The priest, on his knees, for he had not the strength to stand erect,
was not even fastened to the stake, his weakness rendering that
precaution superfluous. At the instant when the car was close to the
ground, the brawny Scot, laying aside his rifle, and seizing the priest
around the waist, lifted him into the car, while, at the same moment,
Joe tossed over the two hundred pounds of ballast.
The doctor had expected to ascend rapidly, but, contrary to his
calculations, the balloon, after going up some three or four feet,
remained there perfectly motionless.
“What holds us?” he asked, with an accent of terror.
Some of the savages were running toward them, uttering ferocious cries.
“Ah, ha!” said Joe, “one of those cursed blacks is hanging to the car!”
“Dick! Dick!” cried the doctor, “the water-tank!”
Kennedy caught his friend’s idea on the instant, and, snatching up with
desperate strength one of the water-tanks weighing about one hundred
pounds, he tossed it overboard. The balloon, thus suddenly lightened,
made a leap of three hundred feet into the air, amid the howlings of the
tribe whose prisoner thus escaped them in a blaze of dazzling light.
“Hurrah!” shouted the doctor’s comrades.
Suddenly, the balloon took a fresh leap, which carried it up to an
elevation of a thousand feet.
“What’s that?” said Kennedy, who had nearly lost his balance.
“Oh! nothing; only that black villain leaving us!” replied the doctor,
tranquilly, and Joe, leaning over, saw the savage that had clung to the
car whirling over and over, with his arms outstretched in the air, and
presently dashed to pieces on the ground. The doctor then separated his
electric wires, and every thing was again buried in profound obscurity.
It was now one o’clock in the morning.
The Frenchman, who had swooned away, at length opened his eyes.
“You are saved!” were the doctor’s first words.
“Saved!” he with a sad smile replied in English, “saved from a cruel
death! My brethren, I thank you, but my days are numbered, nay, even my
hours, and I have but little longer to live.”
With this, the missionary, again yielding to exhaustion, relapsed into
his fainting-fit.
“He is dying!” said Kennedy.
“No,” replied the doctor, bending over him, “but he is very weak; so let
us lay him under the awning.”
And they did gently deposit on their blankets that poor, wasted body,
covered with scars and wounds, still bleeding where fire and steel had,
in twenty places, left their agonizing marks. The doctor, taking an old
handkerchief, quickly prepared a little lint, which he spread over the
wounds, after having washed them. These rapid attentions were bestowed
with the celerity and skill of a practised surgeon, and, when they were
complete, the doctor, taking a cordial from his medicine-chest, poured a
few drops upon his patient’s lips.
The latter feebly pressed his kind hands, and scarcely had the strength
to say, “Thank you! thank you!”
The doctor comprehended that he must be left perfectly quiet; so he
closed the folds of the awning and resumed the guidance of the balloon.
The latter, after taking into account the weight of the new passenger,
had been lightened of one hundred and eighty pounds, and therefore
kept aloft without the aid of the cylinder. At the first dawn of day,
a current drove it gently toward the west-northwest. The doctor went
in under the awning for a moment or two, to look at his still sleeping
patient.
“May Heaven spare the life of our new companion! Have you any hope?”
said the Scot.
“Yes, Dick, with care, in this pure, fresh atmosphere.”
“How that man has suffered!” said Joe, with feeling. “He did bolder
things than we’ve done, in venturing all alone among those savage
tribes!”
“That cannot be questioned,” assented the hunter.
During the entire day the doctor would not allow the sleep of his
patient to be disturbed. It was really a long stupor, broken only by
an occasional murmur of pain that continued to disquiet and agitate the
doctor greatly.
Toward evening the balloon remained stationary in the midst of the
gloom, and during the night, while Kennedy and Joe relieved each other
in carefully tending the sick man, Ferguson kept watch over the safety
of all.
By the morning of the next day, the balloon had moved, but very
slightly, to the westward. The dawn came up pure and magnificent. The
sick man was able to call his friends with a stronger voice. They raised
the curtains of the awning, and he inhaled with delight the keen morning
air.
“How do you feel to-day?” asked the doctor.
“Better, perhaps,” he replied. “But you, my friends, I have not seen
you yet, excepting in a dream! I can, indeed, scarcely recall what has
occurred. Who are you--that your names may not be forgotten in my dying
prayers?”
“We are English travellers,” replied Ferguson. “We are trying to cross
Africa in a balloon, and, on our way, we have had the good fortune to
rescue you.”
“Science has its heroes,” said the missionary.
“But religion its martyrs!” rejoined the Scot.
“Are you a missionary?” asked the doctor.
“I am a priest of the Lazarist mission. Heaven sent you to me--Heaven
be praised! The sacrifice of my life had been accomplished! But you come
from Europe; tell me about Europe, about France! I have been without
news for the last five years!”
“Five years! alone! and among these savages!” exclaimed Kennedy with
amazement.
“They are souls to redeem! ignorant and barbarous brethren, whom
religion alone can instruct and civilize.”
Dr. Ferguson, yielding to the priest’s request, talked to him long and
fully about France. He listened eagerly, and his eyes filled with tears.
He seized Kennedy’s and Joe’s hands by turns in his own, which were
burning with fever. The doctor prepared him some tea, and he drank it
with satisfaction. After that, he had strength enough to raise himself
up a little, and smiled with pleasure at seeing himself borne along
through so pure a sky.
“You are daring travellers!” he said, “and you will succeed in your bold
enterprise. You will again behold your relatives, your friends, your
country--you--”
At this moment, the weakness of the young missionary became so extreme
that they had to lay him again on the bed, where a prostration, lasting
for several hours, held him like a dead man under the eye of Dr.
Ferguson. The latter could not suppress his emotion, for he felt that
this life now in his charge was ebbing away. Were they then so soon
to lose him whom they had snatched from an agonizing death? The doctor
again washed and dressed the young martyr’s frightful wounds, and had to
sacrifice nearly his whole stock of water to refresh his burning limbs.
He surrounded him with the tenderest and most intelligent care, until,
at length, the sick man revived, little by little, in his arms, and
recovered his consciousness if not his strength.
The doctor was able to gather something of his history from his broken
murmurs.
“Speak in your native language,” he said to the sufferer; “I understand
it, and it will fatigue you less.”
