Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH.

The West­ern Route.–Joe wakes up.–His Ob­sti­na­cy.–End of Joe’s Nar­ra­tive.–Tagelei.–Kennedy’s Anx­ieties.–The Route to the North.–A Night near Aghades.

Dur­ing the night the wind lulled as though repos­ing af­ter the bois­ter­ous­ness of the day, and the Vic­to­ria re­mained qui­et­ly at the top of the tall sycamore. The doc­tor and Kennedy kept watch by turns, and Joe availed him­self of the chance to sleep most stur­di­ly for twen­ty-​four hours at a stretch.

“That’s the rem­edy he needs,” said Dr. Fer­gu­son. “Na­ture will take charge of his care.”

With the dawn the wind sprang up again in quite strong, and more­over capri­cious gusts. It shift­ed abrupt­ly from south to north, but fi­nal­ly the Vic­to­ria was car­ried away by it to­ward the west.

The doc­tor, map in hand, rec­og­nized the king­dom of Damerghou, an un­du­lat­ing re­gion of great fer­til­ity, in which the huts that com­pose the vil­lages are con­struct­ed of long reeds in­ter­wo­ven with branch­es of the as­cle­pia. The grain-​mills were seen raised in the cul­ti­vat­ed fields, up­on small scaf­fold­ings or plat­forms, to keep them out of the reach of the mice and the huge ants of that coun­try.

They soon passed the town of Zin­der, rec­og­nized by its spa­cious place of ex­ecu­tion, in the cen­tre of which stands the “tree of death.” At its foot the ex­ecu­tion­er stands wait­ing, and who­ev­er pass­es be­neath its shad­ow is im­me­di­ate­ly hung!

Up­on con­sult­ing his com­pass, Kennedy could not re­frain from say­ing:

“Look! we are again mov­ing north­ward.”

“No mat­ter; if it on­ly takes us to Tim­buc­too, we shall not com­plain. Nev­er was a fin­er voy­age ac­com­plished un­der bet­ter cir­cum­stances!”

“Nor in bet­ter health,” said Joe, at that in­stant thrust­ing his jol­ly coun­te­nance from be­tween the cur­tains of the awning.

“There he is! there’s our gal­lant friend–our pre­serv­er!” ex­claimed Kennedy, cor­dial­ly.–“How goes it, Joe?”

“Oh! why, nat­ural­ly enough, Mr. Kennedy, very nat­ural­ly! I nev­er felt bet­ter in my life! Noth­ing sets a man up like a lit­tle plea­sure-​trip with a bath in Lake Tchad to start on–eh, doc­tor?”

“Brave fel­low!” said Fer­gu­son, press­ing Joe’s hand, “what ter­ri­ble anx­iety you caused us!”

“Humph! and you, sir? Do you think that I felt easy in my mind about you, gen­tle­men? You gave me a fine fright, let me tell you!”

“We shall nev­er agree in the world, Joe, if you take things in that style.”

“I see that his tum­ble hasn’t changed him a bit,” added Kennedy.

“Your de­vo­tion and self-​for­get­ful­ness were sub­lime, my brave lad, and they saved us, for the Vic­to­ria was falling in­to the lake, and, once there, no­body could have ex­tri­cat­ed her.”

“But, if my de­vo­tion, as you are pleased to call my sum­mer­set, saved you, did it not save me too, for here we are, all three of us, in first-​rate health? Con­se­quent­ly we have noth­ing to squab­ble about in the whole af­fair.”

“Oh! we can nev­er come to a set­tle­ment with that youth,” said the sports­man.

“The best way to set­tle it,” replied Joe, “is to say noth­ing more about the mat­ter. What’s done is done. Good or bad, we can’t take it back.”

“You ob­sti­nate fel­low!” said the doc­tor, laugh­ing; “you can’t refuse, though, to tell us your ad­ven­tures, at all events.”

“Not if you think it worth while. But, in the first place, I’m go­ing to cook this fat goose to a turn, for I see that Mr. Kennedy has not wast­ed his time.”

“All right, Joe!”

“Well, let us see then how this African game will sit on a Eu­ro­pean stom­ach!”

