Works of Jules Verne/Five Weeks in a Balloon/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE DOCTOR'S FRIEND
Doctor Ferguson possessed a friend. Not another self, an alter ego—friendship cannot exist between two people of like disposition. But if Dick Kennedy and Samuel Ferguson possessed different qualities, tastes, and temperaments, they possessed the same heart, and that did not embarrass them in the least. Quite the contrary!
Dick Kennedy was a Scotchman, in the true acceptation of the term. He was honest, resolute, and obstinate. He lived at Leith, a suburb of "Auld Reekie." He was something of a fisherman, but above all and everything an indefatigable sportsman, which was the less astonishing in a Scot somewhat accustomed to roam the Highlands. He was quoted as a wonderful shot with the rifle, for not only could he split a bullet on the blade of a knife, but could divide it into two such equal parts that, when weighed, there was no perceptible difference between them.
In appearance Kennedy resembled Halbert Glendinning, as pictured by Walter Scott in the "Monastery." He was more than six feet high, of graceful and easy bearing. He appeared to be gifted with Herculean strength. His face was bronzed by exposure to the sun, his eyes were black and piercing. He possessed a naturally fearless temperament, and, in fact, everything about him prepossessed one in his favor.
The two friends had become acquainted in India, where they were serving in the same regiment. While Dick used to hunt the tiger and the elephant, Samuel was occupied in the pursuit of plants or insects. Each was an adept in his own line, and many a rare plant became the prey of the doctor, which cost as much to obtain as a pair of ivory tusks. These young people had never any occasion to save each other's life, nor to render any service whatever to each other. But a strong friendship existed between them. Fate might part them perhaps, but Friendship would always unite them again. Since their return to England they had frequently been separated in consequence of the long expeditions undertaken by the doctor, but upon his return he never failed to spend some weeks with his friend the Scotchman.
Dick talked of the past, Samuel prepared for the future. The one looked ahead, the other looked back. Ferguson was of a restless disposition, Kennedy was perfectly contented. For two years after his travels in Thibet the doctor did not speak of any new expeditions. Dick thought that his friend's taste for traveling, and his appetite for adventure, had been satisfied. He was delighted. That kind of thing is sure to end badly some day or other, he thought, whatever experience one has had of people; one cannot travel with impunity among cannibals and wild beasts. Kennedy, therefore, begged Samuel to "put the drag on" a bit, he having already done quite enough for science, and too much for human gratitude.
To this request the doctor made no reply, he remained buried in thought. Then he went to work again at his secret calculations, passing whole nights in working out his figures, and experimentalising upon curious machines of which no one knew anything. People, therefore, fancied that he had conceived some very grand notion in his busy brain.
"I wonder what he is thinking about," said Kennedy, when his friend had left him and returned to London in January. He made the discovery one morning in the columns of the Daily Telegraph.
"Good Heavens!" he cried, "the idiot, to think of crossing Africa in a balloon! This was all that was necessary to complete his vagaries! That is, then, what he has been thinking of these two years!"
If the reader will kindly substitute for the foregoing notes of exclamation certain hard blows of Kennedy's fist applied to his own head, he will have some slight idea of the gentle exercise indulged in by Dick as he spoke.
When his housekeeper, old Elspeth, gently suggested that perhaps there might yet be nothing in it after all, he cried, "Why, don't you think I know the man? Is it not he all over? Going to travel through the air, indeed! He will be jealous of the eagles now! But, by Jove, this shall not be if I can prevent it. If you only leave him to himself, he will be setting off some fine morning up to the moon!" The same evening, Kennedy, half angry, half uneasy, took the train at the General Railway Station, and next morning arrived in London.
Three-quarters of an hour afterwards a cab left him at the door of the doctor's house in Greek Street, Soho; ascending the steps he knocked loudly five times.
Ferguson himself opened the door. "Why, Dick?" he exclaimed, apparently not much surprised at his friend's appearance.
"Yes, Dick himself," replied Kennedy.
"My dear Dick, how is it that you are up in town when the hunting is going on?"
"Yes, I am in London."
"And why have you come up?"
"To prevent a foolish action."
"A foolish action?" echoed the doctor.
"Is this true?" asked Kennedy, holding out the article in the Daily Telegraph for his friend's inspection.
"Ah! that is what you are driving at. How very indiscreet these newspapers are. But take a chair, Dick, old fellow."
"No, I shan't," said Dick. "Then you are quite determined to undertake this journey?"
"Quite. My arrangements are being made, and I———"
"Your arrangements! I should like to knock your arrangements to pieces." The worthy Scot was waxing very angry.
"Calm yourself, my dear Dick," said the doctor. "I can understand your irritation. You are vexed because I have not sooner made you acquainted with my new plans."
"He talks of new plans, indeed!"
"I have been very busy," continued Samuel, without noticing the interruption; "there has been so much to do. But rest assured I should not have gone without writing to you———"
"Ah! you are making a fool of me now."
"Because I had intended to get you to accompany me."
The Scot gave a bound that would have done credit to a chamois. "Ah, that, indeed," said he; "then I suppose you wish us both to be shut up in Bedlam together?"
"I have positively counted upon you, my dear Dick, and have chosen you to the exclusion of everybody else."