The missionary was a poor young man from the village of Aradon, in
Brittany, in the Morbihan country. His earliest instincts had drawn him
toward an ecclesiastical career, but to this life of self-sacrifice he
was also desirous of joining a life of danger, by entering the mission
of the order of priesthood of which St. Vincent de Paul was the founder,
and, at twenty, he quitted his country for the inhospitable shores of
Africa. From the sea-coast, overcoming obstacles, little by little,
braving all privations, pushing onward, afoot, and praying, he had
advanced to the very centre of those tribes that dwell among the
tributary streams of the Upper Nile. For two years his faith was
spurned, his zeal denied recognition, his charities taken in ill
part, and he remained a prisoner to one of the cruelest tribes of the
Nyambarra, the object of every species of maltreatment. But still
he went on teaching, instructing, and praying. The tribe having been
dispersed and he left for dead, in one of those combats which are
so frequent between the tribes, instead of retracing his steps, he
persisted in his evangelical mission. His most tranquil time was when he
was taken for a madman. Meanwhile, he had made himself familiar with the
idioms of the country, and he catechised in them. At length, during two
more long years, he traversed these barbarous regions, impelled by
that superhuman energy that comes from God. For a year past he had been
residing with that tribe of the Nyam-Nyams known as the Barafri, one of
the wildest and most ferocious of them all. The chief having died a few
days before our travellers appeared, his sudden death was attributed to
the missionary, and the tribe resolved to immolate him. His sufferings
had already continued for the space of forty hours, and, as the doctor
had supposed, he was to have perished in the blaze of the noonday sun.
When he heard the sound of fire-arms, nature got the best of him, and
he had cried out, “Help! help!” He then thought that he must have been
dreaming, when a voice, that seemed to come from the sky, had uttered
words of consolation.
“I have no regrets,” he said, “for the life that is passing away from
me; my life belongs to God!”
“Hope still!” said the doctor; “we are near you, and we will save you
now, as we saved you from the tortures of the stake.”
“I do not ask so much of Heaven,” said the priest, with resignation.
“Blessed be God for having vouchsafed to me the joy before I die of
having pressed your friendly hands, and having heard, once more, the
language of my country!”
The missionary here grew weak again, and the whole day went by between
hope and fear, Kennedy deeply moved, and Joe drawing his hand over his
eyes more than once when he thought that no one saw him.
The balloon made little progress, and the wind seemed as though
unwilling to jostle its precious burden.
Toward evening, Joe discovered a great light in the west. Under more
elevated latitudes, it might have been mistaken for an immense aurora
borealis, for the sky appeared on fire. The doctor very attentively
examined the phenomenon.
“It is, perhaps, only a volcano in full activity,” said he.
“But the wind is carrying us directly over it,” replied Kennedy.
“Very well, we shall cross it then at a safe height!” said the doctor.
Three hours later, the Victoria was right among the mountains. Her exact
position was twenty-four degrees fifteen minutes east longitude,
and four degrees forty-two minutes north latitude, and four degrees
forty-two minutes north latitude. In front of her a volcanic crater was
pouring forth torrents of melted lava, and hurling masses of rock to an
enormous height. There were jets, too, of liquid fire that fell back in
dazzling cascades--a superb but dangerous spectacle, for the wind with
unswerving certainty was carrying the balloon directly toward this
blazing atmosphere.
This obstacle, which could not be turned, had to be crossed, so the
cylinder was put to its utmost power, and the balloon rose to the height
of six thousand feet, leaving between it and the volcano a space of more
than three hundred fathoms.
From his bed of suffering, the dying missionary could contemplate that
fiery crater from which a thousand jets of dazzling flame were that
moment escaping.
“How grand it is!” said he, “and how infinite is the power of God even
in its most terrible manifestations!”
This overflow of blazing lava wrapped the sides of the mountain with a
veritable drapery of flame; the lower half of the balloon glowed redly
in the upper night; a torrid heat ascended to the car, and Dr. Ferguson
made all possible haste to escape from this perilous situation.
By ten o’clock the volcano could be seen only as a red point on the
horizon, and the balloon tranquilly pursued her course in a less
elevated zone of the atmosphere.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
Joe in a Fit of Rage.--The Death of a Good Man.--The Night of watching
by the Body.--Barrenness and Drought.--The Burial.--The Quartz
Rocks.--Joe’s Hallucinations.--A Precious Ballast.--A Survey of the
Gold-bearing Mountains.--The Beginning of Joe’s Despair.
A magnificent night overspread the earth, and the missionary lay quietly
asleep in utter exhaustion.
“He’ll not get over it!” sighed Joe. “Poor young fellow--scarcely thirty
years of age!”
“He’ll die in our arms. His breathing, which was so feeble before,
is growing weaker still, and I can do nothing to save him,” said the
doctor, despairingly.
“The infamous scoundrels!” exclaimed Joe, grinding his teeth, in one of
those fits of rage that came over him at long intervals; “and to think
that, in spite of all, this good man could find words only to pity them,
to excuse, to pardon them!”
“Heaven has given him a lovely night, Joe--his last on earth, perhaps!
He will suffer but little more after this, and his dying will be only a
peaceful falling asleep.”
The dying man uttered some broken words, and the doctor at once went to
him. His breathing became difficult, and he asked for air. The curtains
were drawn entirely back, and he inhaled with rapture the light breezes
of that clear, beautiful night. The stars sent him their trembling rays,
and the moon wrapped him in the white winding-sheet of its effulgence.
“My friends,” said he, in an enfeebled voice, “I am going. May God
requite you, and bring you to your safe harbor! May he pay for me the
debt of gratitude that I owe to you!”
“You must still hope,” replied Kennedy. “This is but a passing fit of
weakness. You will not die. How could any one die on this beautiful
summer night?”
“Death is at hand,” replied the missionary, “I know it! Let me look it
in the face! Death, the commencement of things eternal, is but the end
of earthly cares. Place me upon my knees, my brethren, I beseech you!”
Kennedy lifted him up, and it was distressing to see his weakened limbs
bend under him.
“My God! my God!” exclaimed the dying apostle, “have pity on me!”
His countenance shone. Far above that earth on which he had known no
joys; in the midst of that night which sent to him its softest radiance;
on the way to that heaven toward which he uplifted his spirit, as though
in a miraculous assumption, he seemed already to live and breathe in the
new existence.
His last gesture was a supreme blessing on his new friends of only one
day. Then he fell back into the arms of Kennedy, whose countenance was
bathed in hot tears.
“Dead!” said the doctor, bending over him, “dead!” And with one common
accord, the three friends knelt together in silent prayer.
“To-morrow,” resumed the doctor, “we shall bury him in the African soil
which he has besprinkled with his blood.”
During the rest of the night the body was watched, turn by turn, by the
three travellers, and not a word disturbed the solemn silence. Each of
them was weeping.
The next day the wind came from the south, and the balloon moved slowly
over a vast plateau of mountains: there, were extinct craters; here,
barren ravines; not a drop of water on those parched crests; piles
of broken rocks; huge stony masses scattered hither and thither,
and, interspersed with whitish marl, all indicated the most complete
sterility.
