The surprise balloon
chapter 25
A little philosophy—a cloud on the horizon—inside a fog bank—the surprise balloon—signals—spitting image of the Victoria—palm trees—traces of a caravan—the well in the middle of the desert.
The next day, same clear sky, same motionless air. The Victoria climbed to an altitude of 500 feet; but she made little noticeable progress into the west.
“We’re in the heart of the desert,” the doctor said. “Look at that vast expanse of sand! What a strange sight! What an odd quirk of nature! Why is there such extravagant vegetation elsewhere and such a barren wasteland here, yet both are in the same latitude and under the same sunlight?”
“My dear Samuel, I couldn’t care less about why,” Kennedy replied. “The reason doesn’t worry me as much as the reality. It is what it is, and nothing else matters.”
“It’s helpful to be a little philosophical, my dear Dick; it can’t do any harm.”
“Let’s philosophize, I’m all for it; we’ve got the time; we’re barely moving. The wind hasn’t the gumption to start blowing, it’s dozed off.”
“Not for long,” Joe said. “Some cloud layers look like they’re forming in the east.”
“Joe’s right,” the doctor replied.
“Fine,” Kennedy said. “Will we get our kind of cloud, with a good rain plus a good wind to splash it in our faces?”
“We’ll see, Dick, we’ll see.”
“It’s Friday though, master, and Fridays are unlucky for me.” “Well, this particular Friday I hope you’ll get over being superstitious.”
“I’d like to, master. Whew!” he said, daubing his face. “Heat’s nice to have, especially in the winter; but no need to overdo it in the summer.”
“Aren’t you afraid of the hot sunlight on our balloon?” Kennedy asked the doctor.
“No, the gutta-percha that coats her taffeta can stand much higher temperatures. Using my coil, I’ve sometimes gotten her as hot inside as 158°,1 but the envelope doesn’t seem to have suffered.”
“A cloud! An actual cloud!” Joe yelled just then, his keen eyesight rivaling any spyglass.
In essence a heavy cloud layer, now distinctly visible, was rising slowly above the horizon; it had such depth that it seemed inflated; it was an assemblage of little clouds that always kept their original shapes, from which the doctor concluded that the cluster didn’t have any air currents inside.
This densely packed mass had come in sight around eight o’clock in the morning, and it wasn’t until eleven o’clock that it rose as high as the sun’s disk, which vanished completely behind that heavy curtain; at the same moment, the cloud’s bottom layer broke free of the horizon line, which burst into full light.
“It’s only one isolated cloud,” the doctor said. “We mustn’t put too much stock in it. Look, Dick, it’s still the exact shape it was this morning.”
“In short, Samuel, there won’t be any rain or wind, for us at least.”
“I’m afraid not, because it’s staying at quite an altitude.”
“Well, Samuel, how about we chase down that cloud, since it doesn’t want to burst over us?”
“I don’t imagine that will help a great deal,” the doctor replied. “We’d use up gas and considerably more water as a result. But in our circumstances we mustn’t overlook a thing; we’ll go higher.”
Turning his burner up all the way, the doctor shot its flame into the loops of the coil; the heat grew intense, and soon the balloon started climbing as her hydrogen expanded.
Around 1,500 feet up she came to the opaque cloud mass, then went inside a heavy fog lingering at that altitude; but she didn’t find the tiniest puff of wind; this fog actually seemed free of moisture, and objects coming in contact with it barely got damp. Engulfed by that vapor, the Victoria may have moved forward in a more noticeable manner, but that was all she accomplished.
The doctor was gloomily verifying the modest results of this maneuver, when he heard Joe exclaim in a tone of tremendous surprise:
“Well, strike me dead!”
“What is it, Joe?”
“Master! Mr. Kennedy! This is fantastic!”
“What’s going on?”
“We aren’t the only ones in the sky! Somebody’s up to no good! They’ve stolen our contraption from us!”
“Is he losing his mind?” Kennedy asked.
Joe was the picture of astonishment! He didn’t move a muscle.
“Could the poor boy be suffering from sunstroke?” the doctor said, turning to him. “What are you talking about?”
“Take a look, sir,” Joe said, pointing to a spot in the air.
“By St. Patrick!” Kennedy exclaimed in his turn. “It’s unbelievable! Samuel, Samuel, look at this!”
“I’m looking,” the doctor replied quietly.
“Another balloon! And other travelers like us!”
Sure enough, floating in the air 200 feet away, there was another lighter-than-air vehicle, complete with gondola and travelers; she was following the exact same course as the Victoria.