Kennedy remained in a state of stupefaction. "When you have listened to me for about ten minutes," continued the doctor, quietly, "you will thank me."
"Are you serious?"
"Perfectly."
"And suppose I refuse to go with you?"
"But you will not refuse."
"Yet if I do?"
"I shall go alone, that's all."
"Look here; let us sit down," said the Scot, " and talk this business over calmly. If you are not joking, it is worth our while to discuss it."
"Well, then, let us discuss it at breakfast, if you have no objection, my dear Dick."
The two friends accordingly sat down, a great plate of sandwiches, and an enormous teapot between them. "My dear Sam," said the sportsman, "your project is a foolish one; it is impossible. There is nothing tangible nor practicable in it."
"We shall see, after we have attempted it."
"But that is not the point. It is not necessary to try it."
"Why not, if you please?"
"Why, look at the dangers and obstacles of all kinds involved in it"
"Obstacles," replied Ferguson seriously, "are only invented to be overcome; as for danger, who can ever escape it? Life is made up of dangers. It is, perhaps, very dangerous to sit down at this table, or to put on one's hat; we must, however, look upon what is likely to happen as having already happened, and see only the present in the future; for the future is merely the present a little farther off."
"What!" cried Kennedy, shrugging his shoulders, "so you are still a fatalist?"
"Always, but in the good sense of the term. We need not, therefore, worry ourselves about the fate. in store for us; let us not forget the proverb, 'He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.'"
There was obviously no direct reply to be made to this, but that fact did not prevent Kennedy from producing a series of arguments easy to imagine, but too long to repeat here. "But, after all," he said, after about an hour's discussion, "if you really must cross Africa, and if it is necessary for your happiness to do so, why don't you go by the ordinary routes?"
"Why?" replied the doctor with animation, "because all such attempts have failed. Because from Mungo Park murdered on the Niger, till the time when Vogel disappeared in the Wadai; from Oudney dead at Murmur, Clapperton at Sackatou, to the time when Maizan was cut to pieces; from the period that Major Laing was killed by the Touaregs to the massacre of Roscher in the beginning of the year 1860, such a number of victims have had their names written in the record of African martyrdom. Because, to fight against the elements, against hunger, thirst, fever, and wild animals, and tribes even more ferocious, is impossible. Because that which cannot be accomplished one way must be accomplished in another. Finally, because when one is unable to pass through a place, one must pass either at the side of it or over it."
"If it were only a question of getting across, "replied Kennedy;" but to pass over the top———"
"Well," said the doctor, with the greatest coolness, "what have I to fear? You will confess that I have taken precautions to guard against a fall from my balloon. If, however, such a thing did happen, I should only then be in the normal condition of travelers; but my balloon will not fail me, so we need not speak of that."
"On the contrary, we must consider that point."
"Not so, my dear Dick; I have quite made up my mind not to part from it until we have reached the western coast of Africa. With it everything is possible, without it I fall into all the dangers and difficulties of former expeditions. With my balloon I need fear neither heat nor cold, torrent nor tempest, simoom nor unhealthy climates, wild beasts nor men. If I feel too hot, I can ascend; if I feel cold, I can come down again; is there a mountain, I can pass over it; a precipice, I can clear it; a river, I can cross it; a storm, I can go above it; a torrent, I can skim over it like a bird; I can travel without fatigue; I can stop without having need to repose; I can overlook new cities; I can fly with the rapidity of a hurricane. Sometimes high up in the air, sometimes within a few feet of the earth, and the whole of Africa will be mapped out beneath my eyes in the great atlas of the world."
The brave Kennedy was impressed, notwithstanding that the prospects spread before his mind's eyes made him feel somewhat giddy. He gazed at Samuel with admiration, not unmixed with fear, and felt as if he were already suspended in space.
"Let us see about this, my dear Samuel. Have you discovered any means to direct the balloon?"
"Not one. It is a Utopian idea altogether."
"But you will nevertheless go?"
"Where Providence may will, but all the same from east to west!"
"Why so?"
"Because I count upon the trade-winds to assist me; their direction is invariable."
"Oh, indeed, "muttered Kennedy; "the trade-winds, certainly—they might for once in a way—there is something———"
"Something! No, my dear friend, there is everything in it. The Government have placed a transport at my disposal. It has also been agreed that three or four vessels shall proceed to the western side about the anticipated time of my arrival there. In three months, at farthest, I shall be at Zanzibar, where I shall set about the inflation of my balloon, and we shall start from there."
"We!" exclaimed Dick.
"Have you then any objection to make? Speak, friend Kennedy."
"One objection! I have a thousand. But, between ourselves, tell me if you count upon seeing the country; if you intend to ascend and descend at will, you must expend a quantity of gas, and there are no other means of proceeding. It is this fact which has hitherto prevented any long journeys through the air."
"My dear Dick, I shall only tell you one thing. I shall not lose an atom of gas not a particle."
"And you will descend when you please?"
"I will descend when I please."
"And how will you manage this?"
"That is my secret, friend Richard. Have faith in me, and my motto may be yours—'Excelsior!'"
"Agreed. 'Excelsior' be it, "replied the hunter, who did not understand a word of Latin. But he made up his mind to offer all the opposition in his power to the departure of his friend. He pretended to be of his opinion, and contented himself with watching. As for the doctor, he went to inspect his reparations.