of his journey until in 1790. His staves were received with extreme incredulity, and such may be the reception accorded to our own. The manners and customs of the Abyssinians seemed so different from those of the English that no one would credit the description of them. Among other details, Bruce had put forth the assertion that the tribes of Eastern Africa fed upon raw flesh, and this set everybody against him. He might say so as much as he pleased, there was no one likely to go and see. One day, in a parlor at Edinburgh, a Scotch gentleman took out the subject in his presence, as it had become the topic of daily pleasantry, and in reference to eating the raw flesh, said that the thing was neither possible nor true. Bruce may never reply, but went out and returned a few minutes later with a raw steak, seeded with peppermint salt in the African style. Sir, said he to the Scotchman, in doubting my statements, you have grossly afforded me. In believing the thing to be impossible, you have been egregiously mistaken, and improved thereof, you will now eat this beef steak raw, or you will give me instant satisfaction. The Scotchman had a wholesome dread of the brawny traveller, and did eat the steak, although not without a good many rye faces. Thereupon, with the utmost coolness, James Bruce added, even in admitting, sir, that the thing weren't true, you will at least no longer maintain that it is impossible. Well, put in, said Joe, and if the Scotchman found it light heavy on his stomach, he got no more than he deserved. If on our return to England they dare to doubt what we say about our travellers. Well, Joe, what would you do? Well, I'll make the doubters swallow the pieces of the balloon, without the salt or pepper. All burst out laughing at Joe's queer notions, and thus the day slipped by in pleasant chat. With the turning strength, hope had revived, and with hope came the courage to do and to dare. The past was obliterated in the presence of the future, with providential rapidity. Joe would have been willing to remain forever in his enchanting asylum. It was the realm he had pictured in his dreams. He felt himself at home. His master had to give him exact location, and it was with the gravest area imaginable that he wrote down on his tablets fifteen degrees, forty-three minutes east longitude, and eight degrees, thirty-two minutes north latitude. Kennedy had but one regret, to wit, that he could not hunt in that miniature forest, because, according to his ideas, there was a slight deficiency of ferocious wild beasts in it. But my dear dicks are the doctor. Haven't you rather a short primary? How about the lion and the lioness? Oh, that, he ejaculated with the contempt of a thoroughbred sportsman for game already killed. But the fact is, that fighting them here would leave one disposed that we can't be far from a more fertile country. It don't prove much, Dick, for those animals, when goaded by hunger or thirst will travel long distances, and I think that tonight we'd better keep a more vigilant look out and light fire as besides. What, in such heat as this, said Joe? Well, if it's necessary, we'll have to do it, but I do think it a real pity to burn this pretty grove that has been such a comfort to us. Oh, above all things, we must take the utmost care not to set it on fire, replied the doctor, so that others in the same street as ourselves may someday find shelter here in the middle of the desert. I'll be very careful indeed, doctor, but do you think that this oasis is known? Undoubtedly, it is a holding place of the caravans that frequent the centre of Africa, and a visit from one of them might be anything but pleasant to you, Joe. Why, are there any more of those rascally and yanyems around here? Certainly, that is the general name of all the neighbouring tribes, and of the same climates the same races are likely to have similar manners and customs. Pa, said Joe, but after all, it's natural enough if savages had the ways of gentlemen, where would be the difference? By George, these fine villas wouldn't have to be coax long to eat the Scotchman's raw steak, nor the Scotchman either, into the bargain. With his very sensible observation, Joe began to get ready for his firewood up for the night, making just a little of it as possible. Fortunately, these precautions were superfluous, and each of the party, in his turn, dropped off into the soundest slumber. On the next day the weather still showed, no sign of change, but kept provokingly and obstinately fair. The balloon remained motionless, without any oscillation to betray a breath of wind. The doctor began to get uneasy again. If their stay in the desert were to be prolonged like this, their provisions would give out. After nearly perishing for want of water, they would, at last, have to starve to death. But he took fresh courage as he saw the mercury fall considerably in the barometer, and noticed evident signs of