# Works of Jules Verne/Five Weeks in a Balloon/Chapter 26

CHAPTER XXVI A DESPAIRING SEARCH
The distance accomplished by the "Victoria" during the preceding day did not exceed ten miles, and to sustain her in the air they had used 162 cubic feet of gas.
On Saturday morning the doctor gave the signal for departure.
"The blow-pipe," said he, "can only work for six hours longer. If in that time we do not reach a well or spring, God alone knows what will become of us."
​"There is very little wind this morning," said Joe; "but perhaps it will increase," added he, seeing the scarcely-concealed anxiety of Ferguson.
Vain hope! The air was perfectly still—one of those calms which, in tropical climates, keep ships helpless for days. The heat became intolerable, and the thermometer marked 130° in the shade.
Joe and Kennedy lay side by side, and sought in sleep, or rather torpor, to forget the terrors of their position. This forced inactivity was most distressing. A man is to be pitied who is unable to divert his thoughts by work or occupation; but here there was nothing to watch over or to attempt to do any longer. They were obliged to submit to the situation, without any power to better it.
The sufferings arising from thirst now began to assert themselves cruelly. Brandy, far from allaying, rather increased them, and well does it merit the name of "tiger's milk," which has been bestowed upon it by the natives of Africa. About two pints of warm liquid was all that remained. Each one gloated over these precious drops, but no one dared to wet his lips. Two pints of water in the midst of the desert!
Then Doctor Ferguson began to reflect whether he had been wise in what he had done. Would it not have been better to have preserved the water he had decomposed to no purpose to maintain the balloon in the air? He had no doubt made a little progress, but were they any better for it? When he found he had gained sixty miles in this latitude, what did it matter, since they were in want of water at that place? The wind, if it did get up, would blow lower down as well as up there—even less strongly up there if it came from the east. But hope impelled Samuel forward. And yet those two gallons of water, expended in vain, would have sufficed for a nine-days' halt in the desert. And what changes might not nine days bring forth? Perhaps, however, while preserving this water, had he been able to ascend by throwing out ballast, he must have let the gas escape when he wished to descend. But the gas of the balloon was its very existence, its life-blood!
These thoughts, and a thousand others, passed through the doctor's brain. He sat for hours, his head clasped between his hands, and stirred not.
​"We must make a final effort," he said to his companions, about six o'clock. "We must endeavor to find an atmospheric current which will carry us forward. We must risk everything."
And while his friends slept he brought the hydrogen in the balloon to a very high temperature. The balloon filled out as the gas expanded, and mounted perpendicularly upwards. The doctor sought vainly for a breath of wind from a hundred feet to nearly five miles up. His point of departure was exactly beneath. A dead calm appeared to reign even up to the last limit of the atmospheric air.
At length the water failed; the blow-pipe ceased for want of gas; the Buntzen-pile stopped working; and the "Victoria," collapsing, descended quietly upon the sand, where the car had already hollowed out its impression.
It was mid-day; the bearings were 19° 35' long., 6° 51' lat.—nearly 500 miles from Lake Tchad, more than 400 miles from the western coast of Africa.
As the balloon touched the ground, Dick and Joe aroused from their torpor.
"We are stopping," said the Scot.
"We have no choice," replied the doctor in a grave tone.
His companions understood him. The level of the ground was of the level of the sea, in consequence of its uniform flatness; so the balloon maintained itself in perfect equilibrium, and was absolutely motionless.
The weight of the travelers was replaced by an equivalent charge of sand, and they alighted. Each was absorbed in thought, and for many hours no one spoke. Joe prepared supper of biscuit and pemmican, of which they ate little; a sip of tepid water completed this melancholy repast. No one kept watch during the night, yet no one slept. The heat was suffocating. Next day there was only half a pint of water remaining—the doctor put it by, resolved that it should not be touched, except in the last extremity.
"I am suffocating," Joe soon cried; "the heat is greater than ever. But that does not astonish me," he added, after consulting the thermometer; "it is 140°!"
"The sand is baking you," said the Scot, "as if it were ​an oven. And not a cloud to be seen in that fiery sky. It is maddening."
"We must not despair," said the doctor. "These great heats are invariably succeeded by storms in this latitude, and they arise with extreme rapidity. Notwithstanding the wonderful serenity of the sky, a great change may arise within an hour."
