“Indeed. Now we merely need to save ourselves, eh?” Fergusson reloaded both of his rifles. “I believe we’re up to the task.”
They sank lower and lower until the treetops were barely twenty feet beneath the basket. Nemo searched for any way to lighten their load. He threw out the last of their food and the remaining water container, as well as the heavy grappling hook. The bullet holes opened into wider gashes, and the Victoria began a more rapid descent as the mountains climbed beneath them.
His thick brows drawn together, Fergusson looked long and hard at his scientific logbooks, which he dared not sacrifice; neither would he give up his rifles. Finally, he opted to throw four pounds of bullets over the side: a symbolic gesture, gaining them only a few minutes of flight, at most.
The winds gusted against the foothills, slowing the balloon’s progress. The Victoria drifted in a circular motion that would snag them in a tangle of trees. As the slave raiders galloped after them, thrashing their mounts, the balloon’s slackening pace allowed the horsemen to close the distance. From behind, two more gunshots rang out, and within moments the black-robed men would be upon the Victoria.
“We have no choice,” Nemo said, looking up at the balloon, which sagged in its net. “We’ve got to get over these mountains.” He picked up a rifle, loaded it and handed it to Caroline, then took the other for himself. “Doctor, please tie your journals securely inside your shirt. We’ll be required to hang on tight.”
“What are we doing? You’ve got an idea, eh? I can tell.”
“I hope we’re close to the river and the colony in Sierra Leone, Doctor,” Nemo said. “We are going to cut away the car and hang onto the ring and netting for the rest of this journey.”
While Fergusson gaped at him, Caroline climbed onto the edge of the basket and up into the webbing. One of the locust-chewed strands snapped under her weight, but she grabbed with the other hand and climbed higher. Nemo hoped the tattered ropes would hold long enough for them to get over the mountains and away from the vicious riders.
Fergusson secured his logbooks and followed Caroline up into the netting. Nemo placed a long knife between his teeth, remembering how he had climbed ratlines on the Coralie, and crawled up from the basket.
Holding firmly, he sawed at one of the sturdy ropes until it came apart. The basket lurched and dropped. The Victoria continued to descend. Nemo worked his way around the balloon ring and cut the second of the four ropes, imagining that he was cutting the throat of one of those evil slavers.
Behind them, the raiders drew closer. The horses seemed to realize the closeness of their prey and put on an extra burst of speed. One of the black-robed men shot at the balloon, and Nemo saw another bullet hole open in the silken sack. As if to spite the travelers, the winds slowed again, bringing them to a near-standstill in the air as their pursuers closed the distance.
Nemo viciously sliced the third rope. Stretched out beneath Caroline, the only remaining cable began to fray by itself where the locusts had chewed it. Caroline took the knife from him, bent down, and slashed the last rope. With a loud snap, the basket broke free and tumbled end over end.
Liberated from this dead weight, the balloon bounded up into the sky until it reached another current, which pushed them toward the mountain crests. Nemo lost his grip, clung to another rope, riding the balloon as if it were a wild animal.
Below, a chestnut horse reared as its rider tried to wrestle his mount to one side, but the basket crashed on top of them. Rather than accepting defeat, the black-robed horsemen rode even more furiously, as if hoping the balloon might snag on a rocky pinnacle.
Breezes carried the Victoria toward the boulder-strewn ridge summit, but Nemo still wasn’t sure they would make it. He hooked his arms and legs through the ragged netting and held on, his feet dangling.
They scraped over the broad crest of the mountain. Still clutching the webbing, Nemo dropped and began to run, pulling the balloon forward. When they crossed the apex, he jumped back into the air. Like a gasping Greek marathon runner, the Victoria coasted over and down the western slope. Ahead, at the bottom of the foothills, they saw a broad fast-moving river that flowed toward a delta on the coast.
“That must be the Senegal, eh?” Fergusson said, reaching inside his shirt as if to consult his maps. “A British protectorate, if I remember correctly.”