“Well,” the doctor said, “all we have to do is signal her; get the flag, Kennedy, and let’s show our colors.”
Apparently the travelers in that second balloon had the same idea at the same moment, because they raised the very same banner, put it through the exact same paces, and reproduced the identical greeting.
“What’s the meaning of this?” the hunter asked.
“They’re monkeys,” Joe exclaimed. “They’re mimicking us!”
“It means,” Fergusson replied with a chuckle, “that you, my dear Dick, are the one sending that signal; in other words, we ourselves are the people in that second gondola, and that balloon is quite simply our own Victoria.”
“With all due respect, master,” Joe said, “you’ll never convince me of such a thing.”
“Climb up on the rim, Joe, wave your arms, and you’ll see.”
Joe did so: he saw his gestures instantly and accurately duplicated.
“It’s merely that visual effect known as a mirage, nothing more,” the doctor said. “A simple optical phenomenon; it’s caused by the unequal densities of these layers of air, that’s all.”
“It’s marvelous,” Joe kept saying, unable to leave off and continuing to fool around with different arm movements.
“What a fetching sight!” Kennedy went on. “It’s a treat to see our good old Victoria! Did you realize how smart she looks and how grandly she carries herself?”
“You can put it any fancy way you like,” Joe remarked. “It’s one for the books all right.”
But it wasn’t long before that image gradually faded away; the clouds deserted the Victoria—who didn’t try to keep up—and climbed to a higher altitude, vanishing an hour later into the wild blue yonder.
The wind was barely noticeable, yet it seemed to grow even weaker. Desperate, the doctor dropped closer to the ground.
Yanked out of their worries by that incident, the travelers sank back into their gloomy thoughts, overwhelmed by the ravenous heat.
Around four o’clock Joe sighted something that stood out against the immense sandy flatlands, and soon he could confirm that two palm trees were growing a short distance away.
“Palm trees!” Fergusson said. “But does that mean there’s a spring nearby, or a well?”
He took a spyglass and made sure Joe wasn’t seeing things.
“Water! Water at last!” he repeated. “And we’re saved—although we’re barely moving, we’re still going forward, and we’ll ultimately reach it!”
“Fine, master!” Joe said. “How about we drink some beforehand? The air’s positively stifling.”
“Let’s drink some, my boy!”
Nobody had to be coaxed. They put away a whole pint, which reduced their water supply to just 3½ pints.
“Ooh, that hit the spot!” Joe said. “It went down so good! Barclay Perkins never brewed a beer that gave me more pleasure.”
“That’s one of the benefits of doing without,” the doctor replied.
“But the others don’t amount to much,” the hunter said. “In exchange for never having to do without, I’ll give up the pleasure any day.”
By six o’clock the Victoria was soaring over the palm trees.
The two trees were scrawny, sickly, dried up—two ghost trees without foliage, more dead than alive. Fergusson viewed them with dismay.
Beneath their feet they made out the half-worn stonework of a well; but under the sun’s fiery heat, it seemed those stones were crumbling into intangible dust. There wasn’t any semblance of moisture. Samuel’s heart constricted, and he was about to share his fears with his companions, when their exclamations caught his attention.
Westward as far as the eye could see, there stretched a long trail of bleached bones; fragments of skeletons surrounded the wellhead; a caravan had pushed on to this point, its progress marked by that extended boneyard; one by one its weaker members had collapsed on the sand; reaching the long-sought spring, the stronger had faced horrible deaths at the edge of it.
The travelers looked at each other and turned white.
“Let’s not disembark,” Kennedy said, “let’s get away from this ghastly place! We won’t turn up a drop of water here!”
“Not so fast, Dick, we don’t want to be conscience-stricken because we overlooked something. We can spend the night here as well as anywhere else. We’ll search that well to the very bottom; there used to be a spring; maybe something remains.”
The Victoria touched down; Joe and Kennedy filled the gondola with an amount of sand equaling their weight, then they disembarked. They ran to the well and descended some steps that had nearly disintegrated. It looked like the spring had given out many years before. They dug into the dry, crumbling sand, the most arid sand possible; there wasn’t a trace of any moisture.
The doctor watched them climb back to the desert above, sweating, disheveled, covered with dust particles, beaten, discouraged, desperate.
He knew that their search had been futile; he had expected as much and said nothing. From that day forward he felt he had to summon the courage and strength for three.
Joe had brought back the shriveled remains of a goatskin flask, which he angrily tossed among the bones scattered over the ground.
During supper the travelers didn’t exchange a word; they forced themselves to eat.
And yet they still hadn’t endured the genuine agonies of thirst, and they despaired for the future.