an early change in the atmosphere. He therefore resolved to make all his preparations for a start, so as to avail himself of the first opportunity. The feeding tank and the water tank were both completely filled. Then he had to re-establish the equilibrium of the balloon, and Joe was obliged to part with another considerable portion of his precious quartz. With restored health, his ambitious notions had come back to him, and he made more than one rife face before bending his master. But that convinced him that he could not carry so considerable weight with him through the air, and gave him his choice between the water and the gold. Joe hesitated no longer, but flung out the requisite quantity of his much prized ore upon the sand. The next people will come this way, here, remarked, will be rather surprised to find a fortune in such a place. As opposed to some learned travelers should come across the specimens, eh, Sir Justin Kennedy? He may be certain, Dick, that they would take him by surprise, and that he would publish his astonishment in several folios, so that someday we shall hear of a wonderful deposit of gold-bearing quartz in the midst of the African sands. And Joe there will be the cause of it all. The idea of misdefying some learned sage tickled Joe hugely and made him laugh. During the rest of the day the doctor vaguely kept on the watch for exchange of weather. The temperature rose, and had it not been for the shade of the oasis, would have been insupportable. The thermometer marked 149 degrees in the sun, and a veritable rain of fire filled the air. This was the most intense heat that they hadn't yet noted. Joe arranged their bivouac for that evening, as he had done for the previous night, and during the wash he just kept that by the doctor and Kennedy there was no fresh incident. By toward three o'clock in the morning, while Joe was unguarded, the temperatures suddenly fell. The sky became overcast with clouds, and the darkness increased. Turn out, cried Joe, rousing his companions, turn out, here's the wind. At last exclaimed the doctor, eyeing the heavens. But it is a storm, the balloon, that's hastened to the balloon. It was high time for them to reach it. The Victoria was bending to the force of the hurricane, and dragging it along the car, the latter grazing the sand. At any portion of the bios being accidentally thrown out, the balloon would have been swept away, and all hope of recovering it had been forever lost. But fleet-footed Joe fought forth his utmost speed, and checked the car, while the balloon beat upon the sand, at the risk of being torn to pieces. The doctor followed by Kennedy, leapt in, and lit his cylinder, while his companions throughout the superfluous ballast. The travelers took one last look at the trees of the oasis, bowing to the force of the hurricane, and soon catching the wind at two hundred feet above the ground disappeared in the gloom. CHAPTER XXIX SIGNS OF VEGETATION THE FANTASTIC NOTION OF A FRENCH AUTHOR A MAGNIVASANT COUNTRY THE KINGDOM OF ADAMOVA THE EXPLORATIONS OF SPEAK AND BURTON CONNECTED WITH THOSE OF DR. BURRATH THE ATLANTICA MOUNTAINS THE RIVER BANUE, THE CITY OF YOLA, THE BAGUELI, MOUTT MENDEF From the moment their departures the travelers moved with great velocity. They longed to leave behind them the desert, which had so nearly been fatal to them. Above a quarter-past nine in the morning they caught a glimpse of some signs of vegetation, herbage floating on a settee of sand, and announcing, as the weeds upon the ocean did to Christopher Columbus, the nearness of the shore, green shoots peeping between pebbles that were, in their turn, to be the rocks of that vast expanse. Hills but of trifling height were seen in wavy lines upon the horizon. Their profile, muffled by the heavy mist, was defined by it vaguely. The monotony, however, was beginning to disappear. The Doctor hailed with joy the new country thus disclosed, and like a semen on lookout at the mast-head he was ready to shout aloud, LAND HO, LAND! And now or later the continent spread broadly before their gaze, still wild in aspect but less flat, less denuded, and with a few trees standing out against the grey sky. We are in a civilized country at last, said the Hunter. Civilized? Well, that's one way of speaking, but there are no people to be seen yet. It would not be long before we see them, said Ferguson, at our present rate of travel. Are we still in the Negro country, Doctor? Yes, and on our way to the country of the Arabs. What, real Arabs, sir, with their camels? No, not many camels. They are scarce if not altogether unknown in these regions. We must go a few degrees farther north to see them. What a pity! And why, Joe? Because if the wind fell contrary, they might be of use to us. How so? Well, sir, it's just a notion that's got into my head. We might hitch them to the car and make them tow us along. What do you say to that, Doctor? Poor