Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.

One Hun­dred and Thir­teen De­grees.–The Doc­tor’s Re­flec­tions.–A Des­per­ate Search.–The Cylin­der goes out.–One Hun­dred and Twen­ty-​two De­grees.– Con­tem­pla­tion of 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 have found ei­ther a well or a spring of wa­ter, God alone knows what will be­come of us!”

“Not much wind this morn­ing, mas­ter,” said Joe; “but it will come up, per­haps,” he added, sud­den­ly re­mark­ing the doc­tor’s ill-​con­cealed de­pres­sion.

Vain hope! The at­mo­sphere was in a dead calm–one of those calms 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 man is to be pitied the most who can­not wean him­self from gloomy re­flec­tions by ac­tu­al 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 the few pre­cious 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 that Dr. 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, when there was no wa­ter to be had where 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, ex­pend­ed in vain, would have suf­ficed for nine days’ halt in the desert. And what changes might not have oc­curred in nine days! Per­haps, 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 whirled 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 globe, 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 fa­tal­ly right be­low him, and ab­so­lute calm seemed to reign, 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 Buntzen bat­tery ceased to work, and the bal­loon, shrink­ing to­geth­er, gen­tly de­scend­ed to the sand, in 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 Tchad, and more than four hun­dred miles from the west­ern coast of Africa.

On the bal­loon tak­ing ground, Kennedy and Joe awoke from their stu­por.

“We have halt­ed,” said the Scot.

“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 ab­so­lute­ly mo­tion­less.

The weight of the three trav­ellers was re­placed with an equiv­alent quan­ti­ty of sand, and they got out of the car. Each was ab­sorbed in his own thoughts; and for many hours nei­ther of them spoke. Joe pre­pared their evening meal, which con­sist­ed of bis­cuit and pem­mi­can, 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 mor­row there 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 ex­claimed:

“I’m chok­ing, and the heat is get­ting worse! I’m not sur­prised at that, though,” he added, con­sult­ing the ther­mome­ter; “one hun­dred and forty de­grees!”

“The sand scorch­es me,” said the hunter, “as though it had just come out of a fur­nace; and not a cloud in this sky of fire. It’s enough to drive one mad!”

“Let us not de­spair,” re­spond­ed the doc­tor. “In this lat­itude these in­tense heats are in­vari­ably fol­lowed by storms, and the lat­ter come with the sud­den­ness of light­ning. Notwith­stand­ing 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 pinned 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 pro­vi­sions 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 sight of the desert, that fa­tigued the mind. There was not a vari­ation in the sur­face of the soil, not 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 im­pas­si­ble monotony of the arid blue sky, and the vast yel­low ex­panse of the desert-​sand, at length pro­duced a sen­sa­tion of ter­ror. 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 hap­less trav­ellers, de­prived of wa­ter in this tor­rid heat, be­gan to feel symp­toms of men­tal dis­or­der. Their eyes swelled 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 any thing, but sim­ply for ex­er­cise.

“Come along!” he said to his com­pan­ions; “be­lieve me, it will do you good.”

“Out of the ques­tion!” 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 of 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 on the edge of an abyss; his knees bent un­der him; the vast soli­tude struck ter­ror to his heart; he found him­self the minute math­emat­ical point, the cen­tre of an in­fi­nite cir­cum­fer­ence, that is to say–a noth­ing! The bal­loon had dis­ap­peared en­tire­ly in the deep­en­ing gloom. The doc­tor, cool, im­pas­si­ble, 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 an echo replied, 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 to, in the arms of his faith­ful 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 had found him ly­ing in a swoon.

“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 any thing, 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 along 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, come 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 have 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, soon­er or lat­er. In the mean time, 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 wor­thy of your 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 are; 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 not wait af­ter that. To-​day 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.