Five Weeks in a Balloon

J >> Jules Verne >> Five Weeks in a Balloon

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While Joe's thoughts were running thus, the throng
pressed around him. They prostrated themselves before
him; they howled; they felt him; they became even annoyingly
familiar; but at the same time they had the consideration
to offer him a superb banquet consisting of sour
milk and rice pounded in honey. The worthy fellow,
making the best of every thing, took one of the heartiest
luncheons he ever ate in his life, and gave his new adorers
an exalted idea of how the gods tuck away their food upon
grand occasions.

When evening came, the sorcerers of the island took
him respectfully by the hand, and conducted him to a sort
of house surrounded with talismans; but, as he was entering
it, Joe cast an uneasy look at the heaps of human
bones that lay scattered around this sanctuary. But he
had still more time to think about them when he found
himself at last shut up in the cabin.

During the evening and through a part of the night,
he heard festive chantings, the reverberations of a kind
of drum, and a clatter of old iron, which were very sweet,
no doubt, to African ears. Then there were howling
choruses, accompanied by endless dances by gangs of
natives who circled round and round the sacred hut with
contortions and grimaces.

Joe could catch the sound of this deafening orchestra,
through the mud and reeds of which his cabin was built;
and perhaps under other circumstances he might have been
amused by these strange ceremonies; but his mind was
soon disturbed by quite different and less agreeable reflections.
Even looking at the bright side of things, he found
it both stupid and sad to be left alone in the midst of this
savage country and among these wild tribes. Few travellers
who had penetrated to these regions had ever again
seen their native land. Moreover, could he trust to the
worship of which he saw himself the object? He had
good reason to believe in the vanity of human greatness;
and he asked himself whether, in this country, adoration
did not sometimes go to the length of eating the object
adored!

But, notwithstanding this rather perplexing prospect,
after some hours of meditation, fatigue got the better of
his gloomy thoughts, and Joe fell into a profound slumber,
which would have lasted no doubt until sunrise, had
not a very unexpected sensation of dampness awakened
the sleeper. Ere long this dampness became water, and
that water gained so rapidly that it had soon mounted
to Joe's waist.

"What can this be?" said he; "a flood! a water-spout!
or a new torture invented by these blacks? Faith, though,
I'm not going to wait here till it's up to my neck!"

And, so saying, he burst through the frail wall with
a jog of his powerful shoulder, and found himself--where?
--in the open lake! Island there was none. It had sunk
during the night. In its place, the watery immensity of
Lake Tchad!

"A poor country for the land-owners!" said Joe, once more
vigorously resorting to his skill in the art of natation.

One of those phenomena, which are by no means unusual
on Lake Tchad, had liberated our brave Joe. More than
one island, that previously seemed to have the solidity
of rock, has been submerged in this way; and the people
living along the shores of the mainland have had to
pick up the unfortunate survivors of these terrible catastrophes.

Joe knew nothing about this peculiarity of the region,
but he was none the less ready to profit by it. He caught
sight of a boat drifting about, without occupants, and was
soon aboard of it. He found it to be but the trunk of a
tree rudely hollowed out; but there were a couple of
paddles in it, and Joe, availing himself of a rapid current,
allowed his craft to float along.

"But let us see where we are," he said. "The polar-star
there, that does its work honorably in pointing out
the direction due north to everybody else, will, most likely,
do me that service."

He discovered, with satisfaction, that the current was
taking him toward the northern shore of the lake, and he
allowed himself to glide with it. About two o'clock in the
morning he disembarked upon a promontory covered with
prickly reeds, that proved very provoking and inconvenient
even to a philosopher like him; but a tree grew
there expressly to offer him a bed among its branches,
and Joe climbed up into it for greater security, and there,
without sleeping much, however, awaited the dawn of day.

When morning had come with that suddenness which
is peculiar to the equatorial regions, Joe cast a glance at
the tree which had sheltered him during the last few
hours, and beheld a sight that chilled the marrow in his
bones. The branches of the tree were literally covered
with snakes and chameleons! The foliage actually was
hidden beneath their coils, so that the beholder might
have fancied that he saw before him a new kind of tree
that bore reptiles for its leaves and fruit. And all this
horrible living mass writhed and twisted in the first rays
of the morning sun! Joe experienced a keen sensation
or terror mingled with disgust, as he looked at it, and he
leaped precipitately from the tree amid the hissings of
these new and unwelcome bedfellows.

"Now, there's something that I would never have believed!"
said he.

He was not aware that Dr. Vogel's last letters had
made known this singular feature of the shores of Lake
Tchad, where reptiles are more numerous than in any
other part of the world. But after what he had just seen,
Joe determined to be more circumspect for the future;
and, taking his bearings by the sun, he set off afoot toward
the northeast, avoiding with the utmost care cabins, huts,
hovels, and dens of every description, that might serve
in any manner as a shelter for human beings.

How often his gaze was turned upward to the sky!
He hoped to catch a glimpse, each time, of the Victoria;
and, although he looked vainly during all that long,
fatiguing day of sore foot-travel, his confident reliance on
his master remained undiminished. Great energy of character
was needed to enable him thus to sustain the situation
with philosophy. Hunger conspired with fatigue to
crush him, for a man's system is not greatly restored and
fortified by a diet of roots, the pith of plants, such as the
Mele, or the fruit of the doum palm-tree; and yet, according
to his own calculations, Joe was enabled to push on
about twenty miles to the westward.

