Five Weeks in a Balloon
useless risk to make the natives aware of our presence in such a place
as this.”
Dick and Joe replied with signs of assent, and then letting themselves
slide noiselessly toward the tree, took their position in a fork among
the strong branches where the anchor had caught.
For some moments they listened minutely and motionlessly among the
foliage, and ere long Joe seized Kennedy’s hand as he heard a sort of
rubbing sound against the bark of the tree.
“Don’t you hear that?” he whispered.
“Yes, and it’s coming nearer.”
“Suppose it should be a serpent? That hissing or whistling that you
heard before—”
“No! there was something human in it.”
“I’d prefer the savages, for I have a horror of those snakes.”
“The noise is increasing,” said Kennedy, again, after a lapse of a few
moments.
“Yes! something’s coming up toward us—climbing.”
“Keep watch on this side, and I’ll take care of the other.”
“Very good!”
There they were, isolated at the top of one of the larger branches
shooting out in the midst of one of those miniature forests called
baobab-trees. The darkness, heightened by the density of the foliage,
was profound; however, Joe, leaning over to Kennedy’s ear and pointing
down the tree, whispered:
“The blacks! They’re climbing toward us.”
The two friends could even catch the sound of a few words uttered in
the lowest possible tones.
Joe gently brought his rifle to his shoulder as he spoke.
“Wait!” said Kennedy.
Some of the natives had really climbed the baobab, and now they were
seen rising on all sides, winding along the boughs like reptiles, and
advancing slowly but surely, all the time plainly enough discernible,
not merely to the eye but to the nostrils, by the horrible odors of the
rancid grease with which they bedaub their bodies.
Ere long, two heads appeared to the gaze of Kennedy and Joe, on a level
with the very branch to which they were clinging.
“Attention!” said Kennedy. “Fire!”
The double concussion resounded like a thunderbolt and died away into
cries of rage and pain, and in a moment the whole horde had
disappeared.
But, in the midst of these yells and howls, a strange, unexpected—nay
what seemed an impossible—cry had been heard! A human voice had,
distinctly, called aloud in the French language—
“Help! help!”
Kennedy and Joe, dumb with amazement, had regained the car immediately.
“Did you hear that?” the doctor asked them.
“Undoubtedly, that supernatural cry, ‘_À moi! à moi!_’ comes from a
Frenchman in the hands of these barbarians!”
“A traveller.”
“A missionary, perhaps.”
“Poor wretch!” said Kennedy, “they’re assassinating him—making a martyr
of him!”
The doctor then spoke, and it was impossible for him to conceal his
emotions.
“There can be no doubt of it,” he said; “some unfortunate Frenchman has
fallen into the hands of these savages. We must not leave this place
without doing all in our power to save him. When he heard the sound of
our guns, he recognized an unhoped-for assistance, a providential
interposition. We shall not disappoint his last hope. Are such your
views?”
“They are, doctor, and we are ready to obey you.”
“Let us, then, lay our heads together to devise some plan, and in the
morning we’ll try to rescue him.”
“But how shall we drive off those abominable blacks?” asked Kennedy.
“It’s quite clear to me, from the way in which they made off, that they
are unacquainted with fire-arms. We must, therefore, profit by their
fears; but we shall await daylight before acting, and then we can form
our plans of rescue according to circumstances.”
“The poor captive cannot be far off,” said Joe, “because—”
“Help! help!” repeated the voice, but much more feebly this time.
“The savage wretches!” exclaimed Joe, trembling with indignation.
“Suppose they should kill him to-night!”
“Do you hear, doctor,” resumed Kennedy, seizing the doctor’s hand.
“Suppose they should kill him to-night!”
“It is not at all likely, my friends. These savage tribes kill their
captives in broad daylight; they must have the sunshine.”
“Now, if I were to take advantage of the darkness to slip down to the
poor fellow?” said Kennedy.
“And I’ll go with you,” said Joe, warmly.
“Pause, my friends—pause! The suggestion does honor to your hearts and
to your courage; but you would expose us all to great peril, and do
still greater harm to the unfortunate man whom you wish to aid.”
“Why so?” asked Kennedy. “These savages are frightened and dispersed:
they will not return.”
“Dick, I implore you, heed what I say. I am acting for the common good;
and if by any accident you should be taken by surprise, all would be
lost.”
“But, think of that poor wretch, hoping for aid, waiting there,
praying, calling aloud. Is no one to go to his assistance? He must
think that his senses deceived him; that he heard nothing!”
“We can reassure him, on that score,” said Dr. Ferguson—and, standing
erect, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, he shouted at the top of
his voice, in French: “Whoever you are, be of good cheer! Three friends
are watching over you.”
A terrific howl from the savages responded to these words—no doubt
drowning the prisoner’s reply.
“They are murdering him! they are murdering him!” exclaimed Kennedy.
“Our interference will have served no other purpose than to hasten the
hour of his doom. We must act!”
“But how, Dick? What do you expect to do in the midst of this
darkness?”
“Oh, if it was only daylight!” sighed Joe.
“Well, and suppose it were daylight?” said the doctor, in a singular
tone.
“Nothing more simple, doctor,” said Kennedy. “I’d go down and scatter
all these savage villains with powder and ball!”
“And you, Joe, what would you do?”
