Five Weeks in a Balloon
forest of trees that were more than three hundred feet in height—a kind
of ancient banyan.
“What magnificent trees!” exclaimed Kennedy. “I never saw any thing so
fine as the appearance of these venerable forests. Look, doctor!”
“The height of these banyans is really remarkable, my dear Dick; and
yet, they would be nothing astonishing in the New World.”
“Why, are there still loftier trees in existence?”
“Undoubtedly; among the ‘mammoth trees’ of California, there is a cedar
four hundred and eighty feet in height. It would overtop the Houses of
Parliament, and even the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The trunk at the
surface of the ground was one hundred and twenty feet in circumference,
and the concentric layers of the wood disclosed an age of more than
four thousand years.”
“But then, sir, there was nothing wonderful in it! When one has lived
four thousand years, one ought to be pretty tall!” was Joe’s remark.
Meanwhile, during the doctor’s recital and Joe’s response, the forest
had given place to a large collection of huts surrounding an open
space. In the middle of this grew a solitary tree, and Joe exclaimed,
as he caught sight of it:
“Well! if that tree has produced such flowers as those, for the last
four thousand years, I have to offer it my compliments, anyhow,” and he
pointed to a gigantic sycamore, whose whole trunk was covered with
human bones. The flowers of which Joe spoke were heads freshly severed
from the bodies, and suspended by daggers thrust into the bark of the
tree.
“The war-tree of these cannibals!” said the doctor; “the Indians merely
carry off the scalp, but these negroes take the whole head.”
“A mere matter of fashion!” said Joe. But, already, the village and the
bleeding heads were disappearing on the horizon. Another place offered
a still more revolting spectacle—half-devoured corpses; skeletons
mouldering to dust; human limbs scattered here and there, and left to
feed the jackals and hyenas.
“No doubt, these are the bodies of criminals; according to the custom
in Abyssinia, these people have left them a prey to the wild beasts,
who kill them with their terrible teeth and claws, and then devour them
at their leisure.
“Not a whit more cruel than hanging!” said the Scot; “filthier, that’s
all!”
“In the southern regions of Africa, they content themselves,” resumed
the doctor, “with shutting up the criminal in his own hut with his
cattle, and sometimes with his family. They then set fire to the hut,
and the whole party are burned together. I call that cruel; but, like
friend Kennedy, I think that the gallows is quite as cruel, quite as
barbarous.”
Joe, by the aid of his keen sight, which he did not fail to use
continually, noticed some flocks of birds of prey flitting about the
horizon.
“They are eagles!” exclaimed Kennedy, after reconnoitring them through
the glass, “magnificent birds, whose flight is as rapid as ours.”
“Heaven preserve us from their attacks!” said the doctor, “they are
more to be feared by us than wild beasts or savage tribes.”
“Bah!” said the hunter, “we can drive them off with a few rifle-shots.”
“Nevertheless, I would prefer, dear Dick, not having to rely upon your
skill, this time, for the silk of our balloon could not resist their
sharp beaks; fortunately, the huge birds will, I believe, be more
frightened than attracted by our machine.”
“Yes! but a new idea, and I have dozens of them,” said Joe; “if we
could only manage to capture a team of live eagles, we could hitch them
to the balloon, and they’d haul us through the air!”
“The thing has been seriously proposed,” replied the doctor, “but I
think it hardly practicable with creatures naturally so restive.”
“Oh! we’d tame them,” said Joe. “Instead of driving them with bits,
we’d do it with eye-blinkers that would cover their eyes. Half blinded
in that way, they’d go to the right or to the left, as we desired; when
blinded completely, they would stop.”
“Allow me, Joe, to prefer a favorable wind to your team of eagles. It
costs less for fodder, and is more reliable.”
“Well, you may have your choice, master, but I stick to my idea.”
It now was noon. The _Victoria_ had been going at a more moderate speed
for some time; the country merely passed below it; it no longer flew.
Suddenly, shouts and whistlings were heard by our aëronauts, and,
leaning over the edge of the car, they saw on the open plain below them
an exciting spectacle.
Two hostile tribes were fighting furiously, and the air was dotted with
volleys of arrows. The combatants were so intent upon their murderous
work that they did not notice the arrival of the balloon; there were
about three hundred mingled confusedly in the deadly struggle: most of
them, red with the blood of the wounded, in which they fairly wallowed,
were horrible to behold.
As they at last caught sight of the balloon, there was a momentary
pause; but their yells redoubled, and some arrows were shot at the
_Victoria_, one of them coming close enough for Joe to catch it with
his hand.
“Let us rise out of range,” exclaimed the doctor; “there must be no
rashness! We are forbidden any risk.”
Meanwhile, the massacre continued on both sides, with battle-axes and
war-clubs; as quickly as one of the combatants fell, a hostile warrior
ran up to cut off his head, while the women, mingling in the fray,
gathered up these bloody trophies, and piled them together at either
extremity of the battle-field. Often, too, they even fought for these
hideous spoils.
“What a frightful scene!” said Kennedy, with profound disgust.
“They’re ugly acquaintances!” added Joe; “but then, if they had
uniforms they’d be just like the fighters of all the rest of the
world!”
“I have a keen hankering to take a hand in at that fight,” said the
hunter, brandishing his rifle.
