The electric light
chapter 22
The shower of light—the missionary—saved by a beam of light—the Lazarist priest—faint hope—medical attention—a life of self-denial—passing over a volcano.
Fergusson flashed his powerful light beam into various parts of the void and brought it to rest over a locality where shouts of fear were audible. His two companions looked eagerly in that direction.
Nearly motionless, the Victoria was moored over a baobab standing in the center of a clearing; among fields of sesame and sugarcane, you could make out some fifty low, cone-shaped shanties with many tribesmen swarming around them.
A hundred feet below the balloon, a stake stood in the ground. A human being lay at the foot of this stake, a young man no more than thirty years old, with long black hair, half naked, emaciated, drenched in blood, covered with wounds, head sunk onto his chest like the crucified Christ. On top of his head, the hair was more closely cropped, hinting at a tonsure now half grown out.
“A missionary! A priest!” Joe exclaimed.
“Poor devil!” the hunter replied.
“We’ll rescue him, Dick!” the doctor said. “We’ll rescue him!”
The crowd of Negroes saw the balloon, which looked like an enormous comet with a brilliantly glowing tail, and you can easily imagine the terror gripping them. Hearing their shouts, the captive lifted his head. His eyes lit up with sudden hope, and although he understood little of what was going on, he stretched his hands toward his unexpected rescuers.
“He’s alive! He’s alive!” Fergusson exclaimed. “God be praised! Those savages are in a first-class panic! We’ll rescue him! Are you ready, my friends?”
“We’re ready, Samuel.”
“Joe, turn off the burner.”
He carried out the doctor’s order. Pushed quietly along by a barely noticeable breeze, the Victoria hovered over the captive, simultaneously inching downward as her hydrogen contracted. She continued to drift for about ten minutes, surrounded by waves of radiance. Fergusson doused the crowd with glowing rays, splashing quick, bright patches of light here and there. Under the sway of indescribable fears, the tribesmen vanished into their shanties one by one, leaving the area around the stake deserted. So the doctor had been right to rely on the phantasmagoric effect of the Victoria shooting sunbeams into that intense darkness.
The gondola drew near the ground. But a few bolder Negroes came back, shouting loudly, realizing their victim was about to escape. Kennedy grabbed his shotgun, but the doctor ordered him to hold his fire.
On his knees, the priest no longer had the strength to stand up, and he wasn’t even tied to that stake, because his weakened condition made it unnecessary to bind him. Just as the gondola was inches from the ground, the hunter dropped his weapon, seized the priest around the body, and set him down inside the gondola, while at the same instant Joe abruptly dumped their 200 pounds of ballast.
The doctor had figured he would climb with tremendous speed; but contrary to his expectations, the balloon rose just three or four feet and stood still!
“What’s holding us back?” he exclaimed, alarm in his voice.
A few savages rushed up, letting out fierce yells.
“Blast!” Joe exclaimed, leaning over the side. “One of those ruddy Blacks is hanging on under the gondola!”
“Dick! Dick!” the doctor snapped. “The water tank!”
Dick read his friend’s mind, lifted up a water tank that weighed more than a hundred pounds, and heaved it overboard.
Suddenly much lighter, the Victoria gave a 300-foot leap into the skies, the tribesmen howling as their captive escaped in a dazzling flash of light.
“Hooray!” yelled the doctor’s two companions.
All at once the balloon gave another leap, which carried her over a thousand feet up.
“What happened?” Kennedy asked, almost losing his balance.
“Nothing! That ruffian just let go of us,” Samuel Fergusson replied quietly.
Quickly leaning over the side, Joe could still see the savage, hands outspread, whirling in the air, soon crashing into the ground. Then the doctor drew his two electric wires apart, and the darkness was as intense as before. It was one o’clock in the morning.
The unconscious Frenchman finally opened his eyes.
“You’re safe,” the doctor told him.
