Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER THIRD.

The Doc­tor’s Friend.–The Ori­gin of their Friend­ship.–Dick Kennedy at Lon­don.–An un­ex­pect­ed but not very con­sol­ing Pro­pos­al.–A Proverb by no means cheer­ing.–A few Names from the African Mar­ty­rol­ogy.–The Ad­van­tages of a Bal­loon.–Dr. Fer­gu­son’s Se­cret.

Dr. Fer­gu­son had a friend–not an­oth­er self, in­deed, an al­ter ego, for friend­ship could not ex­ist be­tween two be­ings ex­act­ly alike.

But, if they pos­sessed dif­fer­ent qual­ities, ap­ti­tudes, and tem­per­aments, Dick Kennedy and Samuel Fer­gu­son lived with one and the same heart, and that gave them no great trou­ble. In fact, quite the re­verse.

Dick Kennedy was a Scotch­man, in the full ac­cep­ta­tion of the word–open, res­olute, and head­strong. He lived in the town of Lei­th, which is near Ed­in­burgh, and, in truth, is a mere sub­urb of Auld Reekie. Some­times he was a fish­er­man, but he was al­ways and ev­ery­where a de­ter­mined hunter, and that was noth­ing re­mark­able for a son of Cale­do­nia, who had known some lit­tle climb­ing among the High­land moun­tains. He was cit­ed as a won­der­ful shot with the ri­fle, since not on­ly could he split a bul­let on a knife-​blade, but he could di­vide it in­to two such equal parts that, up­on weigh­ing them, scarce­ly any dif­fer­ence would be per­cep­ti­ble.

Kennedy’s coun­te­nance strik­ing­ly re­called that of Her­bert Glendin­ning, as Sir Wal­ter Scott has de­pict­ed it in “The Monastery”; his stature was above six feet; full of grace and easy move­ment, he yet seemed gift­ed with her­culean strength; a face em­browned by the sun; eyes keen and black; a nat­ural air of dar­ing courage; in fine, some­thing sound, sol­id, and re­li­able in his en­tire per­son, spoke, at first glance, in fa­vor of the bon­ny Scot.

The ac­quain­tance­ship of these two friends had been formed in In­dia, when they be­longed to the same reg­iment. While Dick would be out in pur­suit of the tiger and the ele­phant, Samuel would be in search of plants and in­sects. Each could call him­self ex­pert in his own province, and more than one rare botan­ical spec­imen, that to sci­ence was as great a vic­to­ry won as the con­quest of a pair of ivory tusks, be­came the doc­tor’s booty.

These two young men, more­over, nev­er had oc­ca­sion to save each oth­er’s lives, or to ren­der any re­cip­ro­cal ser­vice. Hence, an un­al­ter­able friend­ship. Des­tiny some­times bore them apart, but sym­pa­thy al­ways unit­ed them again.

Since their re­turn to Eng­land they had been fre­quent­ly sep­arat­ed by the doc­tor’s dis­tant ex­pe­di­tions; but, on his re­turn, the lat­ter nev­er failed to go, not to ASK for hos­pi­tal­ity, but to be­stow some weeks of his pres­ence at the home of his crony Dick.

The Scot talked of the past; the doc­tor busi­ly pre­pared for the fu­ture. The one looked back, the oth­er for­ward. Hence, a rest­less spir­it per­son­ified in Fer­gu­son; per­fect calm­ness typ­ified in Kennedy–such was the con­trast.

Af­ter his jour­ney to the Thi­bet, the doc­tor had re­mained near­ly two years with­out hint­ing at new ex­plo­rations; and Dick, sup­pos­ing that his friend’s in­stinct for trav­el and thirst for ad­ven­ture had at length died out, was per­fect­ly en­chant­ed. They would have end­ed bad­ly, some day or oth­er, he thought to him­self; no mat­ter what ex­pe­ri­ence one has with men, one does not trav­el al­ways with im­puni­ty among can­ni­bals and wild beasts. So, Kennedy be­sought the doc­tor to tie up his bark for life, hav­ing done enough for sci­ence, and too much for the grat­itude of men.