His body bore in scores of places the marks of the
thorns with which the lake-reeds, the acacias, the mimosas,
and other wild shrubbery through which he had to force
his way, are thickly studded; and his torn and bleeding
feet rendered walking both painful and difficult. But at
length he managed to react against all these sufferings;
and when evening came again, he resolved to pass the
night on the shores of Lake Tchad.

There he had to endure the bites of myriads of insects
--gnats, mosquitoes, ants half an inch long, literally
covered the ground; and, in less than two hours, Joe had
not a rag remaining of the garments that had covered him,
the insects having devoured them! It was a terrible night,
that did not yield our exhausted traveller an hour of sleep.
During all this time the wild-boars and native buffaloes,
reenforced by the ajoub--a very dangerous species of lamantine
--carried on their ferocious revels in the bushes
and under the waters of the lake, filling the night with a
hideous concert. Joe dared scarcely breathe. Even his
courage and coolness had hard work to bear up against so
terrible a situation.

At length, day came again, and Joe sprang to his feet
precipitately; but judge of the loathing he felt when he
saw what species of creature had shared his couch--a
toad!--but a toad five inches in length, a monstrous,
repulsive specimen of vermin that sat there staring at him
with huge round eyes. Joe felt his stomach revolt at the
sight, and, regaining a little strength from the intensity
of his repugnance, he rushed at the top of his speed and
plunged into the lake. This sudden bath somewhat allayed
the pangs of the itching that tortured his whole body;
and, chewing a few leaves, he set forth resolutely, again
feeling an obstinate resolution in the act, for which he
could hardly account even to his own mind. He no longer
seemed to have entire control of his own acts, and, nevertheless,
he felt within him a strength superior to despair.

However, he began now to suffer terribly from hunger.
His stomach, less resigned than he was, rebelled, and he was
obliged to fasten a tendril of wild-vine tightly about his
waist. Fortunately, he could quench his thirst at any
moment, and, in recalling the sufferings he had undergone
in the desert, he experienced comparative relief in his exemption
from that other distressing want.

"What can have become of the Victoria?" he wondered.
"The wind blows from the north, and she should be
carried back by it toward the lake. No doubt the doctor
has gone to work to right her balance, but yesterday
would have given him time enough for that, so that may
be to-day--but I must act just as if I was never to see
him again. After all, if I only get to one of the large
towns on the lake, I'll find myself no worse off than the
travellers my master used to talk about. Why shouldn't
I work my way out of the scrape as well as they did?
Some of them got back home again. Come, then! the
deuce! Cheer up, my boy!"

Thus talking to himself and walking on rapidly, Joe
came right upon a horde of natives in the very depths of
the forest, but he halted in time and was not seen by them.
The negroes were busy poisoning arrows with the juice of
the euphorbium--a piece of work deemed a great affair
among these savage tribes, and carried on with a sort of
ceremonial solemnity.

Joe, entirely motionless and even holding his breath,
was keeping himself concealed in a thicket, when, happening
to raise his eyes, he saw through an opening in the
foliage the welcome apparition of the balloon--the Victoria
herself--moving toward the lake, at a height of only
about one hundred feet above him. But he could not
make himself heard; he dared not, could not make his
friends even see him!

Tears came to his eyes, not of grief but of thankfulness;
his master was then seeking him; his master had
not left him to perish! He would have to wait for the
departure of the blacks; then he could quit his hiding-place
and run toward the borders of Lake Tchad!

But by this time the Victoria was disappearing in the
distant sky. Joe still determined to wait for her; she
would come back again, undoubtedly. She did, indeed,
return, but farther to the eastward. Joe ran, gesticulated,
shouted--but all in vain! A strong breeze was sweeping
the balloon away with a speed that deprived him of all
hope.

For the first time, energy and confidence abandoned
the heart of the unfortunate man. He saw that he was
lost. He thought his master gone beyond all prospect of
return. He dared no longer think; he would no longer
reflect!

Like a crazy man, his feet bleeding, his body cut and
torn, he walked on during all that day and a part of the
next night. He even dragged himself along, sometimes
on his knees, sometimes with his hands. He saw the moment
nigh when all his strength would fail, and nothing would
be left to him but to sink upon the ground and die.

Thus working his way along, he at length found himself
close to a marsh, or what he knew would soon become
a marsh, for night had set in some hours before, and he fell
by a sudden misstep into a thick, clinging mire. In spite
of all his efforts, in spite of his desperate struggles, he felt
himself sinking gradually in the swampy ooze, and in a
few minutes he was buried to his waist.

"Here, then, at last, is death!" he thought, in agony,
"and what a death!"

He now began to struggle again, like a madman; but
his efforts only served to bury him deeper in the tomb
that the poor doomed lad was hollowing for himself; not
a log of wood or a branch to buoy him up; not a reed to
which he might cling! He felt that all was over! His
eyes convulsively closed!

"Master! master!--Help!" were his last words; but
his voice, despairing, unaided, half stifled already by the
rising mire, died away feebly on the night.

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.

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."

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