“Safe!” he replied in English with a wistful smile. “Safe from dying a cruel death! Thank you, my brothers; yet my days are numbered, even my hours, and I haven’t much longer to live!”
And the missionary, exhausted, relapsed into unconsciousness.
“He’s dying!” Dick exclaimed.
“No, no,” Fergusson replied, bending over him. “But he’s quite weak; let’s lay him under the tent.”
And with gentle care they placed his poor, emaciated body on their bedclothes, a body covered with scars and still-bleeding wounds, iron and fire having left their harrowing fingerprints in twenty places. The doctor made a length of bandage out of a handkerchief, then stretched it over the wounds after bathing them; he ministered to the Frenchman adroitly, with a physician’s skill; from his medicine chest he took a bottle that contained an invigorating stimulant, then poured a few drops over the priest’s lips.
Feebly holding the doctor’s compassionate hands,1 the young man barely had the strength to say, “Thank you! Thank you!”
The doctor saw that he needed absolute rest; he lowered the tent flaps and went back to guiding his lighter-than-air vehicle.
Taking their new guest’s weight into account, the balloon was now 180 pounds lighter; so she stayed aloft without the burner’s help. At daybreak a gentle current drove her west-northwest. Fergusson spent a few seconds checking on the unconscious priest.
“He’s a heaven-sent companion—we’ve got to save his life!” the hunter said. “Any grounds for hope?”
“Yes, Dick, with medical attention and this bracing air.”
“That man has really suffered!” Joe said with feeling. “You know, he’s done braver deeds down here than we have, going among those tribes all by himself!”
“No argument there,” the hunter replied.
That whole day the doctor wouldn’t let anybody disrupt the poor man’s sleep; he was unconscious a good while but occasionally broke into anguished mutterings, which didn’t fail to worry Fergusson.
Toward evening the Victoria came to a full stop in the midst of the gloom, and that night, while Joe and Kennedy took turns at the sick man’s bedside, Fergusson watched over the safety of them all.
By next morning the Victoria had drifted only slightly to the west. It promised to be a magnificently clear day. The sick man was able to call his new friends in a firmer voice. They raised the tent flaps, and he happily breathed the crisp morning air.
“How do you feel?” Fergusson asked him.
“Maybe a little better,” he answered. “But you, my friends, I’ve seen you only in a dream till now! I can scarcely grasp what has happened! Tell me who you are, so I don’t forget your names in my last prayers!”
“We’re English travelers,” Samuel replied. “We’ve been attempting to cross Africa by balloon, and along the way we’ve had the good fortune to rescue you.”
“Science has its heroes,” the missionary said.
“But religion has its martyrs!” the Scot replied.
“You’re a missionary?” the doctor asked.
“I’m a Lazarist priest, a member of the Congregation of the Mission. Heaven sent you to me, and heaven be praised! The life I’ve sacrificed is complete! But you come from Europe. Tell me about Europe, about France! Five years have gone by since I’ve had any news!”
“Five years by yourself, among these savages!” Kennedy exclaimed.
“They’re souls needing redemption,” the young priest said, “our primitive, unenlightened brothers whom only religion can educate and civilize.”
Honoring the missionary’s wishes, Samuel Fergusson talked at length about France.
The priest listened eagerly, and tears flowed from his eyes. The poor young man took Kennedy’s and Joe’s hands in turn—his own were burning with fever; the doctor fixed him a few cups of tea that he drank with pleasure; then he had the strength to sit up partway, and he smiled to see himself carried through such a clear sky!
“You’re bold travelers,” he said, “and you’ll succeed in your courageous undertaking; you’ll see your relatives again, your friends, your country, you’ll—”
Then the young priest grew so much weaker, he sank back again. He lay in a state of collapse for some hours, as if near death, while Fergusson ministered to him. The doctor couldn’t contain his emotion; he felt the priest’s life slipping away. Would he lose the man so quickly after rescuing him from torment? He changed the bandaging on the martyr’s horrible wounds, then had to sacrifice the better part of his water supply to cool the priest’s burning limbs. He showered him with the gentlest, wisest care. Little by little the sick man was born anew in his arms, returning to awareness if not to activity.