“No! no!” objected the doctor, vehemently; “no, let us not meddle with
what don’t concern us. Do you know which is right or which is wrong,
that you would assume the part of the Almighty? Let us, rather, hurry
away from this revolting spectacle. Could the great captains of the
world float thus above the scenes of their exploits, they would at
last, perhaps, conceive a disgust for blood and conquest.”
The chieftain of one of the contending parties was remarkable for his
athletic proportions, his great height, and herculean strength. With
one hand he plunged his spear into the compact ranks of his enemies,
and with the other mowed large spaces in them with his battle-axe.
Suddenly he flung away his war-club, red with blood, rushed upon a
wounded warrior, and, chopping off his arm at a single stroke, carried
the dissevered member to his mouth, and bit it again and again.
“Ah!” ejaculated Kennedy, “the horrible brute! I can hold back no
longer,” and, as he spoke, the huge savage, struck full in the forehead
with a rifle-ball, fell headlong to the ground.
Upon this sudden mishap of their leader, his warriors seemed struck
dumb with amazement; his supernatural death awed them, while it
reanimated the courage and ardor of their adversaries, and, in a
twinkling, the field was abandoned by half the combatants.
“Come, let us look higher up for a current to bear us away. I am sick
of this spectacle,” said the doctor.
But they could not get away so rapidly as to avoid the sight of the
victorious tribe rushing upon the dead and the wounded, scrambling and
disputing for the still warm and reeking flesh, and eagerly devouring
it.
“Faugh!” uttered Joe, “it’s sickening.”
The balloon rose as it expanded; the howlings of the brutal horde, in
the delirium of their orgy, pursued them for a few minutes; but, at
length, borne away toward the south, they were carried out of sight and
hearing of this horrible spectacle of cannibalism.
The surface of the country was now greatly varied, with numerous
streams of water, bearing toward the east. The latter, undoubtedly, ran
into those affluents of Lake Nu, or of the River of the Gazelles,
concerning which M. Guillaume Lejean has given such curious details.
At nightfall, the balloon cast anchor in twenty-seven degrees east
longitude, and four degrees twenty minutes north latitude, after a
day’s trip of one hundred and fifty miles.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
Strange Sounds.—A Night Attack.—Kennedy and Joe in the Tree.—Two
Shots.—“Help! help!”—Reply in French.—The Morning.—The Missionary.—The
Plan of Rescue.
The night came on very dark. The doctor had not been able to
reconnoitre the country. He had made fast to a very tall tree, from
which he could distinguish only a confused mass through the gloom.
As usual, he took the nine-o’clock watch, and at midnight Dick relieved
him.
“Keep a sharp lookout, Dick!” was the doctor’s good-night injunction.
“Is there any thing new on the carpet?”
“No; but I thought that I heard vague sounds below us, and, as I don’t
exactly know where the wind has carried us to, even an excess of
caution would do no harm.”
“You’ve probably heard the cries of wild beasts.”
“No! the sounds seemed to me something altogether different from that;
at all events, on the least alarm don’t fail to waken us.”
“I’ll do so, doctor; rest easy.”
After listening attentively for a moment or two longer, the doctor,
hearing nothing more, threw himself on his blankets and went asleep.
The sky was covered with dense clouds, but not a breath of air was
stirring; and the balloon, kept in its place by only a single anchor,
experienced not the slightest oscillation.
Kennedy, leaning his elbow on the edge of the car, so as to keep an eye
on the cylinder, which was actively at work, gazed out upon the calm
obscurity; he eagerly scanned the horizon, and, as often happens to
minds that are uneasy or possessed with preconceived notions, he
fancied that he sometimes detected vague gleams of light in the
distance.
At one moment he even thought that he saw them only two hundred paces
away, quite distinctly, but it was a mere flash that was gone as
quickly as it came, and he noticed nothing more. It was, no doubt, one
of those luminous illusions that sometimes impress the eye in the midst
of very profound darkness.
Kennedy was getting over his nervousness and falling into his wandering
meditations again, when a sharp whistle pierced his ear.
Was that the cry of an animal or of a night-bird, or did it come from
human lips?
Kennedy, perfectly comprehending the gravity of the situation, was on
the point of waking his companions, but he reflected that, in any case,
men or animals, the creatures that he had heard must be out of reach.
So he merely saw that his weapons were all right, and then, with his
night-glass, again plunged his gaze into space.
It was not long before he thought he could perceive below him vague
forms that seemed to be gliding toward the tree, and then, by the aid
of a ray of moonlight that shot like an electric flash between two
masses of cloud, he distinctly made out a group of human figures moving
in the shadow.
The adventure with the dog-faced baboons returned to his memory, and he
placed his hand on the doctor’s shoulder.
The latter was awake in a moment.
“Silence!” said Dick. “Let us speak below our breath.”
“Has any thing happened?”
“Yes, let us waken Joe.”
The instant that Joe was aroused, Kennedy told him what he had seen.
“Those confounded monkeys again!” said Joe.
“Possibly, but we must be on our guard.”
“Joe and I,” said Kennedy, “will climb down the tree by the ladder.”
“And, in the meanwhile,” added the doctor, “I will take my measures so
that we can ascend rapidly at a moment’s warning.”
“Agreed!”
“Let us go down, then!” said Joe.
“Don’t use your weapons, excepting at the last extremity! It would be a