The doc­tor con­tent­ed him­self with mak­ing no re­ply to this. He re­mained ab­sorbed in his own re­flec­tions, giv­ing him­self up to se­cret cal­cu­la­tions, pass­ing his nights among heaps of fig­ures, and mak­ing ex­per­iments with the strangest-​look­ing ma­chin­ery, in­ex­pli­ca­ble to ev­ery­body but him­self. It could read­ily be guessed, though, that some great thought was fer­ment­ing in his brain.

“What can he have been plan­ning?” won­dered Kennedy, when, in the month of Jan­uary, his friend quit­ted him to re­turn to Lon­don.

He found out one morn­ing when he looked in­to the Dai­ly Tele­graph.

“Mer­ci­ful Heav­en!” he ex­claimed, “the lu­natic! the mad­man! Cross Africa in a bal­loon! Noth­ing but that was want­ed to cap the cli­max! That’s what he’s been both­er­ing his wits about these two years past!”

Now, read­er, sub­sti­tute for all these ex­cla­ma­tion points, as many ring­ing thumps with a brawny fist up­on the ta­ble, and you have some idea of the man­ual ex­er­cise that Dick went through while he thus spoke.

When his con­fi­den­tial maid-​of-​all-​work, the aged El­speth, tried to in­sin­uate that the whole thing might be a hoax–

“Not a bit of it!” said he. “Don’t I know my man? Isn’t it just like him? Trav­el through the air! There, now, he’s jeal­ous of the ea­gles, next! No! I war­rant you, he’ll not do it! I’ll find a way to stop him! He! why if they’d let him alone, he’d start some day for the moon!”

On that very evening Kennedy, half alarmed, and half ex­as­per­at­ed, took the train for Lon­don, where he ar­rived next morn­ing.

Three-​quar­ters of an hour lat­er a cab de­posit­ed him at the door of the doc­tor’s mod­est dwelling, in So­ho Square, Greek Street. Forth­with he bound­ed up the steps and an­nounced his ar­rival with five good, hearty, sound­ing raps at the door.

Fer­gu­son opened, in per­son.

“Dick! you here?” he ex­claimed, but with no great ex­pres­sion of sur­prise, af­ter all.

“Dick him­self!” was the re­sponse.

“What, my dear boy, you at Lon­don, and this the mid-​sea­son of the win­ter shoot­ing?”

“Yes! here I am, at Lon­don!”

“And what have you come to town for?”

“To pre­vent the great­est piece of fol­ly that ev­er was con­ceived.”

“Fol­ly!” said the doc­tor.

“Is what this pa­per says, the truth?” re­joined Kennedy, hold­ing out the copy of the Dai­ly Tele­graph, men­tioned above.

“Ah! that’s what you mean, is it? These news­pa­pers are great tat­tlers! But, sit down, my dear Dick.”

“No, I won’t sit down!–Then, you re­al­ly in­tend to at­tempt this jour­ney?”

“Most cer­tain­ly! all my prepa­ra­tions are get­ting along fine­ly, and I–“

“Where are your traps? Let me have a chance at them! I’ll make them fly! I’ll put your prepa­ra­tions in fine or­der.” And so say­ing, the gal­lant Scot gave way to a gen­uine ex­plo­sion of wrath.

“Come, be calm, my dear Dick!” re­sumed the doc­tor. “You’re an­gry at me be­cause I did not ac­quaint you with my new project.”

“He calls this his new project!”

“I have been very busy,” the doc­tor went on, with­out heed­ing the in­ter­rup­tion; “I have had so much to look af­ter! But rest as­sured that I should not have start­ed with­out writ­ing to you.”

“Oh, in­deed! I’m high­ly hon­ored.”

“Be­cause it is my in­ten­tion to take you with me.”

Up­on this, the Scotch­man gave a leap that a wild goat would not have been ashamed of among his na­tive crags.

“Ah! re­al­ly, then, you want them to send us both to Bed­lam!”