Joe, another person had that idea in advance of you. It was used by a very grifted French author, M. Mary, and a romance. It is true. He has his travels drawn along in a bloom by a team of camels. Then the lion comes up, devours the camel, swallows the tow rope, and hauls the balloon in their stead, and so on through the story. He sees that the whole thing is the top flower of fancy, but has nothing in common with our style of locomotion. Joe, a little cut down at learning that his idea had been used already, cuddled his wits to imagine what animal could have devoured the lion. But he could not guess it, and so quietly went on scanning the appearance of the country. A lake of medium extent stretched away before him, surrounded by an amphitheater of hills, which yet could not be dignified with the name of the mountains. There were winding valleys, numerous and fertile, with their tangable thickets of the most various trees. The African oil tree rose above the mass, with leaves fifteen feet in length upon its stalk. The latter studded with sharp thorns, the bomb backs, or silk-cutting tree, filled the wind as if swept by. With the fine down of its seeds, the pungent odors of the pendunas, the kinder of the Arabs, perfumed the air up to the height where the Victoria was sailing. The paw-paw tree, with its palm-shaped leaves. The stochulia, which produces the sudan nut, the baobab, and the banana tree, completed the luxuriant floor of these intertropical regions. The country's superb, said the doctor. Here are some animals, added Joe. Men are not far away. Oh, what magnificent elephants, exclaimed Kennedy. Is it a way to get a little shooting? How could we manage to half in a current as strong as this? No, Dick. You must taste a little of the fortune of Tantalus just now. You shall make up for it afterward. And in truth there was enough to excite the fancy of a sportsman. Dick's heart fairly leaped in his breast as he grasped the butt of his purdy. The fauna of the region was as striking as its floor. The waddox reveled in dense herbage that often concealed his whole body. Gray, black, and yellow elephants of the most gigantic size burst headlong, like a living hurricane through the forest, breaking, rending, tearing down, devastating everything in their path upon the woody slopes of the hills, trickled cascades, and springs flowing northward. There, too, the hippopotamia bathed their huge forms, splashing and snorting as they fulocked in the water, and lamenting, twelve feet long, with bodies like seals, stretched themselves along the banks, turning up toward the sun, their rounded teeth swollen with milk. It was a whole menagerie of rare and curious beasts in a wondrous hot house, where numberless birds with plumage of a thousand hues gleamed and flooded in the sunshine. By this prodigality of nature the doctor recognized the splendid kingdom of Atamova. We are now beginning to trench upon the brow of modern discovery. I have taken up the lost scent of preceding travelers. It is a happy chance, my friends, or we shall be unable to link the toils of Captain's Burton and speak with the explorations of Dr. Barth. We have left the Englishman behind us, and now have caught up with the hamburger. It will not be long, either, before we arrive at the extreme point attained by that daring explorer. It seems to me there is a vast extent of country between the two explored routes from Mark Kennedy, at least if I am to judge by the distance that we have made. It is easy to determine, take the map and see what is the longitude of the southern point of Lake Ukurui, reached by speak. It is near this 37th degree, and the city of Yola, which we shall sight this evening, and to which Barth penetrated, what is its position? It is about then the 12th degree of East Longitude. Then there are 25 degrees, or counting 60 miles to each, about 1500 miles in all. A nice little walk, said Joe, for people who have to go on foot. It will be accomplished, however. Livingston and Moffat are pushing on up this line toward the interior. Nyasa, which they have discovered, is not far from Lake Tanganyika, seen by Burton. Air of the close of the century, these regions will undoubtedly be explored. But, added the doctor, consulting his compass, I regret that the wind is carrying us so far to the westward. I wanted to get to the north. After twelve hours of progress, the Victoria found herself on the confines of Nikritia. The first inhabitants of this region, the Chuaus Arabs, were feeding their wandering flocks. The immense summits of the Atlantic mountains, seen above the horizon, mountains that no European foot had yet scaled, and whose height is computed to be 10,000 feet. Their western slope determines the flow of all the waters in this region of Africa toward the ocean. They are the mountains of the moon to this part of the continent. I lent the real river greeted the gays of our travelers, and by the