by Jules Verne
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.
One Hundred and Thirteen Degrees.--The Doctor's Reflections.--ADesperate Search.--The Cylinder goes out.--One Hundred andTwenty-two Degrees.--Contemplation of the Desert.--A NightWalk.--Solitude.--Debility.--Joe's Prospects.--He gives himself One Daymore.
The distance made by the balloon during the preceding day did not exceedten miles, and, to keep it afloat, one hundred and sixty-two cubic feetof gas had been consumed.
On Saturday morning the doctor again gave the signal for departure.
"The cylinder can work only six hours longer; and, if in that time weshall not have found either a well or a spring of water, God alone knowswhat will become of us!"
"Not much wind this morning, master," said Joe; "but it will comeup, perhaps," he added, suddenly remarking the doctor's ill-concealeddepression.
Vain hope! The atmosphere was in a dead calm--one of those calms whichhold vessels captive in tropical seas. The heat had become intolerable;and the thermometer, in the shade under the awning, indicated onehundred and thirteen degrees.
Joe and Kennedy, reclining at full length near each other, tried, ifnot in slumber, at least in torpor, to forget their situation, for theirforced inactivity gave them periods of leisure far from pleasant.That man is to be pitied the most who cannot wean himself from gloomyreflections by actual work, or some practical pursuit. But here therewas nothing to look after, nothing to undertake, and they had to submitto the situation, without having it in their power to ameliorate it.
The pangs of thirst began to be severely felt; brandy, far fromappeasing this imperious necessity, augmented it, and richly merited thename of "tiger's milk" applied to it by the African natives. Scarcelytwo pints of water remained, and that was heated. Each of the partydevoured the few precious drops with his gaze, yet neither of them daredto moisten his lips with them. Two pints of water in the midst of thedesert!
Then it was that Dr. Ferguson, buried in meditation, asked himselfwhether he had acted with prudence. Would he not have done better tohave kept the water that he had decomposed in pure loss, in order tosustain him in the air? He had gained a little distance, to be sure; butwas he any nearer to his journey's end? What difference did sixty milesto the rear make in this region, when there was no water to be had wherethey were? The wind, should it rise, would blow there as it did here,only less strongly at this point, if it came from the east. But hopeurged him onward. And yet those two gallons of water, expended in vain,would have sufficed for nine days' halt in the desert. And what changesmight not have occurred in nine days! Perhaps, too, while retainingthe water, he might have ascended by throwing out ballast, at the costmerely of discharging some gas, when he had again to descend. But thegas in his balloon was his blood, his very life!
A thousand one such reflections whirled in succession through his brain;and, resting his head between his hands, he sat there for hours withoutraising it.
"We must make one final effort," he said, at last, about ten o'clock inthe morning. "We must endeavor, just once more, to find an atmosphericcurrent to bear us away from here, and, to that end, must risk our lastresources."
Therefore, while his companions slept, the doctor raised the hydrogen inthe balloon to an elevated temperature, and the huge globe, filling outby the dilation of the gas, rose straight up in the perpendicular raysof the sun. The doctor searched vainly for a breath of wind, from theheight of one hundred feet to that of five miles; his starting-pointremained fatally right below him, and absolute calm seemed to reign, upto the extreme limits of the breathing atmosphere.
At length the feeding-supply of water gave out; the cylinder wasextinguished for lack of gas; the Buntzen battery ceased to work, andthe balloon, shrinking together, gently descended to the sand, in thevery place that the car had hollowed out there.
It was noon; and solar observations gave nineteen degrees thirty-fiveminutes east longitude, and six degrees fifty-one minutes northlatitude, or nearly five hundred miles from Lake Tchad, and more thanfour hundred miles from the western coast of Africa.
On the balloon taking ground, Kennedy and Joe awoke from their stupor.
"We have halted," said the Scot.
"We had to do so," replied the doctor, gravely.
His companions understood him. The level of the soil at that pointcorresponded with the level of the sea, and, consequently, the balloonremained in perfect equilibrium, and absolutely motionless.
The weight of the three travellers was replaced with an equivalentquantity of sand, and they got out of the car. Each was absorbed in hisown thoughts; and for many hours neither of them spoke. Joe preparedtheir evening meal, which consisted of biscuit and pemmican, and washardly tasted by either of the party. A mouthful of scalding water fromtheir little store completed this gloomy repast.
During the night none of them kept awake; yet none could be preciselysaid to have slept. On the morrow there remained only half a pint ofwater, and this the doctor put away, all three having resolved not totouch it until the last extremity.
It was not long, however, before Joe exclaimed:
"I'm choking, and the heat is getting worse! I'm not surprised at that,though," he added, consulting the thermometer; "one hundred and fortydegrees!"
"The sand scorches me," said the hunter, "as though it had just come outof a furnace; and not a cloud in this sky of fire. It's enough to driveone mad!"
"Let us not despair," responded the doctor. "In this latitude theseintense heats are invariably followed by storms, and the latter comewith the suddenness of lightning. Notwithstanding this dishearteningclearness of the sky, great atmospheric changes may take place in lessthan an hour."