“I have count­ed pos­itive­ly up­on you, my dear Dick, and I have picked you out from all the rest.”

Kennedy stood speech­less with amaze­ment.

“Af­ter lis­ten­ing to me for ten min­utes,” said the doc­tor, “you will thank me!”

“Are you speak­ing se­ri­ous­ly?”

“Very se­ri­ous­ly.”

“And sup­pose that I refuse to go with you?”

“But you won’t refuse.”

“But, sup­pose that I were to refuse?”

“Well, I’d go alone.”

“Let us sit down,” said Kennedy, “and talk with­out ex­cite­ment. The mo­ment you give up jest­ing about it, we can dis­cuss the thing.”

“Let us dis­cuss it, then, at break­fast, if you have no ob­jec­tions, my dear Dick.”

The two friends took their seats op­po­site to each oth­er, at a lit­tle ta­ble with a plate of toast and a huge tea-​urn be­fore them.

“My dear Samuel,” said the sports­man, “your project is in­sane! it is im­pos­si­ble! it has no re­sem­blance to any­thing rea­son­able or prac­ti­ca­ble!”

“That’s for us to find out when we shall have tried it!”

“But try­ing it is ex­act­ly what you ought not to at­tempt.”

“Why so, if you please?”

“Well, the risks, the dif­fi­cul­ty of the thing.”

“As for dif­fi­cul­ties,” replied Fer­gu­son, in a se­ri­ous tone, “they were made to be over­come; as for risks and dan­gers, who can flat­ter him­self that he is to es­cape them? Ev­ery thing in life in­volves dan­ger; it may even be dan­ger­ous to sit down at one’s own ta­ble, or to put one’s hat on one’s own head. More­over, we must look up­on what is to oc­cur as hav­ing al­ready oc­curred, and see noth­ing but the present in the fu­ture, for the fu­ture is but the present a lit­tle far­ther on.”

“There it is!” ex­claimed Kennedy, with a shrug. “As great a fa­tal­ist as ev­er!”

“Yes! but in the good sense of the word. Let us not trou­ble our­selves, then, about what fate has in store for us, and let us not for­get our good old En­glish proverb: ‘The man who was born to be hung will nev­er be drowned!’”

There was no re­ply to make, but that did not pre­vent Kennedy from re­sum­ing a se­ries of ar­gu­ments which may be read­ily con­jec­tured, but which were too long for us to re­peat.

“Well, then,” he said, af­ter an hour’s dis­cus­sion, “if you are ab­so­lute­ly de­ter­mined to make this trip across the African con­ti­nent–if it is nec­es­sary for your hap­pi­ness, why not pur­sue the or­di­nary routes?”

“Why?” ejac­ulat­ed the doc­tor, grow­ing an­imat­ed. “Be­cause, all at­tempts to do so, up to this time, have ut­ter­ly failed. Be­cause, from Mun­go Park, as­sas­si­nat­ed on the Niger, to Vo­gel, who dis­ap­peared in the Wadai coun­try; from Oud­ney, who died at Mur­mur, and Clap­per­ton, lost at Sack­atou, to the French­man Maizan, who was cut to pieces; from Ma­jor Laing, killed by the Touaregs, to Rosch­er, from Ham­burg, mas­sa­cred in the be­gin­ning of 1860, the names of vic­tim af­ter vic­tim have been in­scribed on the lists of African mar­tyr­dom! Be­cause, to con­tend suc­cess­ful­ly against the el­ements; against hunger, and thirst, and fever; against sav­age beasts, and still more sav­age men, is im­pos­si­ble! Be­cause, what can­not be done in one way, should be tried in an­oth­er. In fine, be­cause what one can­not pass through di­rect­ly in the mid­dle, must be passed by go­ing to one side or over­head!”

“If pass­ing over it were the on­ly ques­tion!” in­ter­posed Kennedy; “but pass­ing high up in the air, doc­tor, there’s the rub!”