Toward noon, the doctor, for the purpose of burying the body, decided to
descend into a ravine, in the midst of some plutonic rocks of primitive
formation. The surrounding mountains would shelter him, and enable him
to bring his car to the ground, for there was no tree in sight to which
he could make it fast.
But, as he had explained to Kennedy, it was now impossible for him to
descend, except by releasing a quantity of gas proportionate to his loss
of ballast at the time when he had rescued the missionary. He therefore
opened the valve of the outside balloon. The hydrogen escaped, and the
Victoria quietly descended into the ravine.
As soon as the car touched the ground, the doctor shut the valve. Joe
leaped out, holding on the while to the rim of the car with one hand,
and with the other gathering up a quantity of stones equal to his own
weight. He could then use both hands, and had soon heaped into the car
more than five hundred pounds of stones, which enabled both the doctor
and Kennedy, in their turn, to get out. Thus the Victoria found herself
balanced, and her ascensional force insufficient to raise her.
Moreover, it was not necessary to gather many of these stones, for
the blocks were extremely heavy, so much so, indeed, that the doctor’s
attention was attracted by the circumstance. The soil, in fact, was
bestrewn with quartz and porphyritic rocks.
“This is a singular discovery!” said the doctor, mentally.
In the mean while, Kennedy and Joe had strolled away a few paces,
looking up a proper spot for the grave. The heat was extreme in this
ravine, shut in as it was like a sort of furnace. The noonday sun poured
down its rays perpendicularly into it.
The first thing to be done was to clear the surface of the fragments of
rock that encumbered it, and then a quite deep grave had to be dug, so
that the wild animals should not be able to disinter the corpse.
The body of the martyred missionary was then solemnly placed in it. The
earth was thrown in over his remains, and above it masses of rock were
deposited, in rude resemblance to a tomb.
The doctor, however, remained motionless, and lost in his reflections.
He did not even heed the call of his companions, nor did he return with
them to seek a shelter from the heat of the day.
“What are you thinking about, doctor?” asked Kennedy.
“About a singular freak of Nature, a curious effect of chance. Do you
know, now, in what kind of soil that man of self-denial, that poor one
in spirit, has just been buried?”
“No! what do you mean, doctor?”
“That priest, who took the oath of perpetual poverty, now reposes in a
gold-mine!”
“A gold-mine!” exclaimed Kennedy and Joe in one breath.
“Yes, a gold-mine,” said the doctor, quietly. “Those blocks which you
are trampling under foot, like worthless stones, contain gold-ore of
great purity.”
“Impossible! impossible!” repeated Joe.
“You would not have to look long among those fissures of slaty schist
without finding peptites of considerable value.”
Joe at once rushed like a crazy man among the scattered fragments, and
Kennedy was not long in following his example.
“Keep cool, Joe,” said his master.
“Why, doctor, you speak of the thing quite at your ease.”
“What! a philosopher of your mettle--”
“Ah, master, no philosophy holds good in this case!”
“Come! come! Let us reflect a little. What good would all this wealth do
you? We cannot carry any of it away with us.”
“We can’t take any of it with us, indeed?”
“It’s rather too heavy for our car! I even hesitated to tell you any
thing about it, for fear of exciting your regret!”
“What!” said Joe, again, “abandon these treasures--a fortune for
us!--really for us--our own--leave it behind!”
“Take care, my friend! Would you yield to the thirst for gold? Has not
this dead man whom you have just helped to bury, taught you the vanity
of human affairs?”
“All that is true,” replied Joe, “but gold! Mr. Kennedy, won’t you help
to gather up a trifle of all these millions?”
“What could we do with them, Joe?” said the hunter, unable to repress a
smile. “We did not come hither in search of fortune, and we cannot take
one home with us.”
“The millions are rather heavy, you know,” resumed the doctor, “and
cannot very easily be put into one’s pocket.”
“But, at least,” said Joe, driven to his last defences, “couldn’t we
take some of that ore for ballast, instead of sand?”
“Very good! I consent,” said the doctor, “but you must not make too
many wry faces when we come to throw some thousands of crowns’ worth
overboard.”
“Thousands of crowns!” echoed Joe; “is it possible that there is so much
gold in them, and that all this is the same?”
“Yes, my friend, this is a reservoir in which Nature has been heaping up
her wealth for centuries! There is enough here to enrich whole nations!
An Australia and a California both together in the midst of the
wilderness!”
“And the whole of it is to remain useless!”
“Perhaps! but at all events, here’s what I’ll do to console you.”
“That would be rather difficult to do!” said Joe, with a contrite air.
“Listen! I will take the exact bearings of this spot, and give them to
you, so that, upon your return to England, you can tell our countrymen
about it, and let them have a share, if you think that so much gold
would make them happy.”
“Ah! master, I give up; I see that you are right, and that there is
nothing else to be done. Let us fill our car with the precious mineral,
and what remains at the end of the trip will be so much made.”
And Joe went to work. He did so, too, with all his might, and soon had
collected more than a thousand pieces of quartz, which contained gold
enclosed as though in an extremely hard crystal casket.
The doctor watched him with a smile; and, while Joe went on, he took
the bearings, and found that the missionary’s grave lay in twenty-two
degrees twenty-three minutes east longitude, and four degrees fifty-five
minutes north latitude.
Then, casting one glance at the swelling of the soil, beneath which the
body of the poor Frenchman reposed, he went back to his car.
He would have erected a plain, rude cross over the tomb, left solitary
thus in the midst of the African deserts, but not a tree was to be seen
in the environs.
“God will recognize it!” said Kennedy.
An anxiety of another sort now began to steal over the doctor’s mind. He
would have given much of the gold before him for a little water--for he
had to replace what had been thrown overboard when the negro was carried
up into the air. But it was impossible to find it in these arid regions;
and this reflection gave him great uneasiness. He had to feed his
cylinder continually; and he even began to find that he had not enough
to quench the thirst of his party. Therefore he determined to lose no
opportunity of replenishing his supply.
Upon getting back to the car, he found it burdened with the
quartz-blocks that Joe’s greed had heaped in it. He got in, however,
without saying any thing. Kennedy took his customary place, and Joe
followed, but not without casting a covetous glance at the treasures in
the ravine.
The doctor rekindled the light in the cylinder; the spiral became
heated; the current of hydrogen came in a few minutes, and the gas
dilated; but the balloon did not stir an inch.
Joe looked on uneasily, but kept silent.
“Joe!” said the doctor.
Joe made no reply.
“Joe! Don’t you hear me?”
Joe made a sign that he heard; but he would not understand.
“Do me the kindness to throw out some of that quartz!”
“But, doctor, you gave me leave--”
“I gave you leave to replace the ballast; that was all!”
“But--”
“Do you want to stay forever in this desert?”
