Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD.

Con­jec­tures.–Reestab­lish­ment of the Vic­to­ria’s Equi­lib­ri­um.–Dr. Fer­gu­son’s New Cal­cu­la­tions.–Kennedy’s Hunt.–A Com­plete Ex­plo­ration of Lake Tchad.–Tan­galia.–The Re­turn.–Lari.

On the mor­row, the 13th of May, our trav­ellers, for the first time, re­con­noitred the part of the coast on which they had land­ed. It was a sort of is­land of sol­id ground in the midst of an im­mense marsh. Around this frag­ment of ter­ra fir­ma grew reeds as lofty as trees are in Eu­rope, and stretch­ing away out of sight.

These im­pen­etra­ble swamps gave se­cu­ri­ty to the po­si­tion of the bal­loon. It was nec­es­sary to watch on­ly the bor­ders of the lake. The vast stretch of wa­ter broad­ened away from the spot, es­pe­cial­ly to­ward the east, and noth­ing could be seen on the hori­zon, nei­ther main­land nor is­lands.

The two friends had not yet ven­tured to speak of their re­cent com­pan­ion. Kennedy first im­part­ed his con­jec­tures to the doc­tor.

“Per­haps Joe is not lost af­ter all,” he said. “He was a skil­ful lad, and had few equals as a swim­mer. He would find no dif­fi­cul­ty in swim­ming across the Firth of Forth at Ed­in­burgh. We shall see him again–but how and where I know not. Let us omit noth­ing on our part to give him the chance of re­join­ing us.”

“May God grant it as you say, Dick!” replied the doc­tor, with much emo­tion. “We shall do ev­ery­thing in the world to find our lost friend again. Let us, in the first place, see where we are. But, above all things, let us rid the Vic­to­ria of this out­side cov­er­ing, which is of no fur­ther use. That will re­lieve us of six hun­dred and fifty pounds, a weight not to be de­spised–and the end is worth the trou­ble!”

The doc­tor and Kennedy went to work at once, but they en­coun­tered great dif­fi­cul­ty. They had to tear the strong silk away piece by piece, and then cut it in nar­row strips so as to ex­tri­cate it from the mesh­es of the net­work. The tear made by the beaks of the con­dors was found to be sev­er­al feet in length.

This op­er­ation took at least four hours, but at length the in­ner bal­loon once com­plete­ly ex­tri­cat­ed did not ap­pear to have suf­fered in the least de­gree. The Vic­to­ria was thus di­min­ished in size by one fifth, and this dif­fer­ence was suf­fi­cient­ly no­tice­able to ex­cite Kennedy’s sur­prise.

“Will it be large enough?” he asked.

“Have no fears on that score, I will reestab­lish the equi­lib­ri­um, and should our poor Joe re­turn we shall find a way to start off with him again on our old route.”

“At the mo­ment of our fall, un­less I am mis­tak­en, we were not far from an is­land.”

“Yes, I rec­ol­lect it,” said the doc­tor, “but that is­land, like all the is­lands on Lake Tchad, is, no doubt, in­hab­it­ed by a gang of pi­rates and mur­der­ers. They cer­tain­ly wit­nessed our mis­for­tune, and should Joe fall in­to their hands, what will be­come of him un­less pro­tect­ed by their su­per­sti­tions?”

“Oh, he’s just the lad to get safe­ly out of the scrape, I re­peat. I have great con­fi­dence in his shrewd­ness and skill.”

“I hope so. Now, Dick, you may go and hunt in the neigh­bor­hood, but don’t get far away what­ev­er you do. It has be­come a press­ing ne­ces­si­ty for us to re­new our stock of pro­vi­sions, since we had to sac­ri­fice near­ly all the old lot.”

“Very good, doc­tor, I shall not be long ab­sent.”

Here­upon, Kennedy took a dou­ble-​bar­relled fowl­ing-​piece, and strode through the long grass to­ward a thick­et not far off, where the fre­quent sound of shoot­ing soon let the doc­tor know that the sports­man was mak­ing a good use of his time.

Mean­while Fer­gu­son was en­gaged in cal­cu­lat­ing the rel­ative weight of the ar­ti­cles still left in the car, and in es­tab­lish­ing the equipoise of the sec­ond bal­loon. He found that there were still left some thir­ty pounds of pem­mi­can, a sup­ply of tea and cof­fee, about a gal­lon and a half of brandy, and one emp­ty wa­ter-​tank. All the dried meat had dis­ap­peared.

The doc­tor was aware that, by the loss of the hy­dro­gen in the first bal­loon, the as­cen­sion­al force at his dis­pos­al was now re­duced to about nine hun­dred pounds. He there­fore had to count up­on this dif­fer­ence in or­der to re­ar­range his equi­lib­ri­um. The new bal­loon mea­sured six­ty-​sev­en thou­sand cu­bic feet, and con­tained thir­ty-​three thou­sand four hun­dred and eighty feet of gas. The di­lat­ing ap­pa­ra­tus ap­peared to be in good con­di­tion, and nei­ther the bat­tery nor the spi­ral had been in­jured.

