"No offense," said I.
His good-humor returned and he laughed.
"No offense, young fellah. I'm goin' to get a young devil chick forChallenger. That's one of my jobs. No, I don't want your company.I'm safe in this cage, and you are not. So long, and I'll be back incamp by night-fall."
He turned away and I left him wandering on through the wood with hisextraordinary cage around him.
If Lord John's behavior at this time was strange, that of Challengerwas more so. I may say that he seemed to possess an extraordinaryfascination for the Indian women, and that he always carried a largespreading palm branch with which he beat them off as if they wereflies, when their attentions became too pressing. To see him walkinglike a comic opera Sultan, with this badge of authority in his hand,his black beard bristling in front of him, his toes pointing at eachstep, and a train of wide-eyed Indian girls behind him, clad in theirslender drapery of bark cloth, is one of the most grotesque of all thepictures which I will carry back with me. As to Summerlee, he wasabsorbed in the insect and bird life of the plateau, and spent hiswhole time (save that considerable portion which was devoted to abusingChallenger for not getting us out of our difficulties) in cleaning andmounting his specimens.
Challenger had been in the habit of walking off by himself everymorning and returning from time to time with looks of portentoussolemnity, as one who bears the full weight of a great enterprise uponhis shoulders. One day, palm branch in hand, and his crowd of adoringdevotees behind him, he led us down to his hidden work-shop and took usinto the secret of his plans.
The place was a small clearing in the center of a palm grove. In thiswas one of those boiling mud geysers which I have already described.Around its edge we
re scattered a number of leathern thongs cut fromiguanodon hide, and a large collapsed membrane which proved to be thedried and scraped stomach of one of the great fish lizards from thelake. This huge sack had been sewn up at one end and only a smallorifice left at the other. Into this opening several bamboo canes hadbeen inserted and the other ends of these canes were in contact withconical clay funnels which collected the gas bubbling up through themud of the geyser. Soon the flaccid organ began to slowly expand andshow such a tendency to upward movements that Challenger fastened thecords which held it to the trunks of the surrounding trees. In half anhour a good-sized gas-bag had been formed, and the jerking andstraining upon the thongs showed that it was capable of considerablelift. Challenger, like a glad father in the presence of hisfirst-born, stood smiling and stroking his beard, in silent,self-satisfied content as he gazed at the creation of his brain. Itwas Summerlee who first broke the silence.
"You don't mean us to go up in that thing, Challenger?" said he, in anacid voice.
"I mean, my dear Summerlee, to give you such a demonstration of itspowers that after seeing it you will, I am sure, have no hesitation intrusting yourself to it."
"You can put it right out of your head now, at once," said Summerleewith decision, "nothing on earth would induce me to commit such afolly. Lord John, I trust that you will not countenance such madness?"
"Dooced ingenious, I call it," said our peer. "I'd like to see how itworks."
"So you shall," said Challenger. "For some days I have exerted mywhole brain force upon the problem of how we shall descend from thesecliffs. We have satisfied ourselves that we cannot climb down and thatthere is no tunnel. We are also unable to construct any kind of bridgewhich may take us back to the pinnacle from which we came. How thenshall I find a means to convey us? Some little time ago I had remarkedto our young friend here that free hydrogen was evolved from thegeyser. The idea of a balloon naturally followed. I was, I willadmit, somewhat baffled by the difficulty of discovering an envelope tocontain the gas, but the contemplation of the immense entrails of thesereptiles supplied me with a solution to the problem. Behold theresult!"
He put one hand in the front of his ragged jacket and pointed proudlywith the other.
By this time the gas-bag had swollen to a goodly rotundity and wasjerking strongly upon its lashings.
"Midsummer madness!" snorted Summerlee.
Lord John was delighted with the whole idea. "Clever old dear, ain'the?" he whispered to me, and then louder to Challenger. "What about acar?"
"The car will be my next care. I have already planned how it is to bemade and attached. Meanwhile I will simply show you how capable myapparatus is of supporting the weight of each of us."
"All of us, surely?"
"No, it is part of my plan that each in turn shall descend as in aparachute, and the balloon be drawn back by means which I shall have nodifficulty in perfecting. If it will support the weight of one and lethim gently down, it will have done all that is required of it. I willnow show you its capacity in that direction."
He brought out a lump of basalt of a considerable size, constructed inthe middle so that a cord could be easily attached to it. This cordwas the one which we had brought with us on to the plateau after we hadused it for climbing the pinnacle. It was over a hundred feet long,and though it was thin it was very strong. He had prepared a sort ofcollar of leather with many straps depending from it. This collar wasplaced over the dome of the balloon, and the hanging thongs weregathered together below, so that the pressure of any weight would bediffused over a considerable surface. Then the lump of basalt wasfastened to the thongs, and the rope was allowed to hang from the endof it, being passed three times round the Professor's arm.
"I will now," said Challenger, with a smile of pleased anticipation,"demonstrate the carrying power of my balloon." As he said so he cutwith a knife the various lashings that held it.
Never was our expedition in more imminent danger of completeannihilation. The inflated membrane shot up with frightful velocityinto the air. In an instant Challenger was pulled off his feet anddragged after it. I had just time to throw my arms round his ascendingwaist when I was myself whipped up into the air. Lord John had me witha rat-trap grip round the legs, but I felt that he also was coming offthe ground. For a moment I had a vision of four adventurers floatinglike a string of sausages over the land that they had explored. But,happily, there were limits to the strain which the rope would stand,though none apparently to the lifting powers of this infernal machine.There was a sharp crack, and we were in a heap upon the ground withcoils of rope all over us. When we were able to stagger to our feet wesaw far off in the deep blue sky one dark spot where the lump of basaltwas speeding upon its way.
"Splendid!" cried the undaunted Challenger, rubbing his injured arm."A most thorough and satisfactory demonstration! I could not haveanticipated such a success. Within a week, gentlemen, I promise that asecond balloon will be prepared, and that you can count upon taking insafety and comfort the first stage of our homeward journey." So far Ihave written each of the foregoing events as it occurred. Now I amrounding off my narrative from the old camp, where Zambo has waited solong, with all our difficulties and dangers left like a dream behind usupon the summit of those vast ruddy crags which tower above our heads.We have descended in safety, though in a most unexpected fashion, andall is well with us. In six weeks or two months we shall be in London,and it is possible that this letter may not reach you much earlier thanwe do ourselves. Already our hearts yearn and our spirits fly towardsthe great mother city which holds so much that is dear to us.
It was on the very evening of our perilous adventure with Challenger'shome-made balloon that the change came in our fortunes. I have saidthat the one person from whom we had had some sign of sympathy in ourattempts to get away was the young chief whom we had rescued. He alonehad no desire to hold us against our will in a strange land. He hadtold us as much by his expressive language of signs. That evening,after dusk, he came down to our little camp, handed me (for some reasonhe had always shown his attentions to me, perhaps because I was the onewho was nearest his age) a small roll of the bark of a tree, and thenpointing solemnly up at the row of caves above him, he had put hisfinger to his lips as a sign of secrecy and had stolen back again tohis people.
I took the slip of bark to the firelight and we examined it together.It was about a foot square, and on the inner side there was a singulararrangement of lines, which I here reproduce:
They were neatly done in charcoal upon the white surface, and looked tome at first sight like some sort of rough musical score.
"Whatever it is, I can swear that it is of importance to us," said I."I could read that on his face as he gave it."
"Unless we have come upon a primitive practical joker," Summerleesuggested, "which I should think would be one of the most elementarydevelopments of man."
"It is clearly some sort of script," said Challenger.