enormous ant hills seen in its vicinity, the doctor recognized the Benue, one of the greatest tributaries of the Niger, the one which the natives have called the Fountain of the Waters. This river said the doctor to his companions, will one day be the natural channel of communication with the interior of Nikritia. Under the command of one of our brave captains, the steam of Pleiades has already ascended as far as the town of Yola. You see that we are not in an unknown country. Numerous slaves were engaged in the labors of the field, cutting sorgho, a kind of millet which forms the chief basis of their diet, and the most stupid expressions of astonishment ensued as the victorious fed past like a meteor. That evening the balloon halted about forty miles from Yola, and ahead of it, but in the distance, rose the two sharp cones of Mount Mendev. The doctor threw out his anchors, and made fast to the top of a high tree. But a very violent wind beat upon the balloon with such force as to throw it over on its side, thus rendering the position of the car sometimes extremely dangerous. Ferguson did not close his all night, and he was repeatedly on the point of cutting the anchor rope and scutting away before the gale. At length, however, the storm abated, and the oscillations of the balloon ceased to be alarming. On the moral the wind was more moderate, but it carried our travellants away from the city of Yola, which recently rebuilt by the Fulans, excited Ferguson's curiosity. However, he had to make of his mind to being born farther to the northward, and even a little to the east. Kenny proposed a halt in this fine hunting country, and Joe declared that the need of fresh meat was beginning to be felt. But the savage customs of the country, the attitude of the population, and some shots fired at the Victoria, admonished the doctor to continue his journey. They were then crossing a region that was the scene of massacres and burnings, and where war-like conflicts between the barbarian sultans, contending for their power amid the most atrocious carnage, never cease. Numerous and populous villages of long, low huts stretched away between broad pasture fields, whose dense urbage was besprinkled with violet-colored blossoms. The huts, looking like huge beehives, were shuttered behind the bristling palisades. The wild hillsides and hollows frequently reminded the beholder of the glens in the highlands of Scotland, as Kennedy more than once remarked. In spite of all he could do, the doctor bore directly to the northeast toward Mount Bendiff, which was lost in the midst of environment clouds. The lofty summits of these mountains separate the valley of the Niger from the basin of Lake Chad. Soon afterwards was seen the Begele, with its eighteen villages clinging to its flanks like a whole brood of children to them by this bosom, a magnificent spectacle for the whole beholder, whose gaze commanded and took in the entire picture at one view. Even the ravines were seen to be covered with fields of rice and of arachides. By three o'clock the Victoria was directly in front of Mount Bendiff. It had been impossible to avoid it. The only thing to be done was to cross it. The doctor, by means of a temperature increased to one hundred and eighty degrees, gave the balloon a fresh essential force of nearly sixteen hundred pounds, and it went up to an elevation of more than eight thousand feet, the greatest height attained during the journey. The temperature of the atmosphere was so much cooler at that point that the aeronauts had to resort to their blankets and thick coverings. Ferguson was in haste to descend, covering at the balloon gave indications of bursting, but in the meanwhile he had time to satisfy himself of the volcanic origin of the mountain, his extinct craters are now but deep abysses. Immense accumulations of bird guano gave the size of Mount Bendiff the appearance of calcareous rocks, and there was enough of the deposit to manure all the lands in the United Kingdom. At five o'clock the Victoria, sheltered from the south winds, went gently gliding along the slopes of the mountain, and stopped in a wide clearing remote from any habitation. The instant it touched the soil all needful precautions were taken to hold it there firmly, and Kennedy, fouling piece in hand, sailed out upon the slipping plain, erelong he returned with half a dozen wild ducks and a kind of snipe which Joe served up in his best style. The meal was hardly relished, and the night was passed in undisturbed and refreshing slumber. End of Chapter 29 of Five Weeks in a Balloon Recording by Alex E. Tolander Davis, California www.alexetholander.com Chapter 30 of Five Weeks in a Balloon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alex E. Tolander Roseville, California Five Weeks in a Balloon or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen by Jules Verne Translated by William Lackland Chapter 30 Mosfea The