Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.

Joe in a Fit of Rage.–The Death of a Good Man.–The Night of watch­ing by the Body.–Bar­ren­ness 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 it!” sighed 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, in one of those fits of rage that came 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 asleep.”

The dy­ing man ut­tered some bro­ken words, and the doc­tor at 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 wind­ing-​sheet of its ef­ful­gence.

“My friends,” said he, in an en­fee­bled voice, “I am go­ing. May God re­quite 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 any one 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 dis­tress­ing to see his weak­ened limbs bend un­der him.

“My God! my God!” ex­claimed the dy­ing apos­tle, “have pity on me!”

His coun­te­nance shone. Far above 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. Then 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 silent prayer.

“To-​mor­row,” re­sumed 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, turn by turn, by the three trav­ellers, and not a word dis­turbed the solemn si­lence. Each of them was weep­ing.

The next day the wind came from the south, and the bal­loon 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, for there was no tree in sight to which he could make it fast.

But, as he had 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 up a quan­ti­ty of stones equal to his own weight. He could then use both hands, and had 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, and her as­cen­sion­al 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 soil, in fact, was be­strewn with quartz and por­phyrit­ic rocks.

“This is a sin­gu­lar dis­cov­ery!” said the doc­tor, men­tal­ly.

In the mean while, Kennedy and Joe had strolled away a few paces, look­ing up a prop­er spot for the grave. The heat was ex­treme in this ravine, shut in as it was like a sort of fur­nace. The noon­day 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, doc­tor?” asked 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-​de­nial, that poor one in spir­it, has just been buried?”

“No! what do you mean, doc­tor?”

“That priest, who took the oath of per­pet­ual pover­ty, now re­pos­es in a gold-​mine!”

“A gold-​mine!” ex­claimed Kennedy and Joe in one breath.

“Yes, a gold-​mine,” said the doc­tor, qui­et­ly. “Those blocks which you are tram­pling un­der foot, like worth­less stones, con­tain gold-​ore of great pu­ri­ty.”

“Im­pos­si­ble! im­pos­si­ble!” re­peat­ed Joe.

“You would not have to look long among those fis­sures of slaty schist with­out find­ing pep­tites 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 met­tle–“

“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 any thing about it, for fear of ex­cit­ing your re­gret!”

“What!” said Joe, again, “aban­don these trea­sures –a 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,” re­sumed the doc­tor, “and can­not very eas­ily be put in­to one’s pock­et.”

“But, at least,” said Joe, driv­en to his last de­fences, “couldn’t 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 wry 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 the 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 had col­lect­ed more than a thou­sand pieces of quartz, which con­tained gold en­closed 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 mis­sion­ary’s 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 re­posed, 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 ne­gro was car­ried up in­to the air. But it was im­pos­si­ble to find it 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 it bur­dened with the quartz-​blocks that Joe’s greed had heaped in it. He got in, how­ev­er, with­out say­ing any thing. Kennedy took his cus­tom­ary place, and Joe fol­lowed, but not with­out cast­ing a cov­etous glance at the trea­sures in the ravine.

The doc­tor rekin­dled the light in the cylin­der; the spi­ral be­came heat­ed; the cur­rent of hy­dro­gen came in a few min­utes, and the gas di­lat­ed; but the bal­loon did not stir an inch.

Joe looked on un­easi­ly, but kept silent.

“Joe!” said the doc­tor.

Joe made no 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 cast a de­spair­ing look at Kennedy; but the hunter put on the air of a man who could do noth­ing in the mat­ter.

“Well, Joe?”

“Then your cylin­der don’t work,” said the ob­sti­nate fel­low.

“My cylin­der? It is 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 reweighed it, and tossed it up and down in his hand. It was a frag­ment of about three or four pounds. At last he threw it out.

But the bal­loon did not budge.

“Humph!” 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 we 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 moves!” said he, at last.

“Keep on!” replied 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, “there still 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 mine 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.