The goose was soon roast­ed by the flame of the blow-​pipe, and not long af­ter­ward was com­fort­ably stowed away. Joe took his own good share, like a man who had eat­en noth­ing for sev­er­al days. Af­ter the tea and the punch, he ac­quaint­ed his friends with his re­cent ad­ven­tures. He spoke with some emo­tion, even while look­ing at things with his usu­al phi­los­ophy. The doc­tor could not re­frain from fre­quent­ly press­ing his hand when he saw his wor­thy ser­vant more con­sid­er­ate of his mas­ter’s safe­ty than of his own, and, in re­la­tion to the sink­ing of the is­land of the Bid­diom­ahs, he ex­plained to him the fre­quen­cy of this phe­nomenon up­on Lake Tchad.

At length Joe, con­tin­uing his recital, ar­rived at the point where, sink­ing in the swamp, he had ut­tered a last cry of de­spair.

“I thought I was gone,” said he, “and as you came right in­to my mind, I made a hard fight for it. How, I couldn’t tell you–but I’d made up my mind that I wouldn’t go un­der with­out know­ing why. Just then, I saw–two or three feet from me–what do you think? the end of a rope that had been fresh cut; so I took leave to make an­oth­er jerk, and, by hook or by crook, I got to the rope. When I pulled, it didn’t give; so I pulled again and hauled away and there I was on dry ground! At the end of the rope, I found an an­chor! Ah, mas­ter, I’ve a right to call that the an­chor of safe­ty, any­how, if you have no ob­jec­tion. I knew it again! It was the an­chor of the Vic­to­ria! You had ground­ed there! So I fol­lowed the di­rec­tion of the rope and that gave me your di­rec­tion, and, af­ter try­ing hard a few times more, I got out of the swamp. I had got my strength back with my spunk, and I walked on part of the night away from the lake, un­til I got to the edge of a very big wood. There I saw a fenced-​in place, where some hors­es were graz­ing, with­out think­ing of any harm. Now, there are times when ev­ery­body knows how to ride a horse, are there not, doc­tor? So I didn’t spend much time think­ing about it, but jumped right on the back of one of those in­no­cent an­imals and away we went gal­lop­ing north as fast as our legs could car­ry us. I needn’t tell you about the towns that I didn’t see nor the vil­lages that I took good care to go around. No! I crossed the ploughed fields; I leaped the hedges; I scram­bled over the fences; I dug my heels in­to my nag; I thrashed him; I fair­ly lift­ed the poor fel­low off his feet! At last I got to the end of the tilled land. Good! There was the desert. ‘That suits me!’ said I, ‘for I can see bet­ter ahead of me and far­ther too.’ I was hop­ing all the time to see the bal­loon tack­ing about and wait­ing for me. But not a bit of it; and so, in about three hours, I go plump, like a fool, in­to a camp of Arabs! Whew! what a hunt that was! You see, Mr. Kennedy, a hunter don’t know what a re­al hunt is un­til he’s been hunt­ed him­self! Still I ad­vise him not to try it if he can keep out of it! My horse was so tired, he was ready to drop off his legs; they were close on me; I threw my­self to the ground; then I jumped up again be­hind an Arab! I didn’t mean the fel­low any harm, and I hope he has no grudge against me for chok­ing him, but I saw you–and you know the rest. The Vic­to­ria came on at my heels, and you caught me up fly­ing, as a cir­cus-​rid­er does a ring. Wasn’t I right in count­ing on you? Now, doc­tor, you see how sim­ple all that was! Noth­ing more nat­ural in the world! I’m ready to be­gin over again, if it would be of any ser­vice to you. And be­sides, mas­ter, as I said a while ago, it’s not worth men­tion­ing.”

“My no­ble, gal­lant Joe!” said the doc­tor, with great feel­ing. “Heart of gold! we were not astray in trust­ing to your in­tel­li­gence and skill.”

“Poh! doc­tor, one has on­ly just to fol­low things along as they hap­pen, and he can al­ways work his way out of a scrape! The safest plan, you see, is to take mat­ters as they come.”

