Five Weeks in a Balloon, Jules Verne [top reads txt] 📗

dark screen of foliage that spread beneath him, hiding the ground from his view. The least noise aroused his suspicions, and he questioned even the slightest rustling of the leaves.

He was in that mood which solitude makes more keenly felt, and during which vague terrors mount to the brain. At the close of such a journey, after having surmounted so many obstacles, and at the moment of touching the goal, one’s fears are more vivid, one’s emotions keener. The point of arrival seems to fly farther from our gaze.

Moreover, the present situation had nothing very consolatory about it. They were in the midst of a barbarous country, and dependent upon a vehicle that might fail them at any moment. The doctor no longer counted implicitly on his balloon; the time had gone by when he manoevred it boldly because he felt sure of it.

Under the influence of these impressions, the doctor, from time to time, thought that he heard vague sounds in the vast forests around him; he even fancied that he saw a swift gleam of fire shining between the trees. He looked sharply and turned his night-glass toward the spot; but there was nothing to be seen, and the profoundest silence appeared to return.

He had, no doubt, been under the dominion of a mere hallucination. He continued to listen, but without hearing the slightest noise. When his watch had expired, he woke Kennedy, and, enjoining upon him to observe the extremest vigilance, took his place beside Joe, and fell sound asleep.

Kennedy, while still rubbing his eyes, which he could scarcely keep open, calmly lit his pipe. He then ensconced himself in a corner, and began to smoke vigorously by way of keeping awake.

The most absolute silence reigned around him; a light wind shook the tree-tops and gently rocked the car, inviting the hunter to taste the sleep that stole over him in spite of himself. He strove hard to resist it, and repeatedly opened his eyes to plunge into the outer darkness one of those looks that see nothing; but at last, yielding to fatigue, he sank back and slumbered.

How long he had been buried in this stupor he knew not, but he was suddenly aroused from it by a strange, unexpected crackling sound.

He rubbed his eyes and sprang to his feet. An intense glare half-blinded him and heated his cheek—the forest was in flames!

“Fire! fire!” he shouted, scarcely comprehending what had happened.

His two companions started up in alarm.

“What’s the matter?” was the doctor’s immediate exclamation.

“Fire!” said Joe. “But who could—”

At this moment loud yells were heard under the foliage, which was now illuminated as brightly as the day.

“Ah! the savages!” cried Joe again; “they have set fire to the forest so as to be the more certain of burning us up.”

“The Talabas! Al-Hadji’s marabouts, no doubt,” said the doctor.

A circle of fire hemmed the Victoria in; the crackling of the dry wood mingled with the hissing and sputtering of the green branches; the clambering vines, the foliage, all the living part of this vegetation, writhed in the destructive element. The eye took in nothing but one vast ocean of flame; the large trees stood forth in black relief in this huge furnace, their branches covered with glowing coals, while the whole blazing mass, the entire conflagration, was reflected on the clouds, and the travellers could fancy themselves enveloped in a hollow globe of fire.

“Let us escape to the ground!” shouted Kennedy, “it is our only chance of safety!”

But Ferguson checked him with a firm grasp, and, dashing at the anchor-rope, severed it with one well-directed blow of his hatchet. Meanwhile, the flames, leaping up at the balloon, already quivered on its illuminated sides; but the Victoria, released from her fastenings, spun upward a thousand feet into the air.

Frightful yells resounded through the forest, along with the report of fire-arms, while the balloon, caught in a current of air that rose with the dawn of day, was borne to the westward.

It was now four o’clock in the morning.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD.

The Talabas.—The Pursuit.—A Devastated Country.—The Wind begins to fall.—The Victoria sinks.—The last of the Provisions.—The Leaps of the Balloon.—A Defence with Fire-arms.—The Wind freshens.—The Senegal River.—The Cataracts of Gouina.—The Hot Air.—The Passage of the River.

“Had we not taken the precaution to lighten the balloon yesterday evening, we should have been lost beyond redemption,” said the doctor, after a long silence.

“See what’s gained by doing things at the right time!” replied Joe. “One gets out of scrapes then, and nothing is more natural.”

“We are not out of danger yet,” said the doctor.

“What do you still apprehend?” queried Kennedy. “The balloon can’t descend without your permission, and even were it to do so—”

“Were it to do so, Dick? Look!”

They had just passed the borders of the forest, and the three friends could see some thirty mounted men clad in broad pantaloons and the floating bournouses. They were armed, some with lances, and others with long muskets, and they were following, on their quick, fiery little steeds, the direction of the balloon, which was moving at only moderate speed.

When they caught sight of the aeronauts, they uttered savage cries, and brandished their weapons. Anger and menace could be read upon their swarthy faces, made more ferocious by thin but bristling beards. Meanwhile they galloped along without difficulty over the low levels and gentle declivities that lead down to the Senegal.

“It is, indeed, they!” said the doctor; “the cruel Talabas! the ferocious marabouts of Al-Hadji! I would rather find myself in the middle of the forest encircled by wild beasts than fall into the hands of these banditti.”

“They haven’t a very obliging look!” assented Kennedy; “and they are rough, stalwart fellows.”

