Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/387

 sharp lad and a first-rate swimmer. He had no difficulty in swimming across the Firth of Fourth at Edinburgh. We shall see him again, depend upon it; I cannot say how or when, but do not let us neglect anything that might give him an opportunity to rejoin us.

"Heaven grant it may be as you suggest!" replied the doctor, in a voice choked with emotion. "We will do everything in the world to find our friend. Let us put things to rights at once; and first of all let us take off the exterior covering of the balloon, which will relieve us of 650 lbs. weight, and is surely worth the trouble to get rid of."

The doctor and Kennedy set to work, they overcame the greatest difficulties. It was necessary to tear the tough taffetas away bit by bit, and to cut it into strips to pull it through the meshes of the network. The rent made by the birds' beaks was many feet in length.

This operation occupied at least four hours; but at length the interior balloon, entirely freed, did not appear to have suffered at all. The

The "Victoria" was now diminished by a fifth. This difference was sufficient to astonish Kennedy.

"Will it carry us?" he asked.

"We need fear nothing on that score," said the doctor; "I will re-establish the equilibrium, and if our poor Joe return, we shall be able to resume our route as usual."

"At the moment he fell, Samuel, if my recollection serve me, we were not far from an island."

"I remember; but this isle, like all those in Lake Tchad, is no doubt inhabited by a race of pirates and murderers. These savages have been witnesses of our accident, and if Joe has fallen into their hands, unless superstition protects him, what will become of him?"

"He is a man of resource, I tell you; I have great confidence in his pluck and intelligence."

"I hope he will prove so. Now, Dick, you can go and shoot in the neighborhood, without going too far, mind. It is absolutely necessary for us to replenish our larder, of which the greater part has been sacrificed."

"All right, Samuel, I shall not be long away."

Kennedy took a double-barrelled gun, and advanced into the giant reeds towards a coppice at no great distance, and