"I am ready."
"Joe, look out!" cried the doctor in a ringing voice, as he threw down the ladder, whose lowest round dragged up the dust as they fell.
At the doctor's summons, Joe, without checking his horse, turned round. The ladder was close to him, and in a moment he had caught it.
"Throw out the ballast!" roared the doctor.
"Done," replied Kennedy; and the "Victoria," lightened by a weight more than that of Joe, rose 150 feet into the air.
Joe held on tightly to the ladder during its tremendous oscillations; then, making an indescribable gesture to the Arabs, and climbing up with the agility of a clown, he arrived at the car, where his companions received him in their arms. The Arabs uttered yells of surprise and rage when they perceived the "Victoria" bearing away the fugitive, and rapidly increasing her distance.
"Master—Mr. Dick!" Joe had said, and, yielding to emotion and fatigue, he had fainted, while Kennedy, with delirious joy, cried out "Saved—saved!"
"Well—yes!" said the doctor, who had regained his usual impassibility.
Joe was almost naked, his arms bleeding and his body covered with wounds; all these told of his sufferings. The doctor dressed his hurts and laid him down in the tent.
Joe soon regained consciousness, and asked for a glass of brandy, which the doctor did not refuse, Joe not being a person to be treated like an ordinary individual. After drinking it he shook hands with his two companions, and declared himself ready to relate his adventures.
But they would not permit him to speak, and the brave lad fell into a sound sleep, of which he was in great need.
The "Victoria" then took an oblique course towards the west. In consequence of a strong wind, it arrived at the confines of the thorny desert above the palm trees, bent and torn by the tempest, and after having completed a journey of 200 miles since Joe had been received on board again, it passed the tenth degree of longitude towards evening.