Joe cast a despairing look at Kennedy; but the hunter put on the air of
a man who could do nothing in the matter.
“Well, Joe?”
“Then your cylinder don’t work,” said the obstinate fellow.
“My cylinder? It is lit, as you perceive. But the balloon will not rise
until you have thrown off a little ballast.”
Joe scratched his ear, picked up a piece of quartz, the smallest in the
lot, weighed and reweighed it, and tossed it up and down in his hand. It
was a fragment of about three or four pounds. At last he threw it out.
But the balloon did not budge.
“Humph!” said he; “we’re not going up yet.”
“Not yet,” said the doctor. “Keep on throwing.”
Kennedy laughed. Joe now threw out some ten pounds, but the balloon
stood still.
Joe got very pale.
“Poor fellow!” said the doctor. “Mr. Kennedy, you and I weigh, unless I
am mistaken, about four hundred pounds--so that you’ll have to get rid
of at least that weight, since it was put in here to make up for us.”
“Throw away four hundred pounds!” said Joe, piteously.
“And some more with it, or we can’t rise. Come, courage, Joe!”
The brave fellow, heaving deep sighs, began at last to lighten the
balloon; but, from time to time, he would stop, and ask:
“Are you going up?”
“No, not yet,” was the invariable response.
“It moves!” said he, at last.
“Keep on!” replied the doctor.
“It’s going up; I’m sure.”
“Keep on yet,” said Kennedy.
And Joe, picking up one more block, desperately tossed it out of the
car. The balloon rose a hundred feet or so, and, aided by the cylinder,
soon passed above the surrounding summits.
“Now, Joe,” resumed the doctor, “there still remains a handsome fortune
for you; and, if we can only keep the rest of this with us until the end
of our trip, there you are--rich for the balance of your days!”
Joe made no answer, but stretched himself out luxuriously on his heap of
quartz.
“See, my dear Dick!” the doctor went on. “Just see the power of this
metal over the cleverest lad in the world! What passions, what greed,
what crimes, the knowledge of such a mine as that would cause! It is sad
to think of it!”
By evening the balloon had made ninety miles to the westward, and was,
in a direct line, fourteen hundred miles from Zanzibar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
The Wind dies away.--The Vicinity of the Desert.--The Mistake in
the Water-Supply.--The Nights of the Equator.--Dr. Ferguson’s
Anxieties.--The Situation flatly stated.--Energetic Replies of Kennedy
and Joe.--One Night more.
The balloon, having been made fast to a solitary tree, almost completely
dried up by the aridity of the region in which it stood, passed the
night in perfect quietness; and the travellers were enabled to enjoy a
little of the repose which they so greatly needed. The emotions of the
day had left sad impressions on their minds.
Toward morning, the sky had resumed its brilliant purity and its heat.
The balloon ascended, and, after several ineffectual attempts, fell into
a current that, although not rapid, bore them toward the northwest.
“We are not making progress,” said the doctor. “If I am not mistaken,
we have accomplished nearly half of our journey in ten days; but, at the
rate at which we are going, it would take months to end it; and that is
all the more vexatious, that we are threatened with a lack of water.”
“But we’ll find some,” said Joe. “It is not to be thought of that we
shouldn’t discover some river, some stream, or pond, in all this vast
extent of country.”
“I hope so.”
“Now don’t you think that it’s Joe’s cargo of stone that is keeping us
back?”
Kennedy asked this question only to tease Joe; and he did so the
more willingly because he had, for a moment, shared the poor lad’s
hallucinations; but, not finding any thing in them, he had fallen back
into the attitude of a strong-minded looker-on, and turned the affair
off with a laugh.
Joe cast a mournful glance at him; but the doctor made no reply. He was
thinking, not without secret terror, probably, of the vast solitudes
of Sahara--for there whole weeks sometimes pass without the caravans
meeting with a single spring of water. Occupied with these thoughts, he
scrutinized every depression of the soil with the closest attention.
These anxieties, and the incidents recently occurring, had not been
without their effect upon the spirits of our three travellers. They
conversed less, and were more wrapt in their own thoughts.
Joe, clever lad as he was, seemed no longer the same person since his
gaze had plunged into that ocean of gold. He kept entirely silent,
and gazed incessantly upon the stony fragments heaped up in the
car--worthless to-day, but of inestimable value to-morrow.
The appearance of this part of Africa was, moreover, quite calculated
to inspire alarm: the desert was gradually expanding around them; not
another village was to be seen--not even a collection of a few huts; and
vegetation also was disappearing. Barely a few dwarf plants could now be
noticed, like those on the wild heaths of Scotland; then came the first
tract of grayish sand and flint, with here and there a lentisk tree and
brambles. In the midst of this sterility, the rudimental carcass of the
Globe appeared in ridges of sharply-jutting rock. These symptoms of a
totally dry and barren region greatly disquieted Dr. Ferguson.
It seemed as though no caravan had ever braved this desert expanse, or
it would have left visible traces of its encampments, or the whitened
bones of men and animals. But nothing of the kind was to be seen, and
the aeronauts felt that, ere long, an immensity of sand would cover the
whole of this desolate region.
However, there was no going back; they must go forward; and, indeed, the
doctor asked for nothing better; he would even have welcomed a tempest
to carry him beyond this country. But, there was not a cloud in the sky.
At the close of the day, the balloon had not made thirty miles.
If there had been no lack of water! But, there remained only three
gallons in all! The doctor put aside one gallon, destined to quench the
burning thirst that a heat of ninety degrees rendered intolerable. Two
gallons only then remained to supply the cylinder. Hence, they could
produce no more than four hundred and eighty cubic feet of gas; yet the
cylinder consumed about nine cubic feet per hour. Consequently, they
could not keep on longer than fifty-four hours--and all this was a
mathematical calculation!
“Fifty-four hours!” said the doctor to his companions. “Therefore, as I
am determined not to travel by night, for fear of passing some stream
or pool, we have but three days and a half of journeying during which we
must find water, at all hazards. I have thought it my duty to make you
aware of the real state of the case, as I have retained only one
gallon for drinking, and we shall have to put ourselves on the shortest
allowance.”
“Put us on short allowance, then, doctor,” responded Kennedy, “but we
must not despair. We have three days left, you say?”
“Yes, my dear Dick!”
“Well, as grieving over the matter won’t help us, in three days there
will be time enough to decide upon what is to be done; in the meanwhile,
let us redouble our vigilance!”
At their evening meal, the water was strictly measured out, and the
brandy was increased in quantity in the punch they drank. But they had
to be careful with the spirits, the latter being more likely to produce
than to quench thirst.
