day and night at the rate of 240 miles4 every twelve hours (nowhere near the speed of our railway trains), it will take seven days to cross Africa.”
“But then you wouldn’t be able to see anything, or take topographical readings, or scout out the countryside.”
“And yet,” the doctor replied, “if I’m in control of my balloon, if I go up and down at will, I can call a halt whenever it suits me, especially when the air currents are so strong that they threaten to carry me off.”
“And you’ll run into some,” Commander Pennet said. “There are hurricanes that go over 240 miles per hour.”
“See?” the doctor shot back. “At that kind of speed, you’d cross Africa in twelve hours; you’d wake up in Zanzibar and go to bed in Saint-Louis.”
“But,” another officer resumed, “could a balloon be swept along at that speed?”
“One already has,” Fergusson replied.
“And the balloon held up?”
“Perfectly. It happened in 1804 at the time of Napoleon’s coronation. In Paris at eleven at night, the balloonist Garnerin launched a lighter-than-air vehicle that bore the following inscription printed in gold letters: Paris, the 25th day in the Month of Frost during the 13th year of the French Revolutionary Calendar, coronation of the Emperor Napoleon by His Holiness Pope Pius VII. At five o’clock the next morning, the citizens of Rome saw the same balloon soar over the Vatican, cross the Roman Campagna, and splash down in Lake Bracciano. Therefore, gentlemen, a balloon can withstand such speeds.”
“A balloon, yes; but a man …” Kennedy ventured to say.
“A man as well! Because a balloon is always motionless in relation to the surrounding air; it isn’t the balloon that moves, it’s the mass of air itself; accordingly, if you light a candle inside your gondola, the flame won’t flicker. A balloonist riding in Garnerin’s vehicle wouldn’t suffer in the slightest from her velocity. But I don’t hold with such high-speed experiments, and if I can hitch up to some tree or crag during the night, I’ll do so without fail. In any case we’re taking enough provisions to last us two months, and there’s nothing to prevent our crack hunter from furnishing us with plenty of game when we’re on the ground.”
“Ah, Mr. Kennedy! You’ll squeeze off some prize-winning shots!” a young midshipman said, looking at the Scot with envious eyes.
“Not to mention,” another went on, “that you’ll have all the glory as well as all the fun!”
“Gentlemen …,” the hunter replied, “I truly appreciate … your compliments … but I don’t deserve such …”
“Huh?” everybody interrupted. “Aren’t you going too?”
“I’m not going.”
“You won’t be leaving with Dr. Fergusson?”
“I not only won’t be leaving with him, I’ve come along to stop him at the eleventh hour.”
All eyes turned to the doctor.
“Pay him no mind,” he replied in his calm way. “There’s no need to discuss this; deep down he’s perfectly aware that he’s going.”
“I swear by St. Patrick—” Kennedy exclaimed.5
“Don’t swear another word, Dick old friend; you’ve been measured, you’ve been weighed—you, your powder, firearms, and bullets; so there’s nothing more to say.”
And in fact, from that day until their arrival in Zanzibar, Dick didn’t reopen his mouth; he had nothing more to say on this subject or any other. Not one word.
chapter 9
Rounding the Cape—the forecastle—a course on the cosmos taught by Professor Joe—on steering balloons—on searching for air currents—Ευρηκα.1
The Resolute headed swiftly toward the Cape of Good Hope; the sky stayed clear, although the sea was beginning to run high.
On March 30, twenty-seven days after leaving London, they saw Table Mountain outlined on the horizon; located at the foot of a natural amphitheater formed by the hills, Cape Town was visible through the ship’s spyglasses, and the Resolute soon dropped anchor in its harbor. But the commander made a layover only to take on coal; this was a day’s work; the next morning his ship stood into the south to round Africa’s lowermost point and enter the Mozambique Channel.
This wasn’t Joe’s first ocean voyage; he wasted no time in making himself at home on board. Everybody liked him for his spontaneity and high spirits. A good part of his master’s fame had rubbed off on him. Folks listened to him as if he were an oracle, and his forecasts weren’t much wider of the mark than anybody else’s.
Consequently, while the doctor was busy providing clarification in the officers’ quarters, Joe lorded it over the forecastle, where he laid out his own version of things—a procedure followed, incidentally, by leading historians from the dawn of time.
The balloon journey was naturally the topic that came up. Joe had trouble getting some of the diehards to buy into the undertaking; yet once the sailors did so, their imaginations, stimulated by Joe’s anecdotes, were ready to believe anything was possible.
Our dazzling storyteller convinced his audience that after the present journey, folks would go on plenty of others. This was just the beginning of a long series of superhuman undertakings.
“You see, my friends, once you’ve sampled this type of gadding about, you just can’t do without it; so for our next expedition, instead of heading sideways, we’ll go straight up and keep on going.”
“Wow! Right to the moon!” a listener said in amazement.
“Not the moon!” Joe fired back. “Criminy, that’s old news. Everybody heads that way in these things. Anyhow there’s no water on the moon, and you’d have to take along a gigantic supply—and even flasks of air if you plan on breathing.”
“Fine, but can you get a flask of gin up there?” said a sailor deeply enamored of that beverage.
“Not a drop, me hearty. Thumbs down on the moon! But we’ll take a stroll around those pretty stars and lovely planets my master’s often talked to me about. Consequently we’ll start by dropping in on Saturn—”
“The one with the ring?” the quartermaster asked.
“Right, a wedding ring. Except nobody knows what happened to his wife!”
“What! You’ll get as high as that?” a wide-eyed cabin boy asked. “He’s the very devil, your master.”
Joe chatting with the sailors
“The devil? Naw, he does too many good deeds.”
“And what happens after Saturn?” asked one of his more restless listeners.
“After Saturn? Well, we’ll pay a visit to Jupiter; an odd locality, mind you, where the days are only 91/2 hours long, which is just fine for slackers, and the years, by jingo, last twelve times longer than ours, which is beneficial for folks who have no more than six months to live. They get a little added bonus!”
“The years are twelve times longer?” the cabin boy went on.
“Yes, laddie; so in those parts your mama’d still be nursing you, and that geezer there, who’s coming up on fifty, would be a little tyke 4½ years old.”
“You’re pulling our legs!” the whole forecastle hooted in unison.
“Gospel truth,” Joe said confidently. “But what do you expect? When folks keep stagnating down