The as­cen­sion­al force of the new bal­loon was then about three thou­sand pounds, and, in adding to­geth­er the weight of the ap­pa­ra­tus, of the pas­sen­gers, of the stock of wa­ter, of the car and its ac­ces­sories, and putting aboard fifty gal­lons of wa­ter, and one hun­dred pounds of fresh meat, the doc­tor got a to­tal weight of twen­ty-​eight hun­dred and thir­ty pounds. He could then take with him one hun­dred and sev­en­ty pounds of bal­last, for un­fore­seen emer­gen­cies, and the bal­loon would be in ex­act bal­ance with the sur­round­ing at­mo­sphere.

His ar­range­ments were com­plet­ed ac­cord­ing­ly, and he made up for Joe’s weight with a sur­plus of bal­last. He spent the whole day in these prepa­ra­tions, and the lat­ter were fin­ished when Kennedy re­turned. The hunter had been suc­cess­ful, and brought back a reg­ular car­go of geese, wild-​duck, snipe, teal, and plover. He went to work at once to draw and smoke the game. Each piece, sus­pend­ed on a small, thin skew­er, was hung over a fire of green wood. When they seemed in good or­der, Kennedy, who was per­fect­ly at home in the busi­ness, packed them away in the car.

On the mor­row, the hunter was to com­plete his sup­plies.

Evening sur­prised our trav­ellers in the midst of this work. Their sup­per con­sist­ed of pem­mi­can, bis­cuit, and tea; and fa­tigue, af­ter hav­ing giv­en them ap­petite, brought them sleep. Each of them strained eyes and ears in­to the gloom dur­ing his watch, some­times fan­cy­ing that they heard the voice of poor Joe; but, alas! the voice that they so longed to hear, was far away.

“At the first streak of day, the doc­tor aroused Kennedy.

“I have been long and care­ful­ly con­sid­er­ing what should be done,” said he, “to find our com­pan­ion.”

“What­ev­er your plan may be, doc­tor, it will suit me. Speak!”

“Above all things, it is im­por­tant that Joe should hear from us in some way.”

“Un­doubt­ed­ly. Sup­pose the brave fel­low should take it in­to his head that we have aban­doned him?”

“He! He knows us too well for that. Such a thought would nev­er come in­to his mind. But he must be in­formed as to where we are.”

“How can that be man­aged?”

“We shall get in­to our car and be off again through the air.”

“But, should the wind bear us away?”

“Hap­pi­ly, it will not. See, Dick! it is car­ry­ing us back to the lake; and this cir­cum­stance, which would have been vex­atious yes­ter­day, is for­tu­nate now. Our ef­forts, then, will be lim­it­ed to keep­ing our­selves above that vast sheet of wa­ter through­out the day. Joe can­not fail to see us, and his eyes will be con­stant­ly on the look­out in that di­rec­tion. Per­haps he will even man­age to let us know the place of his re­treat.”

“If he be alone and at lib­er­ty, he cer­tain­ly will.”

“And if a pris­on­er,” re­sumed the doc­tor, “it not be­ing the prac­tice of the na­tives to con­fine their cap­tives, he will see us, and com­pre­hend the ob­ject of our re­search­es.”

“But, at last,” put in Kennedy–“for we must an­tic­ipate ev­ery thing–should we find no trace–if he should have left no mark to fol­low him by, what are we to do?”

“We shall en­deav­or to re­gain the north­ern part of the lake, keep­ing our­selves as much in sight as pos­si­ble. There we’ll wait; we’ll ex­plore the banks; we’ll search the wa­ter’s edge, for Joe will as­sured­ly try to reach the shore; and we will not leave the coun­try with­out hav­ing done ev­ery thing to find him.”

“Let us set out, then!” said the hunter.

The doc­tor here­upon took the ex­act bear­ings of the patch of sol­id land they were about to leave, and ar­rived at the con­clu­sion that it lay on the north shore of Lake Tchad, be­tween the vil­lage of Lari and the vil­lage of In­gem­ini, both vis­it­ed by Ma­jor Den­ham. Dur­ing this time Kennedy was com­plet­ing his stock of fresh meat. Al­though the neigh­bor­ing marsh­es showed traces of the rhinoceros, the laman­tine (or man­atee), and the hip­popota­mus, he had no op­por­tu­ni­ty to see a sin­gle spec­imen of those an­imals.

At sev­en in the morn­ing, but not with­out great dif­fi­cul­ty –which to Joe would have been noth­ing–the bal­loon’s an­chor was de­tached from its hold, the gas di­lat­ed, and the new Vic­to­ria rose two hun­dred feet in­to the air. It seemed to hes­itate at first, and went spin­ning around, like a top; but at last a brisk cur­rent caught it, and it ad­vanced over the lake, and was soon borne away at a speed of twen­ty miles per hour.