“Come, then,” said the doc­tor, “what have I to fear? You will ad­mit that I have tak­en my pre­cau­tions in such man­ner as to be cer­tain that my bal­loon will not fall; but, should it dis­ap­point me, I should find my­self on the ground in the nor­mal con­di­tions im­posed up­on oth­er ex­plor­ers. But, my bal­loon will not de­ceive me, and we need make no such cal­cu­la­tions.”

“Yes, but you must take them in­to view.”

“No, Dick. I in­tend not to be sep­arat­ed from the bal­loon un­til I reach the west­ern coast of Africa. With it, ev­ery thing is pos­si­ble; with­out it, I fall back in­to the dan­gers and dif­fi­cul­ties as well as the nat­ural ob­sta­cles that or­di­nar­ily at­tend such an ex­pe­di­tion: with it, nei­ther heat, nor tor­rents, nor tem­pests, nor the simoom, nor un­healthy cli­mates, nor wild an­imals, nor sav­age men, are to be feared! If I feel too hot, I can as­cend; if too cold, I can come down. Should there be a moun­tain, I can pass over it; a precipice, I can sweep across it; a riv­er, I can sail be­yond it; a storm, I can rise away above it; a tor­rent, I can skim it like a bird! I can ad­vance with­out fa­tigue, I can halt with­out need of re­pose! I can soar above the nascent cities! I can speed on­ward with the ra­pid­ity of a tor­na­do, some­times at the lofti­est heights, some­times on­ly a hun­dred feet above the soil, while the map of Africa un­rolls it­self be­neath my gaze in the great at­las of the world.”

Even the stub­born Kennedy be­gan to feel moved, and yet the spec­ta­cle thus con­jured up be­fore him gave him the ver­ti­go. He riv­et­ed his eyes up­on the doc­tor with won­der and ad­mi­ra­tion, and yet with fear, for he al­ready felt him­self swing­ing aloft in space.

“Come, come,” said he, at last. “Let us see, Samuel. Then you have dis­cov­ered the means of guid­ing a bal­loon?”

“Not by any means. That is a Utopi­an idea.”

“Then, you will go–“

“Whith­er­so­ev­er Prov­idence wills; but, at all events, from east to west.”

“Why so?”

“Be­cause I ex­pect to avail my­self of the trade-​winds, the di­rec­tion of which is al­ways the same.”

“Ah! yes, in­deed!” said Kennedy, re­flect­ing; “the trade-​winds–yes–tru­ly–one might–there’s some­thing in that!”

“Some­thing in it–yes, my ex­cel­lent friend–there’s EV­ERY THING in it. The En­glish Gov­ern­ment has placed a trans­port at my dis­pos­al, and three or four ves­sels are to cruise off the west­ern coast of Africa, about the pre­sumed pe­ri­od of my ar­rival. In three months, at most, I shall be at Zanz­ibar, where I will in­flate my bal­loon, and from that point we shall launch our­selves.”

“We!” said Dick.

“Have you still a shad­ow of an ob­jec­tion to of­fer? Speak, friend Kennedy.”

“An ob­jec­tion! I have a thou­sand; but among oth­er things, tell me, if you ex­pect to see the coun­try. If you ex­pect to mount and de­scend at plea­sure, you can­not do so, with­out los­ing your gas. Up to this time no oth­er means have been de­vised, and it is this that has al­ways pre­vent­ed long jour­neys in the air.”

“My dear Dick, I have on­ly one word to an­swer–I shall not lose one par­ti­cle of gas.”

“And yet you can de­scend when you please?”

“I shall de­scend when I please.”

“And how will you do that?”

“Ah, ha! there­in lies my se­cret, friend Dick. Have faith, and let my de­vice be yours–’Ex­cel­sior!’”

“‘Ex­cel­sior’ be it then,” said the sports­man, who did not un­der­stand a word of Latin.

But he made up his mind to op­pose his friend’s de­par­ture by all means in his pow­er, and so pre­tend­ed to give in, at the same time keep­ing on the watch. As for the doc­tor, he went on dili­gent­ly with his prepa­ra­tions.