"But, after all, something must indicate it," said Kennedy.
"Well," replied the doctor, "it appears to me that the barometer is a trifle lower."
"Heaven grant it, Samuel, for we are now bound to earth like a bird with broken wings."
"With this difference, my dear Dick, that our wings are whole, and I have great hope they will serve us well yet."
Oh for a wind! for wind!" cried Joe, "to waft us to a stream, or a well, and we should want nothing more; our provisions are sufficient, and with water we could remain a month without any trouble. But thirst is an awful thing."
Not only thirst, but there was the incessant contemplation of the desert to fatigue the mind; there was no rising ground, no sand-heap, not even a stone, upon which to fix the eyes. This flatness was irritating, and gave rise to what is denominated "the desert sickness." The impassibility of the blue dryness of the sky and the yellow expanse of the sand was terrifying. In this burning atmosphere the heat seemed to quiver as over a furnace; the mind grew desperate in beholding the fearful calm, and could not get a glimpse of any reason why or when such a state of things would have an end. The immensity was a sort of eternity.
Thus these unfortunate people, deprived of water in this torrid heat, began to experience symptoms of hallucination; their eyes grew hollow, and their vision became troubled.
When night fell the doctor resolved to shake off this feeling by a rapid walk; he wished to explore the sandy plain for several hours—not for exploring, but for walking's sake.
"Come!" said he to his companions; "believe me, it will do you good."
​"Impossible!" replied Kennedy, "I cannot stir a step."
"I would rather sleep," said Joe.
"But sleep or repose is deadly, my friends. Struggle against this languor. Come along!"
The doctor could prevail nothing, so he went away alone into the midst of the starry and transparent night. His first steps were made with difficulty—the steps of a man weakened and unaccustomed to walking—but he was well aware that the exercise would do him good. He advanced many miles towards the west, and his mind was already feeling more consoled, when suddenly he was seized with faintness; he fancied he was falling into a pit, he felt his knees give way beneath him—the vast solitude frightened him. He felt the central point of an infinite circumference, that is to say, nothing. The "Victoria" disappeared altogether in the darkness. The doctor was seized by a fearful foreboding—he, the cool, intrepid traveler. He wanted to return, but in vain. He called out; there was not even an echo to reply, and his voice fell into space like a stone cast into a bottomless abyss. He cast himself, almost swooning, upon the sand, alone amidst the terrible solitude of the desert.
At midnight he regained consciousness in the arms of his faithful Joe, who, anxious at his master's prolonged absence, had followed his tracks, firmly printed in the plain. He found him senseless.
"What has been the matter, sir?" inquired Joe.
"Nothing, my brave Joe; a momentary weakness, that's all."
"That will be nothing to hurt, sir; but get up and lean on me, and we will regain the 'Victoria.'" And the doctor, assisted by Joe, retraced his steps.
"It was imprudent of you sir; you should not have ventured alone. You might have been robbed," he added, laughing. "But seriously speaking, sir———"
"Well, I am listening."
"We must really do something; we cannot go on thus for many days longer and if no wind gets up, we are lost."
The doctor did not reply.
"Well, someone must sacrifice himself for the good of the rest; and it is only natural that I should."
​"What do you say? What is your plan?"
"A very simple plan, indeed. To take some food, and go straight ahead until I reach some place, which I cannot fail to do. Meantime, if Heaven send you a favorable wind, you need not wait for me—you can go. I, on my part, if I come to a village, will explain the circumstances with the words of Arabic you will write down for me, and I will bring you assistance if I lose my skin. What do you say to my plan?"
"It is madness, but worthy of your brave heart. It is out of the question that you can leave us."
"Well, we must try something, sir! it cannot hurt you, and, I repeat, you need not wait for me—perhaps I shall succeed."
"No, Joe, no; we must not separate—that would be an additional trouble to us. It was decreed that this should happen, and very likely it is decreed that something else shall happen later. So let us wait with resignation."
"So be it, sir; but I warn you of one thing. I will give you another day, I will not wait longer. This is Sunday, or rather Monday, as it is now one o'clock in the morning; if Tuesday does not see us off, I shall try my plan—that is decided."
The doctor made no reply, and they soon arrived at the balloon, where they sat down beside Kennedy. He was plunged in a silence so deep, that it could not have been sleep that bound him.
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