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.