“I have no regrets,” he said, “for the life that is passing away from me; my life belongs to God!”
“Hope still!” said the doctor; “we are near you, and we will save you now, as we saved you from the tortures of the stake.”
“I do not ask so much of Heaven,” said the priest, with resignation. “Blessed be God for having vouchsafed to me the joy before I die of having pressed your friendly hands, and having heard, once more, the language of my country!”
The missionary here grew weak again, and the whole day went by between hope and fear, Kennedy deeply moved, and Joe drawing his hand over his eyes more than once when he thought that no one saw him.
The balloon made little progress, and the wind seemed as though unwilling to jostle its precious burden.
Toward evening, Joe discovered a great light in the west. Under more elevated latitudes, it might have been mistaken for an immense aurora borealis, for the sky appeared on fire. The doctor very attentively examined the phenomenon.
“It is, perhaps, only a volcano in full activity,” said he.
“But the wind is carrying us directly over it,” replied Kennedy.
“Very well, we shall cross it then at a safe height!” said the doctor.
Three hours later, the Victoria was right among the mountains. Her exact position was twenty-four degrees fifteen minutes east longitude, and four degrees forty-two minutes north latitude, and four degrees forty-two minutes north latitude. In front of her a volcanic crater was pouring forth torrents of melted lava, and hurling masses of rock to an enormous height. There were jets, too, of liquid fire that fell back in dazzling cascades–a superb but dangerous spectacle, for the wind with unswerving certainty was carrying the balloon directly toward this blazing atmosphere.
This obstacle, which could not be turned, had to be crossed, so the cylinder was put to its utmost power, and the balloon rose to the height of six thousand feet, leaving between it and the volcano a space of more than three hundred fathoms.
From his bed of suffering, the dying missionary could contemplate that fiery crater from which a thousand jets of dazzling flame were that moment escaping.
“How grand it is!” said he, “and how infinite is the power of God even in its most terrible manifestations!”
This overflow of blazing lava wrapped the sides of the mountain with a veritable drapery of flame; the lower half of the balloon glowed redly in the upper night; a torrid heat ascended to the car, and Dr. Ferguson made all possible haste to escape from this perilous situation.
By ten o’clock the volcano could be seen only as a red point on the horizon, and the balloon tranquilly pursued her course in a less elevated zone of the atmosphere.
Chapter Twenty-Third.
Joe in a Fit of Rage.–The Death of a Good Man.–The Night of watching by the Body.–Barrenness and Drought.–The Burial.–The Quartz Rocks. –Joe’s Hallucinations.–A Precious Ballast.–A Survey of the Gold-bearing Mountains.–The Beginning of Joe’s Despair.
A magnificent night overspread the earth, and the missionary lay quietly asleep in utter exhaustion.
“He’ll not get over it!” sighed Joe. “Poor young fellow–scarcely thirty years of age!”
“He’ll die in our arms. His breathing, which was so feeble before, is growing weaker still, and I can do nothing to save him,” said the doctor, despairingly.
“The infamous scoundrels!” exclaimed Joe, grinding his teeth, in one of those fits of rage that came over him at long intervals; “and to think that, in spite of all, this good man could find words only to pity them, to excuse, to pardon them!”
“Heaven has given him a lovely night, Joe–his last on earth, perhaps! He will suffer but little more after this, and his dying will be only a peaceful falling asleep.”
The dying man uttered some broken words, and the doctor at once went to him. His breathing became difficult, and he asked for air. The curtains were drawn entirely back, and he inhaled with rapture the light breezes of that clear, beautiful night. The stars sent him their trembling rays, and the moon wrapped him in the white winding-sheet of its effulgence.