Chic Denim, Clapperton, and Aldney Vogel The Capital of Logum Tool Becalmed above Kurnak The Governor and his Court The Attack The Incendiary Pigeons On the next day, May 11th, the Victoria resumed her adventurous journey. Her passengers had the same confidence in her that a good seaman has in his ship. In terrific hurricanes and tropical heats, when making dangerous departures and descents still more dangerous, it had at all times and in all places come out safely. It might almost have been said that Ferguson managed it with a wave of the hand and hence without knowing in advance where the point of arrival would be, the doctor had no fears considering the successful issue of his journey. However, in this country of barbarians and fanatics, prudence obliged him to take the strictest precautions. He therefore counseled his companions to have their eyes wide open for everything and at all hours. The wind drifted a little more to the northward, and toward nine o'clock they sighted the largest city of Mosfea, built upon an eminence which was itself endorsed between two lofty mountains. Its position was impregnable, a narrow road running between a marsh and a thick wood, being the only channel of approach to it. At the moment of watch, we write, a chic accompanied by a mounted escort and clad in a garb of brilliant colors preceded by couriers and trumpeters who put aside the bowels of the trees as he rode up, was making his grand entrance into the place. The doctor lowered the balloon in order to get a better look at this cavalcade of natives, but as the balloon grew larger to their eyes they began to show symptoms of intensive fright and length made off in different directions as fast as their legs and those of their horses could carry them. The chic alone did not budge an inch, he merely grasped as long must get cocked it and proudly waited in silence. The doctor came on to within 150 feet of him, and then with his roundest and fullest voice saluted him cordiously in the Arabic tone. But upon hearing these words falling as it seemed from the sky, the chic dismounted and prostrated himself in the dust of the highway, where the doctor had to leave him, finding it impossible to divert for him from his adoration. Unquestionably, Ferguson remarked, those people take us for supernatural beings. When Europeans came among them for the first time, they were mistaken for creatures of a higher race. When this chic comes to speak of today's meetings, he will not fail to embellish the circumstance with all the resources of an Arab imagination. He may therefore judge what an account their religions will give us someday. Not such a desirable thing at all, after all, said the scot. In the point of view of that effect civilization it would be better to pass for mere men. That would give these Negro races a superior idea of European power. Very good, my dear dick, but what can we do about it? You might sit all day explaining the mechanism of balloon to the savants of this country, and yet they would not comprehend you, but would persist in ascribing it to supernatural aid. Doctor, you spoke of the first time Europeans visited these regions. Who were the visitors, inquired Joe? My dear fellow, we are now upon the very track of Major Denim. It was in this very city of Mosfea that he was received by the Sultan of Mandara, he acquitted the Bornu country. He accompanied the sheik in an expedition against the Filates. He assisted in the attack on the city, which, with its arrows alone, bravely resisted the bullets of the Arabs, and put the sheik's troops to fight. All this was but a pretext for murders, raids, and pillage. The Major was completely plundered and stripped, and there had it not been for his horse, under whose stomach he clung, with the skill of an Indian writer, and was born with a headlong gallop from his barbers pursuers. He never could have made his way back to Kuka, the capital of Bornu. Who was this Major Denim? A fearless Englishman who, between 1822 and 1824, commanded an expedition into the Bornu country, in company with Captain Claverton on Dr. Udni. They set out from Tripoli in the month of March, reached Muzukh, the capital Fez, and following the route which, at a later period, Dr. Barth was to pursue on his way back to Europe. They arrived on the 16th of February, 1823, at Kuka, near Lake Chad. Denim made several explorations in Bornu, in Mandara, and to the eastern shores of the lake. In the meantime, on the 15th of December, 1823, Captain Claverton and Dr. Udni had pushed their way through the Sudan country, as far as Sakatu, and Udni died of fatigue and exhaustion in the town of Murmur. This part of Africa has, therefore, paid a heavy tribute of victims to the cause of science, said Kennedy. Yes, this country is fatal to travelers. We are moving directly toward the Kingdom of Baguimi, which Vogel traversed in 1856, so as to reach the Wadiah country where he disappeared. This