The car rested, during the night, upon an immense plateau, in which
there was a deep hollow; its height was scarcely eight hundred feet
above the level of the sea. This circumstance gave the doctor some hope,
since it recalled to his mind the conjectures of geographers concerning
the existence of a vast stretch of water in the centre of Africa. But,
if such a lake really existed, the point was to reach it, and not a sign
of change was visible in the motionless sky.
To the tranquil night and its starry magnificence succeeded the
unchanging daylight and the blazing rays of the sun; and, from the
earliest dawn, the temperature became scorching. At five o’clock in
the morning, the doctor gave the signal for departure, and, for
a considerable time, the balloon remained immovable in the leaden
atmosphere.
The doctor might have escaped this intense heat by rising into a higher
range, but, in order to do so, he would have had to consume a large
quantity of water, a thing that had now become impossible. He contented
himself, therefore, with keeping the balloon at one hundred feet from
the ground, and, at that elevation, a feeble current drove it toward the
western horizon.
The breakfast consisted of a little dried meat and pemmican. By noon,
the Victoria had advanced only a few miles.
“We cannot go any faster,” said the doctor; “we no longer command--we
have to obey.”
“Ah! doctor, here is one of those occasions when a propeller would not
be a thing to be despised.”
“Undoubtedly so, Dick, provided it would not require an expenditure of
water to put it in motion, for, in that case, the situation would be
precisely the same; moreover, up to this time, nothing practical of the
sort has been invented. Balloons are still at that point where ships
were before the invention of steam. It took six thousand years to invent
propellers and screws; so we have time enough yet.”
“Confounded heat!” said Joe, wiping away the perspiration that was
streaming from his forehead.
“If we had water, this heat would be of service to us, for it dilates
the hydrogen in the balloon, and diminishes the amount required in the
spiral, although it is true that, if we were not short of the useful
liquid, we should not have to economize it. Ah! that rascally savage who
cost us the tank!”*
* The water-tank had been thrown overboard when the native
clung to the car.
“You don’t regret, though, what you did, doctor?”
“No, Dick, since it was in our power to save that unfortunate missionary
from a horrible death. But, the hundred pounds of water that we threw
overboard would be very useful to us now; it would be thirteen or
fourteen days more of progress secured, or quite enough to carry us over
this desert.”
“We’ve made at least half the journey, haven’t we?” asked Joe.
“In distance, yes; but in duration, no, should the wind leave us; and
it, even now, has a tendency to die away altogether.”
“Come, sir,” said Joe, again, “we must not complain; we’ve got
along pretty well, thus far, and whatever happens to me, I can’t get
desperate. We’ll find water; mind, I tell you so.”
The soil, however, ran lower from mile to mile; the undulations of the
gold-bearing mountains they had left died away into the plain, like the
last throes of exhausted Nature. Scanty grass took the place of the
fine trees of the east; only a few belts of half-scorched herbage still
contended against the invasion of the sand, and the huge rocks, that
had rolled down from the distant summits, crushed in their fall, had
scattered in sharp-edged pebbles which soon again became coarse sand,
and finally impalpable dust.
“Here, at last, is Africa, such as you pictured it to yourself, Joe! Was
I not right in saying, ‘Wait a little?’ eh?”
“Well, master, it’s all natural, at least--heat and dust. It would be
foolish to look for any thing else in such a country. Do you see,” he
added, laughing, “I had no confidence, for my part, in your forests and
your prairies; they were out of reason. What was the use of coming so
far to find scenery just like England? Here’s the first time that I
believe in Africa, and I’m not sorry to get a taste of it.”
Toward evening, the doctor calculated that the balloon had not made
twenty miles during that whole burning day, and a heated gloom closed
in upon it, as soon as the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, which
was traced against the sky with all the precision of a straight line.
The next day was Thursday, the 1st of May, but the days followed each
other with desperate monotony. Each morning was like the one that had
preceded it; noon poured down the same exhaustless rays, and night
condensed in its shadow the scattered heat which the ensuing day
would again bequeath to the succeeding night. The wind, now scarcely
observable, was rather a gasp than a breath, and the morning could
almost be foreseen when even that gasp would cease.
The doctor reacted against the gloominess of the situation and retained
all the coolness and self-possession of a disciplined heart. With his
glass he scrutinized every quarter of the horizon; he saw the last
rising ground gradually melting to the dead level, and the last
vegetation disappearing, while, before him, stretched the immensity of
the desert.
The responsibility resting upon him pressed sorely, but he did not allow
his disquiet to appear. Those two men, Dick and Joe, friends of his,
both of them, he had induced to come with him almost by the force alone
of friendship and of duty. Had he done well in that? Was it not like
attempting to tread forbidden paths? Was he not, in this trip, trying
to pass the borders of the impossible? Had not the Almighty reserved for
later ages the knowledge of this inhospitable continent?
All these thoughts, of the kind that arise in hours of discouragement,
succeeded each other and multiplied in his mind, and, by an irresistible
association of ideas, the doctor allowed himself to be carried beyond
the bounds of logic and of reason. After having established in his own
mind what he should NOT have done, the next question was, what he should
do, then. Would it be impossible to retrace his steps? Were there
not currents higher up that would waft him to less arid regions? Well
informed with regard to the countries over which he had passed, he was
utterly ignorant of those to come, and thus his conscience speaking
aloud to him, he resolved, in his turn, to speak frankly to his two
companions. He thereupon laid the whole state of the case plainly before
them; he showed them what had been done, and what there was yet to do;
at the worst, they could return, or attempt it, at least.--What did they
think about it?
“I have no other opinion than that of my excellent master,” said Joe;
“what he may have to suffer, I can suffer, and that better than he can,
perhaps. Where he goes, there I’ll go!”
“And you, Kennedy?”
“I, doctor, I’m not the man to despair; no one was less ignorant than
I of the perils of the enterprise, but I did not want to see them,
from the moment that you determined to brave them. Under present
circumstances, my opinion is, that we should persevere--go clear to
the end. Besides, to return looks to me quite as perilous as the other
course. So onward, then! you may count upon us!”
“Thanks, my gallant friends!” replied the doctor, with much real
feeling, “I expected such devotion as this; but I needed these
encouraging words. Yet, once again, thank you, from the bottom of my
heart!”
And, with this, the three friends warmly grasped each other by the hand.
“Now, hear me!” said the doctor. “According to my solar observations,
we are not more than three hundred miles from the Gulf of Guinea;
the desert, therefore, cannot extend indefinitely, since the coast is
inhabited, and the country has been explored for some distance back into
the interior. If needs be, we can direct our course to that quarter, and
it seems out of the question that we should not come across some oasis,
or some well, where we could replenish our stock of water. But, what we
want now, is the wind, for without it we are held here suspended in the
air at a dead calm.
“Let us wait with resignation,” said the hunter.