Nemo stayed the explorer’s hand. “We’ll have plenty of time to study the charts after we land, Doctor,” he said. “For now, we’re at the mercy of wherever the winds take us.”
“Will we stay afloat to cross the river, André?” Caroline asked.
He looked up at the deflating balloon, but doubted they would reach even the grasslands at the base of the foothills. “We can hope, Caroline.”
On the far side of the Senegal River, they would find European settlements and a fort—and beyond that, the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean. The opposite side of the African continent, which they had traversed entirely, the first Europeans ever to do so.
But their triumph would be complete only if they lived to the end of the journey. Nemo looked at Caroline and promised himself that she would survive and return to France.
All too soon, however, like a horse that had been ridden until its heart burst, the Victoria simply gave up. The balloon sagged, and the explorers descended, clinging to the rope net, all the way down to the treetops.
Nemo had to hold his feet away from the tearing branches, but soon they scraped over the scrubby hills to the grasslands. The flatter terrain allowed them to keep moving with every gust of wind, though occasionally the dying Victoria struck the ground, before lurching into the air again like a bouncing ball. Each oscillation became smaller, the balloon no more than a wadded silk blanket around them. Dragged by ever-weakening gusts of wind, they struck the ground for the last time, half a mile from the wide Senegal River.
Nemo lashed the severed ends of the balloon ropes to low bushes, anchoring the empty sack. He suspected that inhabitants of the Sierra Leone Fort might have seen their dramatic approach and would come to investigate.
Dr. Fergusson steadied himself on his feet, then bowed his head, placing a hand over his heart. “Farewell, Victoria. You have served us admirably indeed. The remainder of our journey can be a mere epilogue.” He patted the heavy scientific notebooks he had kept. “Despite our perils and misadventures, I must admit this has been quite a successful expedition. The Royal Geographical Society will be most chagrined that they refused to fund us, eh? Never again will they scoff at my innovative designs.”
Caroline smiled at him.
“We should make camp here,” Nemo suggested, looking around for food. The river would provide all the water they could want.
They built a large fire. As Nemo tried to doze, he gazed through the sparks and orange light to see Caroline lying on her back, staring up at the stars, also awake. Even disheveled from their long adventures, she still looked beautiful to him, just as when she had spent the night beside him under magnolia trees in the churchyard on Ile Feydeau.
Their journey together was nearly at an end. Soon Nemo and Caroline would return to France and their former lives. Nemo had no doubt that she would continue to run her father’s shipping business, while he would take up another of Napoleon III’s engineering projects. He hoped that by now the Emperor had found someone else to redesign the Paris sewer systems. . . .
And they would try to pretend. But during these five weeks he and Caroline had experienced too much together, had come to know each other too well, had grown too close for their situation ever to be the same. . . .
The next morning they awoke hungry, with no food left. Caroline brushed dry grass from her coppery hair. As she turned to watch the sun rise over the low mountains, her eyes flew wide open. While stealing a glance at her beautiful face, Nemo watched her expression change—then he too saw the dark horsemen bearing down upon them out of the foothills, still several miles away.
The slave raiders must have ridden ov
er the mountains through the night, intent on striking back at the balloon travelers.
The Senegal was a mile wide, and the current too fast to swim. The treeless lowlands offered no place to hide. Fergusson had only one small box of ammunition remaining and the two rifles. At least a dozen armed and murderous slavers pursued them.
Fergusson looked with alarm at the distant horsemen, then sadly down at the Victoria. “Alas, my friends, our balloon can serve us no more. We’re out of hydrogen gas.”
Holding his knife and ready to fight, Nemo tried to think of some way they could use the empty balloon to float on the river, but he knew the fabric would grow waterlogged and drag them under. He looked down at their small campfire, the few supplies they had. “Wait! We don’t need hydrogen.”
“But how, my friend? We have no way to inflate the balloon.”
“Yes, we do. Caroline, grab as much wood and dry grass as you can. Pile it on the campfire.” He fixed his dark-eyed gaze on Fergusson. “We’ll make another kind of balloon out of the Victoria, Doctor. Remember the Montgolfier brothers.”
