LITMIR.BIZ

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of her as the sailor does of his ship, and I’ll not give her up so easily. She may not be what she was at the start— granted; but we shouldn’t say a word against her. She has done us good service, and it would break my heart to desert her.”

      “Be at your ease, Joe; if we leave her, it will be in spite of ourselves. She’ll serve us until she’s completely worn out, and I ask of her only twenty-four hours more!”

      “Ah, she’s getting used up! She grows thinner and thinner,” said Joe, dolefully, while he eyed her. “Poor balloon!”

      “Unless I am deceived,” said Kennedy, “there on the horizon are the mountains of which you were speaking, doctor.”

      “Yes, there they are, indeed!” exclaimed the doctor, after having examined them through his spyglass, “and they look very high. We shall have some trouble in crossing them.”

      “Can we not avoid them?”

      “I am afraid not, Dick. See what an immense space they occupy—nearly one-half of the horizon!”

      “They even seem to shut us in,” added Joe. “They are gaining on both our right and our left.”

      “We must then pass over them.”

      These obstacles, which threatened such imminent peril, seemed to approach with extreme rapidity, or, to speak more accurately, the wind, which was very fresh, was hurrying the balloon toward the sharp peaks. So rise it must, or be dashed to pieces.

      “Let us empty our tank of water,” said the doctor, “and keep only enough for one day.”

      “There it goes,” shouted Joe.

      “Does the balloon rise at all?” asked Kennedy.

      “A little—some fifty feet,” replied the doctor, who kept his eyes fixed on the barometer. “But that is not enough.”

      In truth the lofty peaks were starting up so swiftly before the travellers that they seemed to be rushing down upon them. The balloon was far from rising above them. She lacked an elevation of more than five hundred feet more.

      The stock of water for the cylinder was also thrown overboard and only a few pints were retained, but still all this was not enough.

      “We must pass them though!” urged the doctor.

      “Let us throw out the tanks—we have emptied them.” said Kennedy.

      “Over with them!”

      “There they go!” panted Joe. “But it’s hard to see ourselves dropping off this way by piecemeal.”

      “Now, for your part, Joe, make no attempt to sacrifice yourself as you did the other day! Whatever happens, swear to me that you will not leave us!”

      “Have no fears, my master, we shall not be separated.”

      The Victoria had ascended some hundred and twenty feet, but the crest of the mountain still towered above it. It was an almost perpendicular ridge that ended in a regular wall rising abruptly in a straight line. It still rose more than two hundred feet over the aeronauts.

      “In ten minutes,” said the doctor to himself, “our car will be dashed against those rocks unless we succeed in passing them!”

      “Well, doctor?” queried Joe.

      “Keep nothing but our pemmican, and throw out all the heavy meat.”

      Thereupon the balloon was again lightened by some fifty pounds, and it rose very perceptibly, but that was of little consequence, unless it got above the line of the mountain-tops. The situation was terrifying. The Victoria was rushing on with great rapidity. They could feel that she would be dashed to pieces—that the shock would be fearful.

      The doctor glanced around him in the car. It was nearly empty.

      “If needs be, Dick, hold yourself in readiness to throw over your firearms!”

      “Sacrifice my firearms?” repeated the sportsman, with intense feeling.

      “My friend, I ask it; it will be absolutely necessary!”

      “Samuel! Doctor!”

      “Your guns, and your stock of powder and ball might cost us our lives.”

      “We are close to it!” cried Joe.

      Sixty feet! The mountain still overtopped the balloon by sixty feet.

      Joe took the blankets and other coverings and tossed them out; then, without a word to Kennedy, he threw over several bags of bullets and lead.

      The balloon went up still higher; it surmounted the dangerous ridge, and the rays of the sun shone upon its uppermost extremity; but the car was still below the level of certain broken masses of rock, against which it would inevitably be dashed.

      “Kennedy! Kennedy! throw out your firearms, or we are lost!” shouted the doctor.

      “Wait, sir; wait one moment!” they heard Joe exclaim, and, looking around, they saw Joe disappear over the edge of the balloon.

      “Joe! Joe!” cried Kennedy.

      “Wretched man!” was the doctor’s agonized expression.

      The flat top of the mountain may have had about twenty feet in breadth at this point, and, on the other side, the slope presented a less declivity. The car just touched the level of this plane, which happened to be quite even, and it glided over a soil composed of sharp pebbles that grated as it passed.

      “We’re over it! we’re over it! we’re clear!” cried out an exulting voice that made Ferguson’s heart leap to his throat.

      The daring fellow was there, grasping the lower rim of the car, and running afoot over the top of the mountain, thus lightening the balloon of his whole weight. He had to hold on with all his strength, too, for it was likely to escape his grasp at any moment.

      When he had reached the opposite declivity, and the abyss was before him, Joe, by a vigorous effort, hoisted himself from the ground, and, clambering up by the cordage, rejoined his friends.

      “That was all!” he coolly ejaculated.

      “My brave Joe! my friend!” said the doctor, with deep emotion.

      “Oh! what I did,” laughed the other, “was not for you; it was to save Mr. Kennedy’s rifle. I owed him that good turn for the affair with the Arab! I like to pay my debts, and now we are even,” added he, handing to the sportsman his favorite weapon. “I’d feel very badly to see you deprived of it.”

      Kennedy heartily shook the brave fellow’s hand, without being able to utter a word.

      The Victoria had nothing to do now but to descend. That was easy enough, so that she was soon at a height of only two hundred feet from the ground, and was then in equilibrium. The surface seemed very much broken as though by a convulsion of nature. It presented numerous inequalities, which would have been very difficult to avoid during the night with a balloon that could no longer be controlled. Evening was coming on rapidly, and, notwithstanding his repugnance, the doctor had to make up his mind to halt until morning.

      “We’ll now look for a favorable stopping-place,” said he.

      “Ah!” replied Kennedy, “you have made up your mind, then, at last?”

      “Yes, I have for a long time been thinking over a plan which we’ll try to put into execution; it is only six o’clock in the evening, and we shall have time enough. Throw out your anchors, Joe!”

      Joe immediately obeyed, and the two anchors dangled below the balloon.

      “I see large forests ahead of us,” said the doctor; “we are going to sweep along their tops, and we shall grapple to some tree, for nothing would make me think of passing the night below, on the ground.”

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