“I, master? why, I’d act more prudently, maybe, by telling the prisoner
to make his escape in a certain direction that we’d agree upon.”
“And how would you get him to know that?”
“By means of this arrow that I caught flying the other day. I’d tie a
note to it, or I’d just call out to him in a loud voice what you want
him to do, because these black fellows don’t understand the language
that you’d speak in!”
“Your plans are impracticable, my dear friends. The greatest difficulty
would be for this poor fellow to escape at all—even admitting that he
should manage to elude the vigilance of his captors. As for you, my
dear Dick, with determined daring, and profiting by their alarm at our
fire-arms, your project might possibly succeed; but, were it to fail,
you would be lost, and we should have two persons to save instead of
one. No! we must put _all_ the chances on _our_ side, and go to work
differently.”
“But let us act at once!” said the hunter.
“Perhaps we may,” said the doctor, throwing considerable stress upon
the words.
“Why, doctor, can you light up such darkness as this?”
“Who knows, Joe?”
“Ah! if you can do that, you’re the greatest learned man in the world!”
The doctor kept silent for a few moments; he was thinking. His two
companions looked at him with much emotion, for they were greatly
excited by the strangeness of the situation. Ferguson at last resumed:
“Here is my plan: We have two hundred pounds of ballast left, since the
bags we brought with us are still untouched. I’ll suppose that this
prisoner, who is evidently exhausted by suffering, weighs as much as
one of us; there will still remain sixty pounds of ballast to throw
out, in case we should want to ascend suddenly.”
“How do you expect to manage the balloon?” asked Kennedy.
“This is the idea, Dick: you will admit that if I can get to the
prisoner, and throw out a quantity of ballast, equal to his weight, I
shall have in nowise altered the equilibrium of the balloon. But, then,
if I want to get a rapid ascension, so as to escape these savages, I
must employ means more energetic than the cylinder. Well, then, in
throwing out this overplus of ballast at a given moment, I am certain
to rise with great rapidity.”
“That’s plain enough.”
“Yes; but there is one drawback: it consists in the fact that, in order
to descend after that, I should have to part with a quantity of gas
proportionate to the surplus ballast that I had thrown out. Now, the
gas is precious; but we must not haggle over it when the life of a
fellow-creature is at stake.”
“You are right, sir; we must do every thing in our power to save him.”
“Let us work, then, and get these bags all arranged on the rim of the
car, so that they may be thrown overboard at one movement.”
“But this darkness?”
“It hides our preparations, and will be dispersed only when they are
finished. Take care to have all our weapons close at hand. Perhaps we
may have to fire; so we have one shot in the rifle; four for the two
muskets; twelve in the two revolvers; or seventeen in all, which might
be fired in a quarter of a minute. But perhaps we shall not have to
resort to all this noisy work. Are you ready?”
“We’re ready,” responded Joe.
The sacks were placed as requested, and the arms were put in good
order.
“Very good!” said the doctor. “Have an eye to every thing. Joe will see
to throwing out the ballast, and Dick will carry off the prisoner; but
let nothing be done until I give the word. Joe will first detach the
anchor, and then quickly make his way back to the car.”
Joe let himself slide down by the rope; and, in a few moments,
reappeared at his post; while the balloon, thus liberated, hung almost
motionless in the air.
In the mean time the doctor assured himself of the presence of a
sufficient quantity of gas in the mixing-tank to feed the cylinder, if
necessary, without there being any need of resorting for some time to
the Buntzen battery. He then took out the two perfectly-isolated
conducting-wires, which served for the decomposition of the water, and,
searching in his travelling-sack, brought forth two pieces of charcoal,
cut down to a sharp point, and fixed one at the end of each wire.
His two friends looked on, without knowing what he was about, but they
kept perfectly silent. When the doctor had finished, he stood up erect
in the car, and, taking the two pieces of charcoal, one in each hand,
drew their points nearly together.
In a twinkling, an intense and dazzling light was produced, with an
insupportable glow between the two pointed ends of charcoal, and a huge
jet of electric radiance literally broke the darkness of the night.
“Oh!” ejaculated the astonished friends.
“Not a word!” cautioned the doctor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.
The Jet of Light.—The Missionary.—The Rescue in a Ray of Electricity.—A
Lazarist Priest.—But little Hope.—The Doctor’s Care.—A Life of
Self-Denial.—Passing a Volcano.
Dr. Ferguson darted his powerful electric jet toward various points of
space, and caused it to rest on a spot from which shouts of terror were
heard. His companions fixed their gaze eagerly on the place.
The baobab, over which the balloon was hanging almost motionless, stood
in the centre of a clearing, where, between fields of Indian-corn and
sugar-cane, were seen some fifty low, conical huts, around which
swarmed a numerous tribe.
A hundred feet below the balloon stood a large post, or stake, and at
its foot lay a human being—a young man of thirty years or more, with
long black hair, half naked, wasted and wan, bleeding, covered with
wounds, his head bowed over upon his breast, as Christ’s was, when He
hung upon the cross.
The hair, cut shorter on the top of his skull, still indicated the
place of a half-effaced tonsure.
“A missionary! a priest!” exclaimed Joe.
“Poor, unfortunate man!” said Kennedy.
“We must save him, Dick!” responded the doctor; “we must save him!”
The crowd of blacks, when they saw the balloon over their heads, like a