But, each of the party, in his turn, vainly scanned the space around him
during that long wearisome day. Nothing could be seen to form the basis
of a hope. The very last inequalities of the soil disappeared with the
setting sun, whose horizontal rays stretched in long lines of fire over
the flat immensity. It was the Desert!
Our aeronauts had scarcely gone a distance of fifteen miles, having
expended, as on the preceding day, one hundred and thirty-five cubic
feet of gas to feed the cylinder, and two pints of water out of the
remaining eight had been sacrificed to the demands of intense thirst.
The night passed quietly--too quietly, indeed, but the doctor did not
sleep!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH.
A Little Philosophy.--A Cloud on the Horizon.--In the Midst of a
Fog.--The Strange Balloon.--An Exact View of the Victoria.--The
Palm-Trees.--Traces of a Caravan.--The Well in the Midst of the Desert.
On the morrow, there was the same purity of sky, the same stillness of
the atmosphere. The balloon rose to an elevation of five hundred
feet, but it had scarcely changed its position to the westward in any
perceptible degree.
“We are right in the open desert,” said the doctor. “Look at that vast
reach of sand! What a strange spectacle! What a singular arrangement of
nature! Why should there be, in one place, such extreme luxuriance of
vegetation yonder, and here, this extreme aridity, and that in the same
latitude, and under the same rays of the sun?”
“The why concerns me but little,” answered Kennedy, “the reason
interests me less than the fact. The thing is so; that’s the important
part of it!”
“Oh, it is well to philosophize a little, Dick; it does no harm.”
“Let us philosophize, then, if you will; we have time enough before us;
we are hardly moving; the wind is afraid to blow; it sleeps.”
“That will not last forever,” put in Joe; “I think I see some banks of
clouds in the east.”
“Joe’s right!” said the doctor, after he had taken a look.
“Good!” said Kennedy; “now for our clouds, with a fine rain, and a fresh
wind to dash it into our faces!”
“Well, we’ll see, Dick, we’ll see!”
“But this is Friday, master, and I’m afraid of Fridays!”
“Well, I hope that this very day you’ll get over those notions.”
“I hope so, master, too. Whew!” he added, mopping his face, “heat’s a
good thing, especially in winter, but in summer it don’t do to take too
much of it.”
“Don’t you fear the effect of the sun’s heat on our balloon?” asked
Kennedy, addressing the doctor.
“No! the gutta-percha coating resists much higher temperatures than
even this. With my spiral I have subjected it inside to as much as one
hundred and fifty-eight degrees sometimes, and the covering does not
appear to have suffered.”
“A cloud! a real cloud!” shouted Joe at this moment, for that piercing
eyesight of his beat all the glasses.
And, in fact, a thick bank of vapor, now quite distinct, could be seen
slowly emerging above the horizon. It appeared to be very deep, and,
as it were, puffed out. It was, in reality, a conglomeration of smaller
clouds. The latter invariably retained their original formation, and
from this circumstance the doctor concluded that there was no current of
air in their collected mass.
This compact body of vapor had appeared about eight o’clock in the
morning, and, by eleven, it had already reached the height of the sun’s
disk. The latter then disappeared entirely behind the murky veil, and
the lower belt of cloud, at the same moment, lifted above the line of
the horizon, which was again disclosed in a full blaze of daylight.
“It’s only an isolated cloud,” remarked the doctor. “It won’t do to
count much upon that.”
“Look, Dick, its shape is just the same as when we saw it this morning!”
“Then, doctor, there’s to be neither rain nor wind, at least for us!”
“I fear so; the cloud keeps at a great height.”
“Well, doctor, suppose we were to go in pursuit of this cloud, since it
refuses to burst upon us?”
“I fancy that to do so wouldn’t help us much; it would be a consumption
of gas, and, consequently, of water, to little purpose; but, in our
situation, we must not leave anything untried; therefore, let us
ascend!”
And with this, the doctor put on a full head of flame from the cylinder,
and the dilation of the hydrogen, occasioned by such sudden and intense
heat, sent the balloon rapidly aloft.
About fifteen hundred feet from the ground, it encountered an opaque
mass of cloud, and entered a dense fog, suspended at that elevation;
but it did not meet with the least breath of wind. This fog seemed even
destitute of humidity, and the articles brought in contact with it
were scarcely dampened in the slightest degree. The balloon, completely
enveloped in the vapor, gained a little increase of speed, perhaps, and
that was all.
The doctor gloomily recognized what trifling success he had obtained
from his manoeuvre, and was relapsing into deep meditation, when he
heard Joe exclaim, in tones of most intense astonishment:
“Ah! by all that’s beautiful!”
“What’s the matter, Joe?”
“Doctor! Mr. Kennedy! Here’s something curious!”
“What is it, then?”
“We are not alone, up here! There are rogues about! They’ve stolen our
invention!”
“Has he gone crazy?” asked Kennedy.
Joe stood there, perfectly motionless, the very picture of amazement.
“Can the hot sun have really affected the poor fellow’s brain?” said the
doctor, turning toward him.
“Will you tell me?--”
“Look!” said Joe, pointing to a certain quarter of the sky.
“By St. James!” exclaimed Kennedy, in turn, “why, who would have
believed it? Look, look! doctor!”
“I see it!” said the doctor, very quietly.
1
,
,
,
2
,
3
.
4
,
,
,
5
,
,
,
,
6
.
7
8
,
,
9
,
,
,
10
.
11
12
«
?
»
,
.
13
14
,
.
15
16
«
,
!
»
,
«
!
»
17
18
«
!
!
»
,
«
-
!
»
19
20
’
,
,
21
-
22
,
.
,
,
23
,
24
.
25
26
«
!
»
’
.
27
28
,
,
29
.
30
31
«
’
?
»
,
.
32
33
«
!
;
!
»
,
34
,
,
,
35
,
,
36
.
37
,
.
38
’
.
39
40
,
,
.
41
42
«
!
»
’
.
43
44
«
!
»
,
«
45
!
,
,
,
,
46
,
.
»
47
48
,
,
,
49
-
.
50
51
«
!
»
.
52
53
«
,
»
,
,
«
;
54
.
»
55
56
,
,
57
,
,
58
,
.
,
59
,
,
60
,
.
61
,
,
62
,
,
-
,
63
’
.
64
65
,
66
,
«
!
!
»
67
68
;
69
.
70
71
,
,
72
,
73
.
,
74
-
.
75
,
76
.
77
78
«
!
?
»
79
.
80
81
«
,
,
,
,
.
»
82
83
«
!
»
,
.
«
84
’
,
85
!
»
86
87
«
,
»
.
88
89
90
.
,
91
92
.
93
94
95
,
,
96
,
97
.
98
99
,
,
100
,
.
.
101
.