young man, at the age of 23, had been sent to cooperate with Dr. Barth. They met on the 1st of December, 1854, and thereupon commenced his explorations of the country. Toward 1856, he announced, in the last letters received from him, his intention to greconoider the Kingdom of Wadiah, which no European had yet penetrated. It appears that he got as far as Wawra, the capital, where, according to some accounts, he was made prisoner, and according to others, was put to death for having attempted to ascend a sacred mountain in the environments. But we must not too lightly admit the death of travelers, since that does away with the necessity of going in search of them. For instance, how often was the death of Dr. Barth reported to his own great annoyance? It is therefore very possible that Vogel may still be held as a prisoner of the Sultan of Wadiah, in the hope of obtaining a good ransom for him. Barrow and Denimans was about starting for the Wadiah country when he died in Cairo in 1855, and we now know that the Hooglin had set out on Vogel's track with the expedition sent from Lipsik so that we shall soon be accurately informed as to the fate of that young and interesting explorer. Footnote. Since the Doctor's departure, Ledin's written from El Obed by Dr. Mönzinger, the newly appointed head of the expedition, unfortunately placed the death of Dr. Vogel beyond a doubt. Bosphair had disappeared from the horizon, long ere this, and the Madara country was developing to the gaze of our aeronauts in its astonishing fertility, with its forest of acacias, its loggus trees covered with red flowers, and their abatious plants of its fields of cotton and indigo trees. The river Share, which eighty miles farther on rolled its impetuous waters into Lake Chad, was quite distinctly seen. The Doctor got his companions to trace its course upon the maps drawn by Dr. Barth. You perceive, said he, that the labors of this savant have been conducted with great precision. We are moving directly toward the logoom region, and perhaps towards Kernak, its capital. It was there that poor tool died at the age of scarcely twenty-two. He was a young Englishman, an ensign in the eightieth regiment, who a few weeks before had joined major denim in Africa, and it was not long ere he there met his death. Ah, this vast country might well be called the graveyard of European travellers. Some boats fifty feet long were descending the current of the Shari. The Victoria, then one thousand feet above the soil, hardly attracted the attention of the natives, but the wind, which until then have been blowing with a certain degree of strength, was falling off. Is it possible that we are to be caught in another dead calm, said the doctor? Well, with no lack of water, nor the desert of fear anyhow, Master, said Joe. No, but there are races here, still more to be dreaded. Why, said Joe again, there's something like a town. This is Kernak. The last puffs of the breeze are wafting us to it, and if we choose, we can take an exact plan of the place. Shall we not go nearer to it, asked Kennedy? Nothing easier, Dick. We are right over it. Allow me to turn the stopcock of the cylinder, and will not be long in descending. Half an hour later, the balloon hung motionless about two hundred feet from the ground. Here we are, said the doctor. Nearer to Kernak, then a man would be to London, if he were perched in a couple of St. Paul's, so we can take a survey at our ease. What is that tick-tacking sound that we hear on all sides? Joe looked attentively, and at length discovered that the noise they heard was produced by a number of weavers beating cloths stretched in the open air on large trunks of trees. The capital of Lagoom could then be seeded in its entire extent, like an unrolled chart. It is really a city with straight rows of houses and quite wide streets. In the midst of a large open space, there was a slave market attended by a great crowd of customers, for the Mandara women, who have extremely small hands and feet, are an excellent request and can be sold at lucrative rates. At the side of the Victoria, the scene so often produced occurred again. At first there were outcries, and then followed generals to befaction. Business was abandoned, work was flung aside, and all noise ceased. The aeronauts remained as they were, completely motionless, and lost not a detail of the populous city. They even went down to within sixty feet of the ground. Hereupon, the governor of Lagoom came out from his residence, displaying his green standard, and accompanied by his musicians, who blew on horse-buffalo horns, as though they would split their cheeks or anything else, except their own lungs. The crowd at once gathered around him, in the mean, while Dr. Ferguson tried to make himself heard, but in vain. This population looked like proud and intelligent people, with their high foreheads, their almost aquiline noses, and their curling