"But," asked Kennedy, "is there any sign whatever of that?"
"Well," replied the doctor, "I think that there is some slight symptomof a fall in the barometer."
"May Heaven hearken to you, Samuel! for here we are pinned to theground, like a bird with broken wings."
"With this difference, however, my dear Dick, that our wings are unhurt,and I hope that we shall be able to use them again."
"Ah! wind! wind!" exclaimed Joe; "enough to carry us to a stream ora well, and we'll be all right. We have provisions enough, and, withwater, we could wait a month without suffering; but thirst is a cruelthing!"
It was not thirst alone, but the unchanging sight of the desert, thatfatigued the mind. There was not a variation in the surface of the soil,not a hillock of sand, not a pebble, to relieve the gaze. This unbrokenlevel discouraged the beholder, and gave him that kind of malady calledthe "desert-sickness." The impassible monotony of the arid blue sky,and the vast yellow expanse of the desert-sand, at length produced asensation of terror. In this inflamed atmosphere the heat appeared tovibrate as it does above a blazing hearth, while the mind grew desperatein contemplating the limitless calm, and could see no reason why thething should ever end, since immensity is a species of eternity.
Thus, at last, our hapless travellers, deprived of water in this torridheat, began to feel symptoms of mental disorder. Their eyes swelled intheir sockets, and their gaze became confused.
When night came on, the doctor determined to combat this alarmingtendency by rapid walking. His idea was to pace the sandy plain for afew hours, not in search of any thing, but simply for exercise.
"Come along!" he said to his companions; "believe me, it will do yougood."
"Out of the question!" said Kennedy; "I could not walk a step."
"And I," said Joe, "would rather sleep!"
"But sleep, or even rest, would be dangerous to you, my friends; youmust react against this tendency to stupor. Come with me!"
But the doctor could do nothing with them, and, therefore, set offalone, amid the starry clearness of the night. The first few steps hetook were painful, for they were the steps of an enfeebled man quite outof practice in walking. However, he quickly saw that the exercise wouldbe beneficial to him, and pushed on several miles to the westward. Oncein rapid motion, he felt his spirits greatly che
ered, when, suddenly, avertigo came over him; he seemed to be poised on the edge of an abyss;his knees bent under him; the vast solitude struck terror to hisheart; he found himself the minute mathematical point, the centre ofan infinite circumference, that is to say--a nothing! The balloonhad disappeared entirely in the deepening gloom. The doctor, cool,impassible, reckless explorer that he was, felt himself at last seizedwith a nameless dread. He strove to retrace his steps, but in vain. Hecalled aloud. Not even an echo replied, and his voice died out inthe empty vastness of surrounding space, like a pebble cast into abottomless gulf; then, down he sank, fainting, on the sand, alone, amidthe eternal silence of the desert.
At midnight he came to, in the arms of his faithful follower, Joe. Thelatter, uneasy at his master's prolonged absence, had set out after him,easily tracing him by the clear imprint of his feet in the sand, and hadfound him lying in a swoon.
"What has been the matter, sir?" was the first inquiry.
"Nothing, Joe, nothing! Only a touch of weakness, that's all. It's overnow."
"Oh! it won't amount to any thing, sir, I'm sure of that; but get up onyour feet, if you can. There! lean upon me, and let us get back to theballoon."
And the doctor, leaning on Joe's arm, returned along the track by whichhe had come.
"You were too bold, sir; it won't do to run such risks. You might havebeen robbed," he added, laughing. "But, sir, come now, let us talkseriously."
"Speak! I am listening to you."
"We must positively make up our minds to do something. Our presentsituation cannot last more than a few days longer, and if we get nowind, we are lost."
The doctor made no reply.
"Well, then, one of us must sacrifice himself for the good of all, andit is most natural that it should fall to me to do so."
"What have you to propose? What is your plan?"
"A very simple one! It is to take provisions enough, and to walk righton until I come to some place, as I must do, sooner or later. In themean time, if Heaven sends you a good wind, you need not wait, butcan start again. For my part, if I come to a village, I'll work my waythrough with a few Arabic words that you can write for me on a slip ofpaper, and I'll bring you help or lose my hide. What do you think of myplan?"
"It is absolute folly, Joe, but worthy of your noble heart. The thing isimpossible. You will not leave us."
"But, sir, we must do something, and this plan can't do you anyharm, for, I say again, you need not wait; and then, after all, I maysucceed."
"No, Joe, no! We will not separate. That would only be adding sorrow totrouble. It was written that matters should be as they are; and it isvery probably written that it shall be quite otherwise by-and-by. Let uswait, then, with resignation."
"So be it, master; but take notice of one thing: I give you a daylonger, and I'll not wait after that. To-day is Sunday; we might sayMonday, as it is one o'clock in the morning, and if we don't get off byTuesday, I'll run the risk. I've made up my mind to that!"
The doctor made no answer, and in a few minutes they got back to thecar, where he took his place beside Kennedy, who lay there plunged insilence so complete that it could not be considered sleep.