Five Weeks in a Balloon
again near the borders of Lake Tchad, they saw the desert still
stretching away before them.
Kennedy remarked the circumstance.
“It matters little,” replied the doctor, “the important point is to
return southward; we shall come across the towns of Bornou, Wouddie, or
Kouka, and I should not hesitate to halt there.”
“If you are satisfied, I am content,” replied the Scot, “but Heaven
grant that we may not be reduced to cross the desert, as those
unfortunate Arabs had to do! What we saw was frightful!”
“It often happens, Dick; these trips across the desert are far more
perilous than those across the ocean. The desert has all the dangers of
the sea, including the risk of being swallowed up, and added thereto
are unendurable fatigues and privations.”
“I think the wind shows some symptoms of moderating; the sand-dust is
less dense; the undulations of the surface are diminishing, and the sky
is growing clearer.”
“So much the better! We must now reconnoitre attentively with our
glasses, and take care not to omit a single point.”
“I will look out for that, doctor, and not a tree shall be seen without
my informing you of it.”
And, suiting the action to the word, Kennedy took his station,
spy-glass in hand, at the forward part of the car.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH.
What happened to Joe.—The Island of the Biddiomahs.—The Adoration shown
him.—The Island that sank.—The Shores of the Lake.—The Tree of the
Serpents.—The Foot-Tramp.—Terrible Suffering.—Mosquitoes and
Ants.—Hunger.—The Victoria seen.—She disappears.—The Swamp.—One Last
Despairing Cry.
What had become of Joe, while his master was thus vainly seeking for
him?
When he had dashed headlong into the lake, his first movement on coming
to the surface was to raise his eyes and look upward. He saw the
_Victoria_ already risen far above the water, still rapidly ascending
and growing smaller and smaller. It was soon caught in a rapid current
and disappeared to the northward. His master—both his friends were
saved!
“How lucky it was,” thought he, “that I had that idea to throw myself
out into the lake! Mr. Kennedy would soon have jumped at it, and he
would not have hesitated to do as I did, for nothing’s more natural
than for one man to give himself up to save two others. That’s
mathematics!”
Satisfied on this point, Joe began to think of himself. He was in the
middle of a vast lake, surrounded by tribes unknown to him, and
probably ferocious. All the greater reason why he should get out of the
scrape by depending only on himself. And so he gave himself no farther
concern about it.
Before the attack by the birds of prey, which, according to him, had
behaved like real condors, he had noticed an island on the horizon, and
determining to reach it, if possible, he put forth all his knowledge
and skill in the art of swimming, after having relieved himself of the
most troublesome part of his clothing. The idea of a stretch of five or
six miles by no means disconcerted him; and therefore, so long as he
was in the open lake, he thought only of striking out straight ahead
and manfully.
In about an hour and a half the distance between him and the island had
greatly diminished.
But as he approached the land, a thought, at first fleeting and then
tenacious, arose in his mind. He knew that the shores of the lake were
frequented by huge alligators, and was well aware of the voracity of
those monsters.
Now, no matter how much he was inclined to find every thing in this
world quite natural, the worthy fellow was no little disturbed by this
reflection. He feared greatly lest white flesh like his might be
particularly acceptable to the dreaded brutes, and advanced only with
extreme precaution, his eyes on the alert on both sides and all around
him. At length, he was not more than one hundred yards from a bank,
covered with green trees, when a puff of air strongly impregnated with
a musky odor reached him.
“There!” said he to himself, “just what I expected. The crocodile isn’t
far off!”
With this he dived swiftly, but not sufficiently so to avoid coming
into contact with an enormous body, the scaly surface of which
scratched him as he passed. He thought himself lost and swam with
desperate energy. Then he rose again to the top of the water, took
breath and dived once more. Thus passed a few minutes of unspeakable
anguish, which all his philosophy could not overcome, for he thought,
all the while, that he heard behind him the sound of those huge jaws
ready to snap him up forever. In this state of mind he was striking out
under the water as noiselessly as possible when he felt himself seized
by the arm and then by the waist.
Poor Joe! he gave one last thought to his master; and began to struggle
with all the energy of despair, feeling himself the while drawn along,
but not toward the bottom of the lake, as is the habit of the crocodile
when about to devour its prey, but toward the surface.
So soon as he could get breath and look around him, he saw that he was
between two natives as black as ebony, who held him, with a firm grip,
and uttered strange cries.
“Ha!” said Joe, “blacks instead of crocodiles! Well, I prefer it as it
is; but how in the mischief dare these fellows go in bathing in such
places?”
Joe was not aware that the inhabitants of the islands of Lake Tchad,
like many other negro tribes, plunge with impunity into sheets of water
infested with crocodiles and caymans, and without troubling their heads
about them. The amphibious denizens of this lake enjoy the
well-deserved reputation of being quite inoffensive.
But had not Joe escaped one peril only to fall into another? That was a
question which he left events to decide; and, since he could not do
otherwise, he allowed himself to be conducted to the shore without
manifesting any alarm.
“Evidently,” thought he, “these chaps saw the _Victoria_ skimming the
waters of the lake, like a monster of the air. They were the distant
witnesses of my tumble, and they can’t fail to have some respect for a
man that fell from the sky! Let them have their own way, then.”
Joe was at this stage of his meditations, when he was landed amid a
yelling crowd of both sexes, and all ages and sizes, but not of all
colors. In fine, he was surrounded by a tribe of Biddiomahs as black as
jet. Nor had he to blush for the scantiness of his costume, for he saw
that he was in “undress” in the highest style of that country.
But before he had time to form an exact idea of the situation, there
was no mistaking the agitation of which he instantly became the object,
and this soon enabled him to pluck up courage, although the adventure
of Kazeh did come back rather vividly to his memory.
“I foresee that they are going to make a god of me again,” thought he,
“some son of the moon most likely. Well, one trade’s as good as another
when a man has no choice. The main thing is to gain time. Should the
_Victoria_ pass this way again, I’ll take advantage of my new position
to treat my worshippers here to a miracle when I go sailing up into the
sky!”
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