Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH.

A Throng of Peo­ple on the Hori­zon.–A Troop of Arabs.–The Pur­suit. –It is He.–Fall from Horse­back.–The Stran­gled Arab.–A Ball from Kennedy.–Adroit Ma­noeu­vres.–Caught up fly­ing.–Joe saved at last.

From the mo­ment when Kennedy re­sumed his post of ob­ser­va­tion in the front of the car, he had not ceased to watch the hori­zon with his ut­most at­ten­tion.

Af­ter the lapse of some time he turned to­ward the doc­tor and said:

“If I am not great­ly mis­tak­en I can see, off yon­der in the dis­tance, a throng of men or an­imals mov­ing. It is im­pos­si­ble to make them out yet, but I ob­serve that they are in vi­olent mo­tion, for they are rais­ing a great cloud of dust.”

“May it not be an­oth­er con­trary breeze?” said the doc­tor, “an­oth­er whirl­wind com­ing to drive us back north­ward again?” and while speak­ing he stood up to ex­am­ine the hori­zon.

“I think not, Samuel; it is a troop of gazelles or of wild ox­en.”

“Per­haps so, Dick; but yon throng is some nine or ten miles from us at least, and on my part, even with the glass, I can make noth­ing of it!”

“At all events I shall not lose sight of it. There is some­thing re­mark­able about it that ex­cites my cu­rios­ity. Some­times it looks like a body of cav­al­ry ma­noeu­vring. Ah! I was not mis­tak­en. It is, in­deed, a squadron of horse­men. Look–look there!”

The doc­tor eyed the group with great at­ten­tion, and, af­ter a mo­ment’s pause, re­marked:

“I be­lieve that you are right. It is a de­tach­ment of Arabs or Tib­bous, and they are gal­lop­ing in the same di­rec­tion with us, as though in flight, but we are go­ing faster than they, and we are rapid­ly gain­ing on them. In half an hour we shall be near enough to see them and know what they are.”

Kennedy had again lift­ed his glass and was at­ten­tive­ly scru­ti­niz­ing them. Mean­while the crowd of horse­men was be­com­ing more dis­tinct­ly vis­ible, and a few were seen to de­tach them­selves from the main body.

“It is some hunt­ing ma­noeu­vre, ev­ident­ly,” said Kennedy. “Those fel­lows seem to be in pur­suit of some­thing. I would like to know what they are about.”

“Pa­tience, Dick! In a lit­tle while we shall over­take them, if they con­tin­ue on the same route. We are go­ing at the rate of twen­ty miles per hour, and no horse can keep up with that.”

Kennedy again raised his glass, and a few min­utes lat­er he ex­claimed:

“They are Arabs, gal­lop­ing at the top of their speed; I can make them out dis­tinct­ly. They are about fifty in num­ber. I can see their bournous­es puffed out by the wind. It is some cav­al­ry ex­er­cise that they are go­ing through. Their chief is a hun­dred paces ahead of them and they are rush­ing af­ter him at head­long speed.”

“Who­ev­er they may be, Dick, they are not to be feared, and then, if nec­es­sary, we can go high­er.”

“Wait, doc­tor–wait a lit­tle!”

“It’s cu­ri­ous,” said Kennedy again, af­ter a brief pause, “but there’s some­thing go­ing on that I can’t ex­act­ly ex­plain. By the ef­forts they make, and the ir­reg­ular­ity of their line, I should fan­cy that those Arabs are pur­su­ing some one, in­stead of fol­low­ing.”

“Are you cer­tain of that, Dick?”

“Oh! yes, it’s clear enough now. I am right! It is a pur­suit–a hunt–but a man-​hunt! That is not their chief rid­ing ahead of them, but a fugi­tive.”

“A fugi­tive!” ex­claimed the doc­tor, grow­ing more and more in­ter­est­ed.

“Yes!”

“Don’t lose sight of him, and let us wait!”

Three or four miles more were quick­ly gained up­on these horse­men, who nev­er­the­less were dash­ing on­ward with in­cred­ible speed.

“Doc­tor! doc­tor!” shout­ed Kennedy in an ag­itat­ed voice.

“What is the mat­ter, Dick?”

“Is it an il­lu­sion? Can it be pos­si­ble?”

“What do you mean?”

“Wait!” and so say­ing, the Scot wiped the sights of his spy-​glass care­ful­ly, and looked through it again in­tent­ly.

“Well?” ques­tioned the doc­tor.

“It is he, doc­tor!”

“He!” ex­claimed Fer­gu­son with emo­tion.

“It is he! no oth­er!” and it was need­less to pro­nounce the name.

“Yes! it is he! on horse­back, and on­ly a hun­dred paces in ad­vance of his en­emies! He is pur­sued!”

“It is Joe–Joe him­self!” cried the doc­tor, turn­ing pale.

“He can­not see us in his flight!”

“He will see us, though!” said the doc­tor, low­er­ing the flame of his blow-​pipe.

“But how?”

“In five min­utes we shall be with­in fifty feet of the ground, and in fif­teen we shall be right over him!”

“We must let him know it by fir­ing a gun!”

“No! he can’t turn back to come this way. He’s head­ed off!”

“What shall we do, then?”

“We must wait.”

“Wait?–and these Arabs!”

“We shall over­take them. We’ll pass them. We are not more than two miles from them, and pro­vid­ed that Joe’s horse holds out!”

“Great God!” ex­claimed Kennedy, sud­den­ly.

“What is the mat­ter?”

Kennedy had ut­tered a cry of de­spair as he saw Joe fling him­self to the ground. His horse, ev­ident­ly ex­haust­ed, had just fall­en head­long.

