Works of Jules Verne/Five Weeks in a Balloon/Chapter 34
CHAPTER XXXIV
LOSS OF AN ANCHOR
At 3 a. m. the wind rose to a hurricane, and blew with such violence that the "Victoria" could not remain at anchor without danger; the reeds beat upon the silk and threatened to tear it in pieces.
"We must be off, Dick," said the doctor. "We cannot stay here under these circumstances."
"But Joe, Samuel?"
"I shall certainly not abandon him; and if the storm carries us 100 miles to the north, I shall return here; but at present we are endangering the safety of all."
"Going without him, then?" said the Scot, with despairing tone.
"Do you not believe that my heart is as heavy as your own, and that I am only yielding to dire necessity?"
"I am at your orders," replied Kennedy. "Let us go."
But the departure involved great difficulties. The grapnel, which had sunk deeply, resisted all their efforts, and the balloon, dragging it, fastened it still tighter. Kennedy could not disengage it; besides, in their position, such an attempt, if successful, would have been very dangerous, for the "Victoria" might have taken flight before Kennedy could have rejoined her.
The doctor, who did not wish to run such a risk, made the Scot enter the car, and determined to cut the rope. The "Victoria" bounded 300 feet into the air, and made directly towards the north. Ferguson was obliged to yield to the storm. He folded his arms and remained absorbed in his own sad reflections. After some minutes he turned towards Kennedy, who was equally taciturn, and said, "We have been tempting Providence, perhaps. It scarcely seems man's province to undertake such a journey." And a deep sigh escaped him.
"But a few days ago," replied Kennedy, we were congratulating ourselves at having so well escaped danger; we were shaking hands all round."
"Poor Joe, what an excellent disposition he possessed, and a brave and honest heart! At one time dazzled by his riches, but he willingly sacrificed his treasure. He is now far away from us, and the wind still hurries along with irresistible violence!"
"Let us see, Samuel; admitting that he has found refuge among the lake tribes, cannot he do as other travelers have done—like Denham and Barth? They came home safely."
"My dear Dick, Joe does not know a word of the language—he is alone and without means. The travelers of whom you speak never advanced without sending the chiefs numerous presents with an escort armed and prepared for these expeditions. And even then they did not escape hardships and sufferings of the worst kind. What, then, do you think, can have become of our unfortunate companion? It is horrible to think of, and this is one of the greatest troubles I have ever had to deplore."
"But we shall go back again, Samuel?"
"We shall, of course, Dick. We will abandon the 'Victoria,' if it be necessary, to regain Lake Tchad on foot, and communicate with the Sultan of Bornou. The Arabs cannot have retained a bad opinion of the first Europeans."
"I will follow you, Samuel," replied Kennedy, "with energy; you may depend upon me. We will rather relinquish the object of our journey—Joe is devoted to us—we will sacrifice ourselves for him."
This resolution gave fresh courage to those brave men. They felt strong in the same purpose. Ferguson did all in his power to drift into a current which might take him back to the Tchad, but that was then impossible, and it was impracticable to descend upon such a deserted ground and in such a storm.
Thus the "Victoria" crossed the country of the Tibbons. It passed over Belad and Djérid, a thorny desert, which forms the boundary of the Soudan, and reaches to the sandy deserts marked by the long track of caravans; the last line of vegetation is soon mingled with the sky on the southern horizon, not far from the principal oases of this region, whose fifty wells are shaded by most magnificent trees. But the balloon could not stop. An Arab encampment, with their striped tents, and their camels stretched upon the sand, gave life to the scene, but the "Victoria" passed away like a meteor, and accomplished a distance of sixty miles in three hours, without Ferguson having any command over this headlong flight.
"We cannot stop, we cannot descend," he said; "there is not a tree to be seen, not a mound; we are about to pass over the Sahara. Surely Heaven is against us."
He spoke thus with the energy of despair, when he perceived in the north the sands of the desert whirled up in the midst of a blinding dust, and gyrating under the influence of opposing currents.
In the midst of this whirlwind—scattered, and broken, and overturned—was a caravan, which was disappearing in this avalanche of sand; the camels, hurrying hither and thither, uttered lamentable sounds—the cries and shouts ascended from this suffocating sand-fog. Sometimes a striped garment would display its bright colors in the chaos, and the roaring of the tempest added to this scene of destruction.
The sand quickly fell into dense masses, and there, where but lately stretched a level plain, was now a mound, still moving, the immense tomb of the buried caravan.
The doctor and Kennedy turned pale at the sight, they could not manage the balloon, which turned round and round in the contrary currents, and would not obey the expansion or contraction of the gas.
Caught in these eddies of air the "Victoria" whirled about giddily, the car oscillated fearfully, the instruments suspended in the tent were shaken almost to pieces, the tubes of the serpentine bent as though they would break. The travelers were deafened, and they were obliged to hold tightly to the cordage to keep their positions during the fury of the storm. Kennedy, with hair disheveled, sat still, and did not speak a word. The doctor had resumed his old courage at the approach of danger, and no trace of his emotion was now apparent, not even when, after a last somersault, the "Victoria" suddenly was left in an unexpected calm, the wind from the north seized it and drove it back upon the course it had been taking since the morning, and at an equally rapid pace.
"Where are we going?" cried Kennedy.
"Where Providence wills, my dear Dick. I was wrong to doubt whatever happens is for the best, and we are now returning towards the places we never hoped to see again."
The ground so flat, so level, when they first passed over it, now appeared like the waves after a storm; a series of small mounds jotted the desert; the wind blew stiffly, and the "Victoria" flew into space.
The direction now taken by the balloon was slightly different from that followed in the morning; so at about nine o'clock, instead of finding themselves on the borders of Lake Tchad, they saw that the desert extended before them. Kennedy observed this.
"It does not much matter," replied the doctor; "the important point is to get down south; we shall there come upon the towns of Boarnou, Woaddie, or Kouka, and I shall not hesitate to stop there."
"If you are satisfied, I am," replied Kennedy, "but Heaven grant that we may not be obliged to cross the desert, like those unfortunate Arabs. That was a fearful sight."
Dick frequently referred to this. The crossing of the desert includes all the dangers of the ocean, even the chances of being swallowed up in its depths, and, moreover, unbearable fatigue and privations.
"It appears to me," said Kennedy, "that the wind is less violent, the dust is less thick, the sand-waves are less high, and the horizon is clearing."
"So much the better; we will scan it carefully with our glasses, and no point shall escape us."
"I will take that duty, Samuel, and when the first tree appears you shall be told at once." And Kennedy, telescope in hand, placed himself in the front of the car.