hair. But at presence that Victoria troubled them greatly. Horsemen could be seen galloping in all directions, and it soon became evident that the governor's troops were assembling to oppose so extraordinary a foe. Joe wore himself out, waving handkerchiefs of every color and shape to them. Visit, but his exertions were all to no purpose. However, the sheik, surrounded by his court, proclaiming silence, and pronounced a discourse of which the doctor could not understand a word. It was Arabic, mixed with Baghimi. He could make it out enough, however, by the universal language of gestures, to be aware that he was receiving a very polite invitation to depart. Indeed, he would have asked for nothing better, but for lack of wind the thing had become impossible. His non-compliance, therefore, exasperated the governor, whose courtiers in attendance set up a furious howl to enforce immediate obedience on the part of their aerial monster. They were odd-looking fellows, those courtiers, with their five or six shirts swathed around their bodies. They had enormous stomachs, some of which actually seemed to be artificial. The doctor surprised his companions by informing them that this was the way to pay court to the sultan. Their rotundity of the stomach indicated the ambition of its possessor. These corpulent gentry gesticulated and bawled at the top of their voices, one of them particularly distinguishing himself above the rest, to such an extent indeed that he must have been a prime minister, at least, if the disturbance he made was any criterion of his rank. The common rabble of dusky denizens united their howlings with the uproar of the court, repeating their gesticulations like so many monkeys, and thereby producing a single and instantaneous movement of 10,000 arms at one time. To these means of intubation, which were presently deemed insufficient, were added others still more formidable. Soldiers, armed with bows and arrows, were drawn up in line of battle, but by this time the balloon was expanding and rising quietly beyond their reach. Upon this the governor seized a musket and aimed it at the balloon. But Kennedy, who was watching him, shattered the uplifted weapon in the sheik's grasp. At this unaffected blow there was a general rout. Every mother's son of them scampered for his dwelling with the utmost celerity and stayed there, so that the streets of the town were absolutely deserted for the remainder of that day. Night came and a lot of breath of wind was stirring. The aeronauts had to make up their minds to remain motionless at the distance of but 300 feet above the ground. Not a fire or light shone in the deep gloom, and a round rain the silence of death, but the doctor only redoubled his visitants. At this apparent quiet might conceal some snare. And he had reason to be watchful. About midnight the whole city seemed to be in a blaze. Hundreds of streaks of flames crossed each other and shot to and fro in the air-like rockets, forming a regular network of fire. That's really curious, said the doctor, somewhat puzzled to make out what it meant. By all that's glorious, shouted Kennedy, it looks as if the fire were ascending and coming up toward us. And sure enough, with an accompaniment of muskets shots, yelling and din of every description, the mass of fire was indeed mounting toward the Victoria. Joe got ready to throw out ballast, and Ferguson was not long against in the truth. Thousands of pigeons, their tails garnished with combustibles, have been set loose and driven toward the Victoria. And now, in their terror, they were flying high up, zigzagging the atmosphere with lines of fire. Kennedy was preparing to discharge all of his batteries into the middle of the ascending multitude. But what could he have done against such a numberless army? The pigeons were already whisking around the car. They were even surrounding the balloon, the sides of which reflecting their illumination looked as though enveloped with a network of fire. The Doctor dead hesitated no longer, and throwing out a fragment of quartz, he kept himself beyond the reach of these dangerous assailants. And for two hours afterward, he could see them wandering either and thither through the darkness of the night until, little by little, their light diminished, and they one by one died out. Now he may sleep in quiet to the Doctor. Not badly got up for barbarians mused friend Joe speaking his thoughts aloud. Oh, they employed these pigeons frequently to set fire to the snatch of hostile villages. But this time the village mounted higher than they could go. Why, positively, a balloon need fear no enemies? Yes, indeed, it may, objected Ferguson. What are they then, Doctor? They are the careless people in the car, so my friends, let us have vigilance in all places and at all times. End of Chapter 30 of Five Weeks in a Balloon. Recording by Alex C. Tillander, Roseville, California. www.alexatillander.com