“He sees us!” cried the doc­tor, “and he mo­tions to us, as he gets up­on his feet!”

“But the Arabs will over­take him! What is he wait­ing for? Ah! the brave lad! Huz­za!” shout­ed the sports­man, who could no longer re­strain his feel­ings.

Joe, who had im­me­di­ate­ly sprung up af­ter his fall, just as one of the swiftest horse­men rushed up­on him, bound­ed like a pan­ther, avoid­ed his as­sailant by leap­ing to one side, jumped up be­hind him on the crup­per, seized the Arab by the throat, and, stran­gling him with his sinewy hands and fin­gers of steel, flung him on the sand, and con­tin­ued his head­long flight.

A tremen­dous howl was heard from the Arabs, but, com­plete­ly en­grossed by the pur­suit, they had not tak­en no­tice of the bal­loon, which was now but five hun­dred paces be­hind them, and on­ly about thir­ty feet from the ground. On their part, they were not twen­ty lengths of their hors­es from the fugi­tive.

One of them was very per­cep­ti­bly gain­ing on Joe, and was about to pierce him with his lance, when Kennedy, with fixed eye and steady hand, stopped him short with a ball, that hurled him to the earth.

Joe did not even turn his head at the re­port. Some of the horse­men reined in their barbs, and fell on their faces in the dust as they caught sight of the Vic­to­ria; the rest con­tin­ued their pur­suit.

“But what is Joe about?” said Kennedy; “he don’t stop!”

“He’s do­ing bet­ter than that, Dick! I un­der­stand him! He’s keep­ing on in the same di­rec­tion as the bal­loon. He re­lies up­on our in­tel­li­gence. Ah! the no­ble fel­low! We’ll car­ry him off in the very teeth of those Arab ras­cals! We are not more than two hun­dred paces from him!”

“What are we to do?” asked Kennedy.

“Lay aside your ri­fle,Dick.”

And the Scot obeyed the re­quest at once.

“Do you think that you can hold one hun­dred and fifty pounds of bal­last in your arms?”

“Ay, more than that!”

“No! That will be enough!”

And the doc­tor pro­ceed­ed to pile up bags of sand in Kennedy’s arms.

“Hold your­self in readi­ness in the back part of the car, and be pre­pared to throw out that bal­last at a sin­gle ef­fort. But, for your life, don’t do so un­til I give the word!”

“Be easy on that point.”

“Oth­er­wise, we should miss Joe, and he would be lost.”

“Count up­on me!”

The Vic­to­ria at that mo­ment al­most com­mand­ed the troop of horse­men who were still des­per­ate­ly urg­ing their steeds at Joe’s heels. The doc­tor, stand­ing in the front of the car, held the lad­der clear, ready to throw it at any mo­ment. Mean­while, Joe had still main­tained the dis­tance be­tween him­self and his pur­suers–say about fifty feet. The Vic­to­ria was now ahead of the par­ty.

“At­ten­tion!” ex­claimed the doc­tor to Kennedy.

“I’m ready!”

“Joe, look out for your­self!” shout­ed the doc­tor in his sonorous, ring­ing voice, as he flung out the lad­der, the low­est rat­lines of which tossed up the dust of the road.

As the doc­tor shout­ed, Joe had turned his head, but with­out check­ing his horse. The lad­der dropped close to him, and at the in­stant he grasped it the doc­tor again shout­ed to Kennedy:

“Throw bal­last!”

“It’s done!”

And the Vic­to­ria, light­ened by a weight greater than Joe’s, shot up one hun­dred and fifty feet in­to the air.

Joe clung with all his strength to the lad­der dur­ing the wide os­cil­la­tions that it had to de­scribe, and then mak­ing an in­de­scrib­able ges­ture to the Arabs, and climb­ing with the agili­ty of a mon­key, he sprang up to his com­pan­ions, who re­ceived him with open arms.

The Arabs ut­tered a scream of as­ton­ish­ment and rage. The fugi­tive had been snatched from them on the wing, and the Vic­to­ria was rapid­ly speed­ing far be­yond their reach.

“Mas­ter! Kennedy!” ejac­ulat­ed Joe, and over­whelmed, at last, with fa­tigue and emo­tion, the poor fel­low faint­ed away, while Kennedy, al­most be­side him­self, kept ex­claim­ing:

“Saved–saved!”

“Saved in­deed!” mur­mured the doc­tor, who had re­cov­ered all his phleg­mat­ic cool­ness.

Joe was al­most naked. His bleed­ing arms, his body cov­ered with cuts and bruis­es, told what his suf­fer­ings had been. The doc­tor qui­et­ly dressed his wounds, and laid him com­fort­ably un­der the awning.

Joe soon re­turned to con­scious­ness, and asked for a glass of brandy, which the doc­tor did not see fit to refuse, as the faith­ful fel­low had to be in­dulged.

Af­ter he had swal­lowed the stim­ulant, Joe grasped the hands of his two friends and an­nounced that he was ready to re­late what had hap­pened to him.

But they would not al­low him to talk at that time, and he sank back in­to a pro­found sleep, of which he seemed to have the great­est pos­si­ble need.

The Vic­to­ria was then tak­ing an oblique line to the west­ward. Driv­en by a tem­pes­tu­ous wind, it again ap­proached the bor­ders of the thorny desert, which the trav­ellers de­scried over the tops of palm-​trees, bent and bro­ken by the storm; and, af­ter hav­ing made a run of two hun­dred miles since res­cu­ing Joe, it passed the tenth de­gree of east lon­gi­tude about night­fall.