Part 18 (1/2)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH
Terrific Heat-Hallucinations-The Last Drops of Water-Nights of Despair-An Attempt at Suicide-The Simoom-The Oasis-The Lion and Lioness
The doctor's first care, on the morroas to consult the baroone any perceptible depression
”Nothing!” he ot out of the car and scrutinized the weather; there was only the saht
”Must we, then, give up to despair?” he exclaiony
Joe did not open his lips He was buried in his own thoughts, and planning the expedition he had proposed
Kennedy got up, feeling very ill, and a prey to nervous agitation He was suffering horribly with thirst, and his swollen tongue and lips could hardly articulate a syllable
There still remained a few drops of water Each of the of it, and felt himself draard them; but neither of the three dared to take a step
Those three ard eyes upon each other with an instinct of ferocious longing, which was orous constitution yielded the soonest to these unnatural privations
Throughout the day he was delirious, pacing up and down, uttering hoarse cries, gnawing his clinched fists, and ready to open his veins and drink his own hot blood
”Ah!” he cried, ”land of thirst! Well th he sank down in utter prostration, and his friends heard no other sound fro of his breath between his parched and swollen lips
Toward evening, Joe had his turn of delirium The vast expanse of sand appeared to him an immense pond, full of clear and limpid water; and,waste to drink long draughts, and rose again with his ed with hot dust
”Curses on it!” he yelled, in his uson and Kennedy lay therecame over him to drain the last few drops of water that had been kept in reserve The natural instinct proved too strong He dragged hilared at the bottle containing the precious fluid; he gave one wild, eager glance, seized the treasured store, and bore it to his lips
At that instant he heard a heart-rending cry close beside him-”Water! water!”
It was Kennedy, who had crawled up close to hi piteously
Joe, hiave the poor wretch the bottle, and Kennedy drained the last drop with savage haste
”Thanks!” he murmured hoarsely, but Joe did not hear hi on the sand
What took place during that fearful night neither of the, under those showers of heat which the sun poured down upon the up, and when Joe attempted to rise he found it impossible
He looked around him In the car, the doctor, completely overwhel with idiotic fixedness upon sohtful to behold He was rolling his head froe
All at once, his eyes rested on the butt of his rifle, which jutted above the ri himself with a superhuman effort
Desperate, mad, he snatched at the weapon, and turned the barrel toward hishio! hands off!”voice-and then the two struggled desperately for the rifle
”Let go, or I'll kill you!” repeated Kennedy But Joe clung to hi thus without the doctor seeing them for many seconds, when, suddenly the rifle went off At the sound of its discharge, the doctor rose up erect, like a spectre, and glared around hirew more animated; he extended his hand toward the horizon, and in a voice no longer human shrieked: ”There! there-off there!”
There was such fearful force in the cry that Kennedy and Joe released each other, and both looked where the doctor pointed
The plain was agitated like the sea shaken by the fury of a te over each other a clouds of dust; an ih the air from the southeast, with terrific velocity; the sun was disappearing behind an opaque veil of cloud whose enorrains of fine sand went gliding together with all the supple ease of liquid particles, and the rising dust-tide gained leaetic hope
”The simoom!” he exclai what it meant
”So much the better!” said Kennedy, with the bitterness of despair ”So much the better-we shall die!”
”So much the better!” echoed the doctor, ”for we shall live!” and, so saying, he began rapidly to throw out the sand that encuth his companions understood him, and took their places at his side
”And now, Joe,” said the doctor, ”throw out soer hesitated, although he still felt a fleeting pang of regret The balloon at once began to ascend
”It was high time!” said the doctor
The si on like a thunderbolt, and a moment later the balloon would have been crushed, torn to atoms, annihilated The aind was almost upon it, and it was already pelted with showers of sand driven like hail by the storm
”Out with more ballast!” shouted the doctor
”There!” responded Joe, tossing over a huge fragment of quartz
With this, the Victoria rose swiftly above the range of the whirling coluht in the vast displace with incalculable rapidity away above this foaazed, and hoped, and even felt refreshed by the breath of the tempest
About three o'clock, the ind ceased; the sand, falling again upon the desert, formed numberless little hillocks, and the sky resuain lost its ht of an oasis, a sort of islet studded with green trees, thrown up upon the surface of this sandy ocean
”Water! we'll find water there!” said the doctor
And, instantly, opening the upper valve, he let soround at about two hundred feet froe of the oasis
In four hours the travellers had swept over a distance of two hundred and forty miles!