# Works of Jules Verne/Five Weeks in a Balloon/Chapter 27

CHAPTER XXVII DELUSIONS
The doctor's first care on the morrow was to consult the barometer. It did not appear that the mercury had fallen in any appreciable degree. "Nothing," he said, "nothing to hope for."
He came out of the car and looked at the sky; there was the same heat, the same clearness, the same stillness.
"Must we then really relinquish all hope?" he cried in vain.
Joe did not say a word—he was still pondering upon his project. Kennedy got up, but was very ill, and a prey ​to a restless excitement. He was suffering terribly from thirst. His tongue and lips were so swollen that he could scarcely utter a sound.
There were still a few drops of water remaining. Each man knew it, each thought of it, and felt attracted by it, but nobody dared to approach it.
These three companions and friends now looked at each other with haggard eyes, and with a feeling of horrible longing, which displayed itself in Kennedy chiefly. His powerful frame was less able to tolerate, these privations. During all that day he was a prey to delirium; he moved about, uttering hoarse cries, biting his fingers, and ready to open a vein to assuage his thirst.
"Ah!" he cried. "Country of thirst, you are well named the region of despair!" Then he fell into a profound lethargy, and nothing could be heard but the sound of his breathing between his swollen lips.
Towards evening Joe was seized with symptoms of madness. The vast stretch of sand appeared to him an immense pond filled with clear and sparkling water. More than once he cast himself upon the burning ground to drink, and raising his mouth, filled with sand, would exclaim with anger: "Curse it, it is salt water!"
Afterwards, while Kennedy and Ferguson lay motionless, he was seized with an invincible desire to drink the few remaining drops of water kept in reserve. The wish overpowered him. He crept towards the car on all-fours; he devoured the contents of the bottle with his eyes; he cast a cautious look around, and seizing it, put it to his lips.
At this moment the words "Give me some, give me a drink," were uttered in despairing accents.
It was Kennedy, who had dragged himself towards Joe. The unhappy man was to be pitied; he begged upon his knees, he even wept. Joe wept too, and handed him the bottle, which Kennedy finished to the last drop.
"Thank you," he said. But Joe did not hear him, he had fallen, like Kennedy, upon the sand.
We will pass over the horrors of that night. But on Tuesday morning, under the fiery rays of the sun that bathed their limbs, the unfortunate travelers felt them withering up by degrees. When Joe attempted to rise, he ​found it was impossible to get up—he was unable to carry out his plan.
He looked around him. In the car the doctor, quite exhausted, his arms folded across his chest, was gazing into space, with a fixed and lack-luster look. Kennedy was really alarming, and kept shaking his head from side to side like a wild beast in a cage. Suddenly the Scot's glance fell upon his carbine, the stock of which protruded over the side of the car.
"Ha, ha!" he cried, raising himself by an almost superhuman effort. He made a dart to secure the gun; maddened and foolish, he directed the muzzle to his mouth.
"Sir, sir! "cried Joe, throwing himself upon Kennedy.
They struggled furiously together.
"Go away, or I will kill you!" cried Kennedy.
But Joe held him with all his force, and thus they contended, without the doctor appearing to observe them, for nearly a minute. In the struggle the carbine suddenly exploded. At the noise of the discharge the doctor rose like a specter and looked around him.
"Down there; look there!" he cried.
He pointed to a certain point so energetically that Joe and Kennedy separated by mutual consent, and looked at him and then in the direction indicated.
The plain was agitated like a tempestuous sea. Waves of sand were tossed one upon the other in the midst of a fearful dust-cloud. An immense pillar of sand came from the southeast, whirling and eddying with tremendous swiftness. The sun disappeared behind a thick cloud, whose shade extended even to the "Victoria." The grains of fine sand glistened like liquid beads, and this rising sea gained upon them by degrees.
A swift beam of hope leaped from Doctor Ferguson's eyes.
"The simoon!" he cried.
"The simoon!" repeated Joe without understanding him.
"So much the better!" exclaimed Kennedy, with the anger of despair, so much the better—we shall die!"
"So much the better," replied the doctor, "for, on the contrary, we shall live." And he began to cast out the sand which ballasted the car.
​His companions, understanding him, at last came to his assistance, and soon took their places in the car.
