Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/250

 reached Zanzibar, Dick did not open his mouth upon that subject or any other. Dick was dumb!

Resolute made rapid progress towards the Cape, meeting with fine weather, but with occasionally heavy seas. Upon the 30th March, twenty-seven days after they had left London, Table Mountain appeared upon the horizon. Cape Town, situated at the foot of an amphitheater of hills, could be distinguished by the glasses, and the Resolute soon cast anchor in the harbor. But the captain only waited to "coal," which was accomplished in a day, and upon the following one the ship's head was put to the south to double the most southerly point of Africa and enter the Mozambique Channel.

As this was by no means Joe's first voyage, he very soon made himself at home on board. Everyone liked him for his frankness and good humor. No inconsiderable portion of his master's fame was reflected upon him, he was listened to as an oracle, and he had not the slightest doubt that he was anything else.

Now, while the doctor was continuing his course of lectures in the cabin, Joe was mounted on the forecastle telling stones in his own way, a proceeding in imitation of the greatest writers of all ages. The subject of the aerial voyage was naturally discussed. Joe had had some trouble to overcome the stubborn spirits of his companions; but now the enterprise was an accepted fact, the imagination of the sailors, stimulated by Joe’s stories, believed everything to be possible.

This dazzling narrator had persuaded his hearers that after this voyage there would be many more undertaken. It was only the commencement of a long series of super-human expeditions. "Don't you see, my friends, that when one has had a taste of this kind of locomotion one can be no longer contented, so in our next expedition, instead of going sideways, we shall go directly upwards."

"What! right up into the moon, then?" cried his astonished audience.