The doc­tor con­tin­ued to keep at a height of from two hun­dred to five hun­dred feet. Kennedy fre­quent­ly dis­charged his ri­fle; and, when pass­ing over is­lands, the aero­nauts ap­proached them even im­pru­dent­ly, scru­ti­niz­ing the thick­ets, the bush­es, the un­der­brush–in fine, ev­ery spot where a mass of shade or jut­ting rock could have af­ford­ed a re­treat to their com­pan­ion. They swooped down close to the long pirogues that nav­igat­ed the lake; and the wild fish­er­men, ter­ri­fied at the sight of the bal­loon, would plunge in­to the wa­ter and re­gain their is­lands with ev­ery symp­tom of undis­guised af­fright.

“We can see noth­ing,” said Kennedy, af­ter two hours of search.

“Let us wait a lit­tle longer, Dick, and not lose heart. We can­not be far away from the scene of our ac­ci­dent.”

By eleven o’clock the bal­loon had gone nine­ty miles. It then fell in with a new cur­rent, which, blow­ing al­most at right an­gles to the oth­er, drove them east­ward about six­ty miles. It next float­ed over a very large and pop­ulous is­land, which the doc­tor took to be Far­ram, on which the cap­ital of the Bid­diom­ahs is sit­uat­ed. Fer­gu­son ex­pect­ed at ev­ery mo­ment to see Joe spring up out of some thick­et, fly­ing for his life, and call­ing for help. Were he free, they could pick him up with­out trou­ble; were he a pris­on­er, they could res­cue him by re­peat­ing the ma­noeu­vre they had prac­tised to save the mis­sion­ary, and he would soon be with his friends again; but noth­ing was seen, not a sound was heard. The case seemed des­per­ate.

About half-​past two o’clock, the Vic­to­ria hove in sight of Tan­galia, a vil­lage sit­uat­ed on the east­ern shore of Lake Tchad, where it marks the ex­treme point at­tained by Den­ham at the pe­ri­od of his ex­plo­ration.

The doc­tor be­came un­easy at this per­sis­tent set­ting of the wind in that di­rec­tion, for he felt that he was be­ing thrown back to the east­ward, to­ward the cen­tre of Africa, and the in­ter­minable deserts of that re­gion.

“We must ab­so­lute­ly come to a halt,” said he, “and even alight. For Joe’s sake, par­tic­ular­ly, we ought to go back to the lake; but, to be­gin with, let us en­deav­or to find an op­po­site cur­rent.”

Dur­ing more than an hour he searched at dif­fer­ent al­ti­tudes: the bal­loon al­ways came back to­ward the main­land. But at length, at the height of a thou­sand feet, a very vi­olent breeze swept to the north­west­ward.

It was out of the ques­tion that Joe should have been de­tained on one of the is­lands of the lake; for, in such case he would cer­tain­ly have found means to make his pres­ence there known. Per­haps he had been dragged to the main­land. The doc­tor was rea­son­ing thus to him­self, when he again came in sight of the north­ern shore of Lake Tchad.

As for sup­pos­ing that Joe had been drowned, that was not to be be­lieved for a mo­ment. One hor­ri­ble thought glanced across the minds of both Kennedy and the doc­tor: cay­mans swarm in these wa­ters! But nei­ther one nor the oth­er had the courage to dis­tinct­ly com­mu­ni­cate this im­pres­sion. How­ev­er, it came up to them so forcibly at last that the doc­tor said, with­out fur­ther pref­ace:

“Crocodiles are found on­ly on the shores of the is­lands or of the lake, and Joe will have skill enough to avoid them. Be­sides, they are not very dan­ger­ous; and the Africans bathe with im­puni­ty, and quite fear­less of their at­tacks.”

Kennedy made no re­ply. He pre­ferred keep­ing qui­et to dis­cussing this ter­ri­ble pos­si­bil­ity.

The doc­tor made out the town of Lari about five o’clock in the evening. The in­hab­itants were at work gath­er­ing in their cot­ton-​crop in front of their huts, con­struct­ed of wo­ven reeds, and stand­ing in the midst of clean and neat­ly-​kept en­clo­sures. This col­lec­tion of about fifty habi­ta­tions oc­cu­pied a slight de­pres­sion of the soil, in a val­ley ex­tend­ing be­tween two low moun­tains. The force of the wind car­ried the doc­tor far­ther on­ward than he want­ed to go; but it changed a sec­ond time, and bore him back ex­act­ly to his start­ing-​point, on the sort of en­closed is­land where he had passed the pre­ced­ing night. The an­chor, in­stead of catch­ing the branch­es of the tree, took hold in the mass­es of reeds mixed with the thick mud of the marsh­es, which of­fered con­sid­er­able re­sis­tance.

The doc­tor had much dif­fi­cul­ty in re­strain­ing the bal­loon; but at length the wind died away with the set­ting in of night­fall; and the two friends kept watch to­geth­er in an al­most des­per­ate state of mind.