“Ah yes, they were French.” Fergusson barked out a loud laugh. “A hot-air balloon, eh? The sack should still achieve enough buoyancy to carry us aloft.”
Nemo grabbed one corner of the huge silk sack while Fergusson went to the other end. “We only need to cross the river. From there we’ll go on foot to the fort. It’s Portuguese, I think, or maybe Dutch.”
“At least it won’t be run by those fellows.” Fergusson jerked a thumb at the oncoming horsemen.
Caroline came running back with an armload of twigs and dried grasses. Fergusson and Nemo arranged the balloon, tying more of its cords to the bushes. They built the campfire into a towering blaze that belched smoke, hot flames, and heated air into the sky. By the time the bonfire burned at its peak, the horsemen bore down upon them so close that the adventurers could hear the hoofbeats and the shouts.
“It’s time,” Nemo said. “We dare not wait any longer.”
The three of them each took hold of a separate part of the balloon and stretched the opening over the flames. The hot air was like a heavy breath that blew into the sagging sack.
“It’s not filling fast enough,” Caroline said.
“Just be grateful the leftover hydrogen didn’t burst into flames, eh?” Fergusson said, looking up into the wide mouth of the battered silk sack.
Nemo strained against the ropes to hold the opening over the rippling hot air. “The gas is much too diluted for that.” He watched the torn holes in the balloon sack, wishing he had taken the time to seal them the night before, but now the hot air filled the dying Victoria faster than it could leak out again.
The black-robed raiders snarled, and the three companions could see teeth flashing in their cruel mouths. Several of the men had drawn long swords, ready to ride down and lop off the heads of those who had ruined their slave raid.
But now the Victoria bobbed upward, standing straight. Though its sides remained crinkled, it had become buoyant, straining at the ropes.
“Caroline, climb up,” Nemo said, helping her. “Careful not to burn your hands.” Without arguing, she scrambled onto the tattered netting that held the sack together. The fire continued to roar, and the revived Victoria strained upward like a restless spirit.
“Doctor, you’re next,” Nemo said as he took the dagger and slashed one of the ropes opposite Fergusson. The long-legged explorer did his best to climb onto the sack.
Released from one of its tethers, the hot air balloon bent sideways, and Nemo slashed the second cord. As he leaped onto the netting himself, he cut the remaining rope so that the Victoria ’s carcass rose into the air, no more than fifty feet above the ground—but buoyant enough.
The horsemen arrived, livid with rage at seeing the balloon escape again. They fired their guns, puncturing the Victoria twice more, but air currents carried the revived balloon over the broad river that flowed gently to the sea.
“Hang on,” Nemo said, and they all clutched the ropes as their hot air balloon drifted low across the Senegal. It spun around like a top, letting Nemo see in all directions. He watched the black-clad raiders come to an abrupt halt at the muddy bank. Snarling and cursing, they shot impotently into the sky.
Although the cooling air leaked out of the sack, the desperate explorers approached the opposite shore swiftly enough. As Nemo looked toward the western bank, he saw that a cavalry troop of uniformed men—British, from the looks of them—had ridden out to intercept the balloon.
The Victoria kissed the water twice, dragging their feet in the turgid current, forcing the three to crawl higher onto the sagging sack. The balloon continued to bob across the water, buoyed by a slight breeze, then struck the mud on the far side and dragged them across the flatlands as the British troops advanced to meet them.
When the exhausted Victoria finally came to rest, the travelers sank into the folds of silk and panted with sheer relief. Within moments, the British troops galloped up in formation, smartly dressed, cleaner and healthier than anyone the travelers had seen in five weeks.
Nemo didn’t stand to greet them: His knees were too shaky and his muscles too weak from the exertions they had endured.
The British captain peered down at the mustachioed explorer in the mud, and tipped his hat. “Doctor Fergusson, I presume?”