102
,
103
.
104
105
«
-
?
»
.
106
107
«
,
,
»
.
«
,
,
108
,
!
,
,
109
.
-
-
110
?
»
111
112
«
,
»
.
«
113
,
,
,
114
.
»
115
116
«
,
»
.
117
118
«
!
»
.
119
120
«
?
»
.
121
122
«
.
-
-
123
!
!
124
;
,
!
125
!
»
126
127
«
!
!
!
»
128
.
129
130
«
!
,
131
.
»
132
133
.
,
’
,
134
.
,
.
135
’
’
,
136
.
,
137
.
,
138
,
139
.
140
141
«
!
»
,
«
142
.
,
,
143
-
-
-
-
»
144
145
,
146
,
,
147
,
.
148
.
,
149
.
150
?
151
’
,
152
.
153
,
,
154
,
,
,
,
155
.
156
157
158
.
159
160
«
,
»
;
«
161
,
.
»
162
163
,
164
,
.
165
,
-
166
,
167
.
,
168
,
,
169
.
-
,
,
,
170
,
,
,
,
171
172
.
173
,
,
174
,
175
,
.
176
,
,
.
177
,
178
,
,
179
.
180
.
,
181
,
.
,
182
,
,
183
.
184
-
,
185
.
186
,
187
,
.
188
,
,
189
,
.
190
-
,
,
191
,
«
!
!
»
192
,
,
,
193
.
194
195
«
,
»
,
«
196
;
!
»
197
198
«
!
»
;
«
,
199
,
.
»
200
201
«
,
»
,
.
202
«
203
,
,
,
204
!
»
205
206
,
207
,
,
208
.
209
210
,
211
.
212
213
,
.
214
,
215
,
.
216
.
217
218
«
,
,
,
»
.
219
220
«
,
»
.
221
222
«
,
!
»
.
223
224
,
.
225
-
,
226
-
,
227
-
.
228
,
229
.
,
,
230
-
-
,
231
232
.
233
234
,
,
,
235
,
236
,
237
.
238
239
,
240
241
.
242
243
«
!
»
,
«
244
!
»
245
246
247
;
248
;
,
.
249
.
250
251
’
252
,
253
.
254
255
256
257
-
.
258
259
.
-
-
.
-
-
260
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
261
.
-
-
’
.
-
-
.
-
-
262
-
.
-
-
’
.
263
264
,
265
.
266
267
«
’
!
»
.
«
-
-
268
!
»
269
270
«
’
.
,
,
271
,
,
»
272
,
.
273
274
«
!
»
,
,
275
;
«
276
,
,
,
277
,
!
»
278
279
«
,
-
-
,
!
280
,
281
.
»
282
283
,
284
.
,
.
285
,
286
,
.
,
287
-
.
288
289
«
,
»
,
,
«
.
290
,
!
291
!
»
292
293
«
,
»
.
«
294
.
.
295
?
»
296
297
«
,
»
,
«
!
298
!
,
,
299
.
,
,
!
»
300
301
,
302
.
303
304
«
!
!
»
,
«
!
»
305
306
.
307
;
;
308
,
309
,
310
.
311
312
313
.
,
314
.
315
316
«
!
»
,
,
«
!
»
317
,
.
318
319
«
-
,
»
,
«
320
.
»
321
322
,
,
323
,
.
324
.
325
326
,
327
:
,
;
,
328
;
;
329
;
,
330
,
,
331
.
332
333
,
,
,
334
,
335
.
,
336
,
337
.
338
339
,
,
340
,
341
.
342
.
,
343
.
344
345
,
.
346
,
,
347
348
.
,
349
,
350
,
,
.
351
,
.
352
353
,
,
354
,
,
,
’
355
.
,
,
356
.
357
358
«
!
»
,
.
359
360
,
,
361
.
362
,
.
363
.
364
365
366
,
,
367
.
368
369
.
370
,
371
,
.
372
373
,
,
,
.
374
,
375
.
376
377
«
,
?
»
.
378
379
«
,
.
380
,
,
-
,
381
,
?
»
382
383
«
!
,
?
»
384
385
«
,
,
386
-
!
»
387
388
«
-
!
»
.
389
390
«
,
-
,
»
,
.
«
391
,
,
-
392
.
»
393
394
«
!
!
»
.
395
396
«
397
.
»
398
399
,
400
.
401
402
«
,
,
»
.
403
404
«
,
,
.
»
405
406
«
!
-
-
»
407
408
«
,
,
!
»
409
410
«
!
!
.
411
?
.
»
412
413
«
’
,
?
»
414
415
«
’
!
416
,
!
»
417
418
«
!
»
,
,
«
-
-
419
!
-
-
-
-
-
-
!
»
420
421
«
,
!
?
422
,
423
?
»
424
425
«
,
»
,
«
!
.
,
’
426
?
»
427
428
«
,
?
»
,
429
.
«
,
430
.
»
431
432
«
,
,
»
,
«
433
’
.
»
434
435
«
,
,
»
,
,
«
’
436
,
?
»
437
438
«
!
,
»
,
«
439
’
440
.
»
441
442
«
!
»
;
«
443
,
?
»
444
445
«
,
,
446
!
!
447
448
!
»
449
450
«
!
»
451
452
«
!
,
’
’
.
»
453
454
«
!
»
,
.
455
456
«
!
,
457
,
,
,
458
,
,
459
.
»
460
461
«
!
,
;
,
462
.
,
463
.
»
464
465
.
,
,
,
466
,
467
.
468
469
;
,
,
470
,
’
-
471
-
,
-
472
.
473
474
,
,
475
,
.
476
477
,
,
478
,
479
.
480
481
«
!
»
.
482
483
’
.
484
-
-
485
486
.
;
487
.
488
;
489
.
490
.
491
492
,
493
-
’
.
,
,
494
.
,
495
,
496
.
497
498
;
499
;
,
500
;
.
501
502
,
.
503
504
«
!
»
.
505
506
.
507
508
«
!
’
?
»
509
510
;
.
511
512
«
!
»
513
514
«
,
,
-
-
»
515
516
«
;
!
»
517
518
«
-
-
»
519
520
«
?
»
521
522
;
523
.
524
525
«
,
?
»
526
527
«
’
,
»
.
528
529
«
?
,
.
530
.
»
531
532
,
,
533
,
,
.
534
.
.
535
536
.
537
538
«
!
»
;
«
’
.
»
539
540
«
,
»
.
«
.
»
541
542
.
,
543
.
544
545
.
546
547
«
!
»
.
«
.
,
,
548
,
-
-
’
549
,
.
»
550
551
«
!
»
,
.
552
553
«
,
’
.
,
,
!
»
554
555
,
,
556
;
,
,
,
:
557
558
«
?
