Five Weeks in a Balloon - Jules Verne (read book TXT) 📗

the minute mathematical point, the centre of an infinite circumference, that is to say⁠—a nothing! The balloon had disappeared entirely in the deepening gloom. The doctor, cool, impassible, reckless explorer that he was, felt himself at last seized with a nameless dread. He strove to retrace his steps, but in vain. He called aloud. Not even an echo replied, and his voice died out in the empty vastness of surrounding space, like a pebble cast into a bottomless gulf; then, down he sank, fainting, on the sand, alone, amid the eternal silence of the desert.

At midnight he came to, in the arms of his faithful follower, Joe. The latter, 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 had found 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 over now.”

“Oh! it won’t amount to anything, sir, I’m sure of that; but get up on your feet, if you can. There! lean upon me, and let us get back to the balloon.”

And the doctor, leaning on Joe’s arm, returned along the track by which he had come.

“You were too bold, sir; it won’t do to run such risks. You might have been robbed,” he added, laughing. “But, sir, come now, let us talk seriously.”

“Speak! I am listening to you.”

“We must positively make up our minds to do something. Our present situation cannot last more than a few days longer, and if we get no wind, we are lost.”

The doctor made no reply.

“Well, then, one of us must sacrifice himself for the good of all, and it 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 right on until I come to some place, as I must do, sooner or later. In the mean time, if Heaven sends you a good wind, you need not wait, but can start again. For my part, if I come to a village, I’ll work my way through with a few Arabic words that you can write for me on a slip of paper, and I’ll bring you help or lose my hide. What do you think of my plan?”

“It is absolute folly, Joe, but worthy of your noble heart. The thing is impossible. You will not leave us.”

“But, sir, we must do something, and this plan can’t do you any harm, for, I say again, you need not wait; and then, after all, I may succeed.”

“No, Joe, no! We will not separate. That would only be adding sorrow to trouble. It was written that matters should be as they are; and it is very probably written that it shall be quite otherwise by-and-by. Let us wait, then, with resignation.”

“So be it, master; but take notice of one thing: I give you a day longer, and I’ll not wait after that. Today is Sunday; we might say Monday, as it is one o’clock in the morning, and if we don’t get off by Tuesday, 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 the car, where he took his place beside Kennedy, who lay there plunged in silence so complete that it could not be considered sleep.

XXVII

Terrific heat⁠—Hallucinations⁠—The last drops of water⁠—Nights of despair⁠—An attempt at suicide⁠—The simoom⁠—The oasis⁠—The lion and lioness.

The doctor’s first care, on the morrow, was to consult the barometer. He found that the mercury had scarcely undergone any perceptible depression.

“Nothing!” he murmured, “nothing!”

He got out of the car and scrutinized the weather; there was only the same heat, the same cloudless sky, the same merciless drought.

“Must we, then, give up to despair?” he exclaimed, in agony.

Joe did not open his lips. He was buried in his own thoughts, and planning the expedition he had proposed.

Kennedy got up, feeling very ill, and a prey to nervous agitation. He was suffering horribly with thirst, and his swollen tongue and lips could hardly articulate a syllable.

There still remained a few drops of water. Each of them knew this, and each was thinking of it, and felt himself drawn toward them; but neither of the three dared to take a step.

Those three men, friends and companions as they were, fixed their haggard eyes upon each other with an instinct of ferocious longing, which was most plainly revealed in the hardy Scot, whose vigorous constitution yielded the soonest to these unnatural privations.

Throughout the day he was delirious, pacing up and down, uttering hoarse cries, gnawing his clinched fists, and ready to open his veins and drink his own hot blood.

“Ah!” he cried, “land of thirst! Well might you be called the land of despair!”

At length he sank down in utter prostration, and his friends heard no other sound from him than the hissing of his breath between his parched and swollen lips.

Toward evening, Joe had his turn of delirium. The vast expanse of sand appeared to him an immense pond, full of clear and limpid water; and, more than once, he dashed himself upon the scorching waste to drink long draughts, and rose again with his mouth clogged with hot dust.

“Curses on it!” he yelled, in his madness, “it’s nothing but salt water!”

Then, while Ferguson and Kennedy lay there motionless, the resistless longing came over him to drain the last few drops of water that had been kept in reserve. The natural instinct proved too strong. He dragged himself toward the car, on his knees; he glared at the bottle containing the precious fluid; he gave one wild, eager glance, seized the treasured store, and bore it to his lips.

At that instant he heard a heartrending cry close beside him⁠—“Water! water!”

It was Kennedy, who had crawled up close to him,