VERNANIA: The Celebrated Works of Jules Verne in One Edition. Жюль Верн
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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 we reach the river. Quick! quick!”
And these daring men did not hesitate a moment to avail themselves of this last desperate means of escape. They clutched the network, as the doctor directed, and Joe, holding on by one hand, with the other cut the cords that suspended the car; and the latter dropped to the ground just as the balloon was sinking for the last time.
“Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the brave fellow exultingly, as the Victoria, once more relieved, shot up again to a height of three hundred feet.
The Talabas spurred their horses, which now came tearing on at a furious gallop; but the balloon, falling in with a much more favorable wind, shot ahead of them, and was rapidly carried toward a hill that stretched across the horizon to the westward. This was a circumstance favorable to the aeronauts, because they could rise over the hill, while Al-Hadji’s horde had to diverge to the northward in order to pass this obstacle.
The three friends still clung to the network. They had been able to fasten it under their feet, where it had formed a sort of swinging pocket.
Suddenly, after they had crossed the hill, the doctor exclaimed: “The river! the river! the Senegal, my friends!”
And about two miles ahead of them, there was indeed the river rolling along its broad mass of water, while the farther bank, which was low and fertile, offered a sure refuge, and a place favorable for a descent.
“Another quarter of an hour,” said Ferguson, “and we are saved!”
But it was not to happen thus; the empty balloon descended slowly upon a tract almost entirely bare of vegetation. It was made up of long slopes and stony plains, a few bushes and some coarse grass, scorched by the sun.
The Victoria touched the ground several times, and rose again, but her rebound was diminishing in height and length. At the last one, it caught by the upper part of the network in the lofty branches of a baobab, the only tree that stood there, solitary and alone, in the midst of the waste.
“It’s all over,” said Kennedy.
“And at a hundred paces only from the river!” groaned Joe.
The three hapless aeronauts descended to the ground, and the doctor drew his companions toward the Senegal.
At this point the river sent forth a prolonged roaring; and when Ferguson reached its bank, he recognized the falls of Gouina. But not a boat, not a living creature was to be seen. With a breadth of two thousand feet, the Senegal precipitates itself for a height of one hundred and fifty, with a thundering reverberation. It ran, where they saw it, from east to west, and the line of rocks that barred its course extended from north to south. In the midst of the falls, rocks of strange forms started up like huge antediluvian animals, petrified there amid the waters.
The impossibility of crossing this gulf was self-evident, and Kennedy could not restrain a gesture of despair.
But Dr. Ferguson, with an energetic accent of undaunted daring, exclaimed—
“All is not over!”
“I knew it,” said Joe, with that confidence in his master which nothing could ever shake.
The sight of the dried-up grass had inspired the doctor with a bold idea. It was the last chance of escape. He led his friends quickly back to where they had left the covering of the balloon.
“We have at least an hour’s start of those banditti,” said he; “let us lose no time, my friends; gather a quantity of this dried grass; I want a hundred pounds of it, at least.”
“For what purpose?” asked Kennedy, surprised.
“I have no more gas; well, I’ll cross the river with hot air!”
“Ah, doctor,” exclaimed Kennedy, “you are, indeed, a great man!”
Joe and Kennedy at once went to work, and soon had an immense pile of dried grass heaped up near the baobab.
In the mean time, the doctor had enlarged the orifice of the balloon by cutting it open at the lower end. He then was very careful to expel the last remnant of hydrogen through the valve, after which he heaped up a quantity of grass under the balloon, and set fire to it.
It takes but a little while to inflate a balloon with hot air. A head of one hundred and eighty degrees is sufficient to diminish the weight of the air it contains to the extent of one-half, by rarefying it. Thus, the Victoria quickly began to assume a more rounded form. There was no lack of grass; the fire was kept in full blast by the doctor’s assiduous efforts, and the balloon grew fuller every instant.
It was then a quarter to four o’clock.
At this moment the band of Talabas reappeared about two miles to the northward, and the three friends could hear their cries, and the clatter of their horses galloping at full speed.
“In twenty minutes they will be here!” said Kennedy.
“More grass! more grass, Joe! In ten minutes we shall have her full of hot air.”
“Here it is,