Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.

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 arid­ity of the re­gion in which it stood, passed the night in per­fect quiet­ness; and the trav­ellers were en­abled 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 and 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 at 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.”

“But we’ll 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 any thing 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 there whole weeks some­times pass 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 trav­ellers. They con­versed less, and were more wrapt in their own 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 to-​day, but of in­es­timable val­ue to-​mor­row.

The ap­pear­ance of this part of Africa was, more­over, quite cal­cu­lat­ed to in­spire alarm: the desert was grad­ual­ly ex­pand­ing around them; not 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 lentisk tree and bram­bles. In the midst of this steril­ity, the rudi­men­tal car­cass of the Globe ap­peared in ridges of sharply-​jut­ting rock. 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 it would have left vis­ible traces of its en­camp­ments, or the whitened bones of men and an­imals. But noth­ing of the kind was to be seen, and the aero­nauts felt that, ere long, an 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 there 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 ren­dered in­tol­er­able. Two gal­lons on­ly then re­mained to sup­ply the cylin­der. Hence, they could pro­duce no more than four hun­dred and eighty 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–and 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 or pool, we have but three days and a half of jour­ney­ing dur­ing which we must find wa­ter, at all haz­ards. I have thought it 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, “but 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 in 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 eight 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 cen­tre of Africa. But, if such a lake re­al­ly ex­ist­ed, the point was to reach it, and not a sign of change was vis­ible in the mo­tion­less sky.

To the tran­quil night and its star­ry mag­nif­icence 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 pem­mi­can. 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 it in mo­tion, for, in that case, the 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 pro­pellers and screws; so we have time enough yet.”

“Con­found­ed heat!” 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 econ­omize it. Ah! that ras­cal­ly sav­age who cost us the tank!”*

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

“You don’t re­gret, though, what you did, doc­tor?”

“No, Dick, since it was in our pow­er to save that un­for­tu­nate 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 thir­teen or four­teen days more of progress se­cured, or quite enough to car­ry us over this desert.”

“We’ve made at least half the jour­ney, haven’t we?” asked Joe.

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

“Come, sir,” said Joe, again, “we must not com­plain; we’ve got along pret­ty well, thus far, and what­ev­er hap­pens to me, I can’t get des­per­ate. We’ll find wa­ter; mind, I 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-​scorched herbage still con­tend­ed against the in­va­sion of the sand, and the huge rocks, that had rolled down from the dis­tant sum­mits, crushed in their fall, had scat­tered in sharp-​edged peb­bles which soon again be­came coarse sand, and fi­nal­ly im­pal­pa­ble dust.

“Here, at last, is Africa, such as you pic­tured it to your­self, Joe! Was I not right in say­ing, ‘Wait a lit­tle?’ eh?”

“Well, mas­ter, it’s all nat­ural, at least–heat and dust. It would be fool­ish to look for any thing 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 that I be­lieve in Africa, and I’m not sor­ry to get a taste of it.”

To­ward evening, the doc­tor cal­cu­lat­ed that the bal­loon had not made twen­ty 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 against the sky with all the pre­ci­sion of a straight line.

The next day was Thurs­day, the 1st of May, but the days fol­lowed each oth­er with des­per­ate monotony. Each morn­ing was like the one that had pre­ced­ed it; noon poured down the same ex­haust­less rays, and night con­densed in its shad­ow the scat­tered heat which the en­su­ing day would again be­queath 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 melt­ing to 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 in 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, of the kind that arise in hours of dis­cour­age­ment, suc­ceed­ed each oth­er and mul­ti­plied 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 over 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 plain­ly 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 that bet­ter than he can, per­haps. Where he goes, there I’ll go!”

“And you, Kennedy?”

“I, doc­tor, I’m not the man to de­spair; no one was less ig­no­rant 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 so­lar 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. If needs be, we can di­rect our course to that quar­ter, and it seems out of the ques­tion that we should not come across some oa­sis, or some well, where we could re­plen­ish our stock of wa­ter. But, what 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, vain­ly scanned the space around him dur­ing that long weari­some 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!