Out of his broken words, the doctor pieced together his life story. “Speak your native language,” Samuel had said to him. “I understand French, and it won’t be as tiring for you.”
The missionary was a poor young man from the village of Arradon in central Morbihan, a department in Brittany; from early on he had a religious calling; in addition to a life of self-denial, moreover, he was willing to risk his life, so he joined the priestly order known as the Congregation of the Mission, whose illustrious founder was St. Vincent de Paul; at the age of twenty he left his country for the unfriendly shores of Africa. And there, overcoming obstacles, weathering hardships, traveling, and praying, he gradually made it to the heartland of the tribes who live along the tributaries of the upper Nile; for two years they rejected his religion, ignored his zeal, and looked askance at his charitable deeds; he was held captive by one of the cruelest Nyambara tribes, and they subjected him to a thousand forms of ill treatment. But he kept preaching, teaching, and praying. Run out of the region, this tribe left him for dead after one of their all-too-frequent battles with other tribes, but instead of returning in his tracks, the young man continued his evangelical pilgrimage. Sometimes people mistook him for a madman, and those were his periods of greatest peace; he was acquainted with the dialects in these regions; he tried to make converts. In sum, he roamed these barbaric lands for another two full years, driven by a superhuman, God-given strength; he lived for a year with that tribe called the Barafri, one of the most savage of the Nyam-Nyams. Their chieftain had died a few days ago, and they blamed the priest for his unexpected demise; they decided to put the Frenchman to death; his torture had already been under way for forty hours; he was to die beneath the noonday sun, as the doctor had assumed. When he heard the sound of firearms, his instincts took over: “Help! Help!” he shouted; and he thought he was dreaming when a voice from the sky offered him words of consolation.
“I don’t regret,” he added, “that my existence is waning—my life belongs to God!”
“Don’t give up hope,” the doctor answered him. “We’re at your side; we’ll save you from death, just as we rescued you from torment.”
“I don’t ask that much of heaven!” the priest replied with calm acceptance. “Blessed be the Lord for granting me the joy, before I die, of clasping friendly hands and hearing my native language.”
The missionary grew weaker again. The day went by in this way, alternating between hope and fear, Kennedy deeply moved, Joe turning aside to wipe his eyes.
The Victoria made little headway, as if the wind tried to go easy on her precious burden.
Toward evening Joe sighted an immense glow in the west. At higher latitudes you would have sworn it was a huge aurora borealis; the sky seemed on fire. The doctor carefully examined this phenomenon.
“Maybe it’s only an erupting volcano,” he said.
“But the wind’s carrying us over it,” Kennedy insisted.
“Well, we’ll clear it by a comfortable margin.”
Three hours later the Victoria was in the midst of mountains; her exact position was longitude 24° 15′ and latitude 4° 42′; in front of her a blazing crater poured out torrents of molten lava, hurling slabs of rock to a great height; streams of liquid fire fell back in blinding cascades. It was a magnificent sight but a dangerous one, because the wind blew with unchanging constancy, carrying the balloon toward that scalding air.
It was an unavoidable obstacle, and they had to clear it; the burner was going full blast, and the Victoria made it to 6,000 feet, leaving more than 600 yards between herself and the volcano.
From his sickbed the dying priest could watch that fiery crater, while a thousand dazzling showers came roaring out of it.
“It’s so beautiful,” he said, “and God’s power is infinite, even in its most terrifying manifestations!”
That outpouring of red-hot lava covered the mountainside in a genuine carpet of flame; the balloon’s lower half glittered in the night; a scorching heat rose up to the gondola, and Dr. Fergusson was quick to flee from this perilous situation.
Around ten o’clock that evening, the mountain was nothing more than a red speck on the horizon, and the Victoria serenely continued her journey at a lower altitude.
