Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/273

 studded the horizon. The doctor now approached the ground, the grapnels were cast out, and one of them soon got fixed in the branches of an immense sycamore.

Joe, sliding quickly into the tree, fixed the grapnel with great care. The doctor left his blow-pipe sufficiently active to ensure a certain ascensional force in the balloon, which would keep it upright. The wind had rather suddenly dropped.

"Now," said Ferguson, "take a couple of take a couple of guns, friend Dick, for yourself and Joe, and see if you two cannot bring back some prime slices of antelope for dinner."

"Hurrah for the chase!" cried Kennedy.

They descended. Joe let himself slide from branch to branch, as if he wished to dislocate his limbs. The doctor, relieved of the weight of his companions, was enabled to reduce his blow-pipe altogether.

"Don't you fly away, sir, please," cried Joe.

"Be quite easy, my lad; I am firmly fixed here. I am about to put my notes in order. Good sport to you, and be prudent. Meantime, from my post I shall keep a good look-out, and at the least suspicious incident I will fire a shot. That shall be the signal for return."

"All right," replied the sportsmen.

country, arid and parched, of a clayey soil that cracked with the heat, appeared deserted. Here and there some traces of caravans might be perceived, and the blanched bones of men and animals, half gnawed, lay mingling in the same dust.

After half an hour's walking, Dick and Joe plunged into a gum-tree forest, with eyes on the alert, and their fingers upon the triggers of their rifles. They did not know with what they might meet. Without being a first-rate shot, Joe could manage firearms very well.

"It does one good to walk, Mr. Dick, though this country is not the most level," said Joe, kicking aside some of the fragments of rock with which the ground was strewn.

Kennedy signed to his companion to hold his tongue,