“Happily those brutes can’t fly,” remarked Joe; “and that’s something.”

“See,” said Ferguson, “those villages in ruins, those huts burned down—that is their work! Where vast stretches of cultivated land were once seen, they have brought barrenness and devastation.”

“At all events, however,” interposed Kennedy, “they can’t overtake us; and, if we succeed in putting the river between us and them, we are safe.”

“Perfectly, Dick,” replied Ferguson; “but we must not fall to the ground!” and, as he said this, he glanced at the barometer.

“In any case, Joe,” added Kennedy, “it would do us no harm to look to our fire-arms.”

“No harm in the world, Mr. Dick! We are lucky that we didn’t scatter them along the road.”

“My rifle!” said the sportsman. “I hope that I shall never be separated from it!”

And so saying, Kennedy loaded the pet piece with the greatest care, for he had plenty of powder and ball remaining.

“At what height are we?” he asked the doctor.

“About seven hundred and fifty feet; but we no longer have the power of seeking favorable currents, either going up or coming down. We are at the mercy of the balloon!”

“That is vexatious!” rejoined Kennedy. “The wind is poor; but if we had come across a hurricane like some of those we met before, these vile brigands would have been out of sight long ago.”

“The rascals follow us at their leisure,” said Joe. “They’re only at a short gallop. Quite a nice little ride!”

“If we were within range,” sighed the sportsman, “I should amuse myself with dismounting a few of them.”

“Exactly,” said the doctor; “but then they would have you within range also, and our balloon would offer only too plain a target to the bullets from their long guns; and, if they were to make a hole in it, I leave you to judge what our situation would be!”

The pursuit of the Talabas continued all morning; and by eleven o’clock the aeronauts had made scarcely fifteen miles to the westward.

The doctor was anxiously watching for the least cloud on the horizon. He feared, above all things, a change in the atmosphere. Should he be thrown back toward the Niger, what would become of him? Besides, he remarked that the balloon tended to fall considerably. Since the start, he had already lost more than three hundred feet, and the Senegal must be about a dozen miles distant. At his present rate of speed, he could count upon travelling only three hours longer.

At this moment his attention was attracted by fresh cries. The Talabas appeared to be much excited, and were spurring their horses.

The doctor consulted his barometer, and at once discovered the cause of these symptoms.

“Are we descending?” asked Kennedy.

“Yes!” replied the doctor.

“The mischief!” thought Joe

In the lapse of fifteen minutes the Victoria was only one hundred and fifty feet above the ground; but the wind was much stronger than before.

The Talabas checked their horses, and soon a volley of musketry pealed out on the air.

“Too far, you fools!” bawled Joe. “I think it would be well to keep those scamps at a distance.”

And, as he spoke, he aimed at one of the horsemen who was farthest to the front, and fired. The Talaba fell headlong, and, his companions halting for a moment, the balloon gained upon them.

“They are prudent!” said Kennedy.

“Because they think that they are certain to take us,” replied the doctor; “and, they will succeed if we descend much farther. We must, absolutely, get higher into the air.”

“What can we throw out?” asked Joe.

“All that remains of our stock of pemmican; that will be thirty pounds less weight to carry.”

“Out it goes, sir!” said Joe, obeying orders.

The car, which was now almost touching the ground, rose again, amid the cries of the Talabas; but, half an hour later, the balloon was again falling rapidly, because the gas was escaping through the pores of the covering.

Ere long the car was once more grazing the soil, and Al-Hadji’s black riders rushed toward it; but, as frequently happens in like cases, the balloon had scarcely touched the surface ere it rebounded, and only came down again a mile away.

“So we shall not escape!” said Kennedy, between his teeth.

“Throw out our reserved store of brandy, Joe,” cried the doctor; “our instruments, and every thing that has any weight, even to our last anchor, because go they must!”

Joe flung out the barometers and thermometers, but all that amounted to little; and the balloon, which had risen for an instant, fell again toward the ground.

The Talabas flew toward it, and at length were not more than two hundred paces away.

“Throw out the two fowling-pieces!” shouted Ferguson.

“Not without discharging them, at least,” responded the sportsman; and four shots in quick succession struck the thick of the advancing group of horsemen. Four Talabas fell, amid the frantic howls and imprecations of their comrades.

The Victoria ascended once more, and made some enormous leaps, like a huge gum-elastic ball, bounding and rebounding through the air. A strange sight it was to see these unfortunate men endeavoring to escape by those huge aerial strides, and seeming, like the giant Antaeus, to receive fresh strength every time they touched the earth. But this situation had to terminate. It was now nearly noon; the Victoria was getting empty and exhausted, and assuming a more and more elongated form every instant. Its outer covering was becoming flaccid, and floated loosely in the air, and the folds of the silk rustled and grated on each other.

“Heaven abandons us!” said Kennedy; “we have to fall!”

Joe made no answer. He kept looking intently at his master.

“No!” said the latter; “we have more than one hundred and fifty pounds yet to throw out.”

“What can it be, then?” said Kennedy, thinking that the doctor must be going mad.

“The car!” was his reply; “we can cling to the network. There we can hang on in the meshes until