While Joe was telling his ex­pe­ri­ence, the bal­loon had rapid­ly passed over a long reach of coun­try, and Kennedy soon point­ed out on the hori­zon a col­lec­tion of struc­tures that looked like a town. The doc­tor glanced at his map and rec­og­nized the place as the large vil­lage of Tagelei, in the Damerghou coun­try.

“Here,” said he, “we come up­on Dr. Barth’s route. It was at this place that he part­ed from his com­pan­ions, Richard­son and Over­weg; the first was to fol­low the Zin­der route, and the sec­ond that of Mara­di; and you may re­mem­ber that, of these three trav­ellers, Barth was the on­ly one who ev­er re­turned to Eu­rope.”

“Then,” said Kennedy, fol­low­ing out on the map the di­rec­tion of the Vic­to­ria, “we are go­ing due north.”

“Due north, Dick.”

“And don’t that give you a lit­tle un­easi­ness?”

“Why should it?”

“Be­cause that line leads to Tripoli, and over the Great Desert.”

“Oh, we shall not go so far as that, my friend–at least, I hope not.”

“But where do you ex­pect to halt?”

“Come, Dick, don’t you feel some cu­rios­ity to see Tim­buc­too?”

“Tim­buc­too?”

“Cer­tain­ly,” said Joe; “no­body nowa­days can think of mak­ing the trip to Africa with­out go­ing to see Tim­buc­too.”

“You will be on­ly the fifth or sixth Eu­ro­pean who has ev­er set eyes on that mys­te­ri­ous city.”

“Ho, then, for Tim­buc­too!”

“Well, then, let us try to get as far as be­tween the sev­en­teenth and eigh­teenth de­grees of north lat­itude, and there we will seek a fa­vor­able wind to car­ry us west­ward.”

“Good!” said the hunter. “But have we still far to go to the north­ward?”

“One hun­dred and fifty miles at least.”

“In that case,” said Kennedy, “I’ll turn in and sleep a bit.”

“Sleep, sir; sleep!” urged Joe. “And you, doc­tor, do the same your­self: you must have need of rest, for I made you keep watch a lit­tle out of time.”

The sports­man stretched him­self un­der the awning; but Fer­gu­son, who was not eas­ily con­quered by fa­tigue, re­mained at his post.

In about three hours the Vic­to­ria was cross­ing with ex­treme ra­pid­ity an ex­panse of stony coun­try, with ranges of lofty, naked moun­tains of granitic for­ma­tion at the base. A few iso­lat­ed peaks at­tained the height of even four thou­sand feet. Gi­raffes, an­telopes, and os­trich­es were seen run­ning and bound­ing with mar­vel­lous agili­ty in the midst of forests of aca­cias, mi­mosas, souahs, and date-​trees. Af­ter the bar­ren­ness of the desert, veg­eta­tion was now re­sum­ing its em­pire. This was the coun­try of the Kailouas, who veil their faces with a ban­dage of cot­ton, like their dan­ger­ous neigh­bors, the Touaregs.

At ten o’clock in the evening, af­ter a splen­did trip of two hun­dred and fifty miles, the Vic­to­ria halt­ed over an im­por­tant town. The moon­light re­vealed glimpses of one dis­trict half in ru­ins; and some pin­na­cles of mosques and minarets shot up here and there, glis­ten­ing in the sil­very rays. The doc­tor took a stel­lar ob­ser­va­tion, and dis­cov­ered that he was in the lat­itude of Aghades.

This city, once the seat of an im­mense trade, was al­ready falling in­to ru­in when Dr. Barth vis­it­ed it.

The Vic­to­ria, not be­ing seen in the ob­scu­ri­ty of night, de­scend­ed about two miles above Aghades, in a field of mil­let. The night was calm, and be­gan to break in­to dawn about three o’clock A.M.; while a light wind coaxed the bal­loon west­ward, and even a lit­tle to­ward the south.

Dr. Fer­gu­son has­tened to avail him­self of such good for­tune, and rapid­ly as­cend­ing re­sumed his aeri­al jour­ney amid a long wake of gold­en morn­ing sun­shine.