»
559
560
«
,
,
»
.
561
562
«
!
»
,
.
563
564
«
!
»
.
565
566
«
’
;
’
.
»
567
568
«
,
»
.
569
570
,
,
571
.
,
,
,
572
.
573
574
«
,
,
»
,
«
575
;
,
576
,
-
-
!
»
577
578
,
579
.
580
581
«
,
!
»
.
«
582
!
,
,
583
,
!
584
!
»
585
586
,
,
587
,
.
588
589
590
591
-
.
592
593
.
-
-
.
-
-
594
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
’
595
.
-
-
.
-
-
596
.
-
-
.
597
598
,
,
599
,
600
;
601
.
602
.
603
604
,
.
605
,
,
,
606
,
,
.
607
608
«
,
»
.
«
,
609
;
,
610
,
;
611
,
.
»
612
613
«
’
,
»
.
«
614
’
,
,
,
615
.
»
616
617
«
.
»
618
619
«
’
’
’
620
?
»
621
622
;
623
,
,
’
624
;
,
,
625
-
-
,
626
.
627
628
;
.
629
,
,
,
630
-
-
631
.
,
632
.
633
634
,
,
635
.
636
,
.
637
638
,
,
639
.
,
640
641
-
-
-
,
-
.
642
643
,
,
644
:
;
645
-
-
;
646
.
647
,
;
648
,
649
.
,
650
-
.
651
.
.
652
653
,
654
,
655
.
,
656
,
,
657
.
658
659
,
;
;
,
,
660
;
661
.
,
.
662
,
.
663
664
!
,
665
!
,
666
.
667
.
,
668
;
669
.
,
670
-
-
-
671
!
672
673
«
-
!
»
.
«
,
674
,
675
,
676
,
.
677
,
678
,
679
.
»
680
681
«
,
,
,
»
,
«
682
.
,
?
»
683
684
«
,
!
»
685
686
«
,
’
,
687
;
,
688
!
»
689
690
,
,
691
.
692
,
693
.
694
695
,
,
,
696
;
697
.
,
698
699
.
,
700
,
,
701
.
702
703
704
;
,
705
,
.
’
706
,
,
,
707
,
708
.
709
710
711
,
,
,
712
,
.
713
,
,
714
,
,
,
715
.
716
717
.
,
718
.
719
720
«
,
»
;
«
-
-
721
.
»
722
723
«
!
,
724
.
»
725
726
«
,
,
727
,
,
,
728
;
,
,
729
.
730
.
731
;
.
»
732
733
«
!
»
,
734
.
735
736
«
,
,
737
,
738
,
,
739
,
.
!
740
!
»
*
741
742
*
-
743
.
744
745
«
’
,
,
,
?
»
746
747
«
,
,
748
.
,
749
;
750
,
751
.
»
752
753
«
’
,
’
?
»
.
754
755
«
,
;
,
,
;
756
,
,
.
»
757
758
«
,
,
»
,
,
«
;
’
759
,
,
,
’
760
.
’
;
,
.
»
761
762
,
,
;
763
-
,
764
.
765
;
-
766
,
,
767
,
,
768
-
,
769
.
770
771
«
,
,
,
,
!
772
,
‘
?
’
?
»
773
774
«
,
,
’
,
-
-
.
775
.
,
»
776
,
,
«
,
,
777
;
.
778
?
’
779
,
’
.
»
780
781
,
782
,
783
,
,
784
.
785
786
,
,
787
.
788
;
,
789
790
.
,
791
,
,
792
.
793
794
795
-
.
796
;
797
,
798
,
,
,
799
.
800
801
,
802
.
,
,
,
803
,
804
.
?
805
?
,
,
806
?
807
?
808
809
,
,
810
,
,
811
,
812
.
813
,
,
814
,
.
?
815
?
816
,
817
,
818
,
,
,
819
.
820
;
,
;
821
,
,
,
.
-
-
822
?
823
824
«
,
»
;
825
«
,
,
,
826
.
,
’
!
»
827
828
«
,
?
»
829
830
«
,
,
’
;
831
,
,
832
.
833
,
,
-
-
834
.
,
835
.
,
!
!
»
836
837
«
,
!
»
,
838
,
«
;
839
.
,
,
,
840
!
»
841
842
,
,
.
843
844
«
,
!
»
.
«
,
845
;
846
,
,
,
847
,
848
.
,
,
849
,
850
,
.
,
851
,
,
852
.
853
854
«
,
»
.
855
856
,
,
,
857
.
858
.
859
,
860
.
!
861
862
,
863
,
,
-
864
,
865
.
866
867
-
-
,
,
868
!
869
870
871
872
-
.
873
874
.
-
-
.
-
-
875
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
876
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
877
878
,
,
879
.
880
,
881
.
882
883
«
,
»
.
«
884
!
!
885
!
,
,
886
,
,
,
887
,
?
»
888
889
«
,
»
,
«
890
.
;
’
891
!
»
892
893
«
,
,
;
.
»
894
895
«
,
,
;
;
896
;
;
.
»
897
898
«
,
»
;
«
899
.
»
900
901
«
’
!
»
,
.
902
903
«
!
»
;
«
,
,
904
!
»
905
906
«
,
’
,
,
’
!
»
907
908
«
,
,
’
!
»
909
910
«
,
’
.
»
911
912
«
,
,
.
!
»
,
,
«
’
913
,
,
’
914
.
»
915
916
«
’
’
?
»
917
,
.
918
919
«
!
-
920
.
921
-
,
922
.
»
923
924
«
!
!
»
,
925
.
926
927
,
,
,
,
928
.
,
,
929
,
.
,
,
930
.
,
931
932
.
933
934
’
935
,
,
,
’
936
.
,
937
,
,
938
,
.
939
940
«
’
,
»
.
«
’
941
.
»
942
943
«
,
,
!
»
944
945
«
,
,
’
,
!
»
946
947
«
;
.
»
948
949
«
,
,
,
950
?
»
951
952
«
’
;
953
,
,
,
,
;
,
954
,
;
,
955
!
»
956
957
,
,
958
,
959
,
.
960
961
,
962
,
,
;
963
.
964
,
965
.
,
966
,
,
,
967
.
968
969
970
,
,
971
,
:
972
973
«
!
’
!
»
974
975
«
’
,
?
»
976
977
«
!
.
!
’
!
»
978
979
«
,
?
»
980
981
«
,
!
!
’
982
!
»
983
984
«
?
»
.
985
986
,
,
.
987
988
«
’
?
»
989
,
.
990
991
«
?
-
-
»
992
993
«
!
»
,
.
994
995
«
.
!
»
,
,
«
,
996
?
,
!
!
»
997
998
«
!
»
,
.
999
1000