Fergusson smiled so that his mustache curved upward like a black cat’s tail. He glanced over at Nemo and Caroline. “Yes, sir—Fergusson, and friends.”
PART VII
R OBUR
THE C ONQUEROR
I
Paris, 1854
Though he had been home for half a year now, still Nemo could not relax.
At dawn, with a cool mist slinking around the riverfront districts, Nemo gazed up at the painted building that overlooked the Seine. Three stories tall, the structure had gray siding and white shutters, and stone steps leading up to a tall, narrow door. Over the lintel hung a bright sign: “ARONNAX, MERCHANT, Paris Offices.”
Only a month after she had returned from Africa, Caroline had purchased the expensive left-bank property across from Notre Dame, where gulls flew around the spires, arches, and gargoyles. Boats passed along the river, ducking under bridge after bridge. Caroline’s main office stood directly on the water, across from the Tuileries Gardens, not far from the impressive Bourbon Palais.
Nemo could not argue with her decision to move her shipping offices to Paris. Both in business acumen and in her creative arts, Caroline had made herself into a person to be reckoned with. But the thought of having her so close to him, and still so unavailable, tore his heart with conflicting emotions.
Six years had passed since the Forward ’s departure, and she still had received no word from Captain Hatteras. The Arctic explorer had not sent her so much as a single letter.
But the law was the law. Nemo had to wait one more year for her. That was how it must be, though in his heart he felt that he and Caroline had made vows and commitments to each other that outweighed any mere certificate. . . .
Perhaps it was a consequence of having encountered danger so many times, having faced death at each other’s sides. Perhaps the exquisite agony of being so close for five long weeks had worked their secret emotions to a fever pitch.
When he and Caroline boarded a northbound British naval ship at the mouth of the Congo and sailed for England, Nemo could pretend no longer. Caroline’s eyes flashed at him like star sapphires, and she flushed when their glances met. He could read her thoughts and desires as if she’d written them down and handed him a secret note. The British sailors treated Dr. Fergusson as a hero, and the captain welcomed the explorer to his table, but Nemo and Caroline were often left to themselves.
On a still, moonless night filled with stars over a sea of glass, Nemo slipped into Caroline’s cabin. She welcomed him without words, only kisses . . . and did not ask him why he had waited so long.
They had a full month together as the ship cruised
toward the English Channel along the African coast, past the Straits of Gibraltar and along the edge of Portugal. The two of them remained discreet, though they fooled neither the sailors nor the captain, who viewed Caroline as precious cargo.
Only Dr. Samuel Fergusson, who spent every waking moment editing and rewriting his journals for publication, was completely oblivious.
Nemo and Caroline cherished every moment.
But as they approached France again, they looked at each other with dread and indecision. While Nemo had nothing to lose—no reputation, no standing in society—Madame Caroline Hatteras owned a successful shipping company and was married to a man who had a proud and respected name.
“We will have to wait, Caroline,” Nemo said as they stood together at the bow of the ship, looking at the approaching English coastline. “We’ll have to pretend. Again.”
Caroline’s eyes shone with tears like crystal. “It doesn’t matter to me anymore, André. We both know the captain won’t be coming back from his voyage to find the Northwest Passage. Why should we delay, when we love each other? We have already wasted the best years of our lives apart.”
“Because it would make all the difference in the world—and you know it. In a year, we can be together, and people will cheer. No one will blame you. I am an adventurer with my own mantle of fame, as well as Emperor Napoleon’s blessing, and you are a successful businesswoman.” He narrowed his eyes and clasped her hand earnestly. “But if we flaunt our love now, Caroline, I will be seen as a scoundrel, and you as an adulteress.” She turned away, but Nemo gripped her hand more tightly. “You know it as well as I do.”
She nodded, but refused to let her tears fall. “That is why we must make the most of every moment together now.”
When they returned to Paris, with the public watching, time had dragged on. Nemo steeled himself to avoid the woman he loved as much as possible. He would not tempt her further . . . or himself. That would only make the wait more unbearable for both of them.
Captain Nemo Page 26