"Now, Joe," said the doctor, "throw over about fifty pounds of your mineral treasures."
Joe did not hesitate, though a pang of regret shot through him. The balloon began to rise.
"Just in time," said the doctor.
In fact the simoon came upon them like a thunderbolt. A little later and the "Victoria" would have been smashed, torn to pieces, annihilated.
The terrible whirlwind struck them and the balloon was covered with a shower of sand.
"More of that ballast, Joe," cried the doctor.
"There it goes," said Joe, throwing over an immense piece of quartz.
The "Victoria" mounted rapidly above the whirlwind, but surrounded by an immense vacuum of air, it was hurried along by the current at a frightful pace above the foaming sea of sand.
Neither Samuel, Dick, nor Joe spoke a word. They looked on in hope, and were, moreover, refreshed by the wind of this tempest.
At three o'clock the storm abated; the sand in falling formed a quantity of little heaps, the sky reappeared in all its former tranquillity. The "Victoria," now motionless, was in full view of an oasis, a little isle covered with green trees and rising from the surface of this ocean.
"Water! water!" exclaimed the doctor, and immediately opening the valve he permitted the escape of the hydrogen and descended gently at about 200 paces from the oasis. During a period of four hours they had traveled 240 miles.
The car was duly balanced, and Kennedy, followed by Joe, got down on the ground.
"Take your rifles," said the doctor, "and be cautious."
Dick caught up his carbine, Joe took one of the rifles. They advanced quickly up to the trees and penetrated amid the fresh verdure which announced the abundance of water. They took no notice of some large footprints and of the fresh trail which was indicated upon the damp ground.
Suddenly a roar resounded within twenty paces.
"'Tis the roar of a lion!" cried Joe.
​"All the better," replied the exasperated Scotchman; "one feels strong when there's fighting to be done."
"Do be prudent, Mr. Dick, pray be prudent—on the life of one depends the life of all now."
But Dick, who did not hear him, advanced with blazing eyes and loaded gun, terrible in his rashness. Beneath a palm tree an enormous lion with black mane was crouched. Scarcely did he perceive the hunter than he sprang at him; but he had not touched ground again when a bullet through the heart settled him. He fell dead.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Joe.
Kennedy hurried towards the wells, slipping upon the damp steps, and stretched himself down beside a spring, in which he eagerly laved his swollen lips. Joe followed his example, and they heard nothing save the cries of the animals which they had disturbed by their approach.
"Be cautious, Mr. Dick," said Joe, as he took breath, "do not drink too much at first."
But Dick, without replying, continued drinking. He plunged his head and hands into the grateful water—he was like a man intoxicated.
"And about Mr. Ferguson?" said Joe.
This recalled Kennedy to himself. He filled a bottle he had brought and hurried up the steps. But what was his surprise—an enormous body closed up the opening! Joe, who followed Dick, drew him back with him.
"We are shut in!"
"It is impossible—what do you say———"
But Dick did not finish his sentence. A terrible roaring gave him to understand with what new enemy he had to do.
"Another lion!" cried Joe.
"No, a lioness—ah, wait a minute, you beast!" said Dick, quickly reloading his carbine.
He fired a moment after, but the animal had disappeared. "Come along," cried he.
"No, no, Mr. Dick, you have not killed her—she is crouching close here, and she will spring at the first who approaches, and he will be lost."
"But what can you do? We must get out. And Samuel is waiting for us."
"Let us 'draw' her. Take my gun and give me your carbine."
​"What is your plan?"
"You shall see."
Joe took off his jacket, and placing it upon the end of his gun, held it as a bait above the opening. The furious beast sprang down. Kennedy waited her appearance and gave her a bullet in the shoulder. The lioness roared and rolled down the steps, upsetting Joe. He was already fancying the enormous claws of the animal upon him, when a second shot was heard, and Doctor Ferguson appeared at the entrance, his rifle, still smoking, in his hand. Joe quickly got upon his feet, jumped over the carcass, and handed his master the bottle of water. To carry it to his lips and half empty it was for Ferguson the work of an instant, and the three travelers thanked Heaven, from the bottom of their hearts, for having so miraculously preserved them from a terrible death.
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