The doctor's friend—Origin of their friendship—Dick Kennedy in London—An unexpected and not reassuring proposal—A not very consoling proverb—A few words about African martyrology—Advantages of a balloon—Dr Fergusson's secret

DR FERGUSSON had a friend; not another self, not an alter ego , for friendship could hardly exist between two beings completely alike. But though they possessed distinct qualities, aptitudes and temperaments, in Dick Kennedy and Samuel Fergusson there beat but one heart, a fact which did not trouble them much—quite the contrary.

This Dick Kennedy was a Scotsman in the full significance of the word; open, resolute and dogged. He lived in the little town of Leith, near Edinburgh, a typical offshoot of 'Auld Reekie.' He was, on occasion, a fisherman, but always and everywhere a determined sportsman, which was entirely natural in a son of Caledonia, however little familiar he may have been with the mountains of the Highlands. He was said to be a wonderful shot. Not only could he split bullets on the blade of a knife, but he would cut them into two parts so equal that when they were weighed no appreciable difference could be detected.

Kennedy's face was very reminiscent of that of Halbert Glendinning as he is painted by Walter Scott in The Monastery . He was over six feet, graceful and easy in his bearing, and appeared to be endowed with herculean strength. A face deeply tanned by the sun, quick black eyes, a very marked natural bravery; in fact, something good and solid in his whole personality made this Scotsman an attractive figure.

The two friends first met in India, where they both belonged to the same regiment. While Dick was hunting tigers and elephants Samuel was hunting plants and insects. Each could claim to be an expert in his own sphere, and more than one rare plant fell to the doctor which was as well worth winning as a pair of ivory tusks. The two young men never had a chance of saving each other's lives or of rendering each other any service; hence an unshakable friendship. Fate separated them at times, but sympathy always brought them together again.

Since their return to England they had been frequently separated by the doctor's distant expeditions, but whenever he returned he never failed to go and give a few weeks of his company to his Scottish friend. Dick would talk of the past, while Samuel made plans for the future. One looked forward, the other back; hence the restless spirit of Fergusson and the complete placidity of Kennedy.

After his journey to Tibet the doctor went for nearly two years without mentioning fresh explorations. Dick supposed that his traveller's instinct, his thirst for adventure, was dying down. He was delighted. It was bound to end badly one day or another, he thought. Whatever experience one may have of men, one cannot travel with impunity among cannibals and wild beasts. Kennedy therefore urged Samuel to give it up. Besides, he had done enough for science, too much for human gratitude. The doctor was content to meet this suggestion with silence. He remained thoughtful, and then plunged into secret calculations, spending his nights labouring over figures and even experimenting with strange apparatus of which no one could make head or tail. It was felt that some great idea was fermenting in his brain.

'What can he be worrying at now?' pondered Kennedy when his friend had left him in January to return to London. He found out one morning through the article in the Daily Telegraph .

'Heaven's mercy!' he cried. 'The fool! The madman! Cross Africa in a balloon! This is the last straw. So this is what he's been brooding over these last two years!'

In place of all these exclamation marks, imagine so many lusty punches on the head, and you will have an idea of the vigour with which the worthy Dick said this. When old Elspeth, the woman to whom he always opened his heart, tried to suggest that it might easily be a hoax, he replied: 'Hang it all! Don't I know the fellow? Isn't it him to the life? Travel through the air! Jealous of the eagles now! No, he won't. I'll put a spoke in his wheel! If there was no one to stop him he'd be off some fine day to the moon.'

The same evening, Kennedy, torn between anxiety and exasperation, took the train at the General Railway Station, and the following day arrived in London. Three-quarters of an hour later a cab set him down at the doctor's little house in Greek Street, Soho. He dashed up the steps and announced his presence by five heavy blows on the door. Fergusson himself opened it.

'Dick?' he said, without betraying much surprise.

'Dick himself,' retorted Kennedy.

'What, you in London in the shooting season, Dick?'

'I'm in London.'

'And what are you here for?'

'To stop a piece of grotesque folly.'

'Folly?' said the doctor.

'Is what this paper says true?' asked Kennedy, holding out his copy of the Daily Telegraph .

'Oh, that's what you mean! These papers are very indiscreet. But sit down, Dick, old man.'

'I'm not going to sit down. You actually intend to undertake this journey?'

'I do. My preparations are well ahead, and I—'

'Where are they, these preparations? Let me get at them. Where are they? I'll smash them to pieces.' The worthy Scot was getting very seriously angry.

'Steady, old man,' went on the doctor. 'I can understand your irritation. You think I ought to have told you before about my new plans.'

'New plans, indeed!'

'I've been very busy,' Samuel continued, without heeding the interruption. I've had a lot to do. But you needn't worry; I shouldn't have started without writing to you—'

'Writing be hanged—'

'Because I'd thought of taking you with me.'

The Scotsman made a bound which would have done credit to a chamois.

'What!' he yelled. 'Do you want to get us both shut up in Bedlam?'

'I was firmly relying on you, my dear Dick, and picked you out over the heads of many others.'

Kennedy stood thunderstruck.

'When you've listened for ten minutes to what I have to say,' the doctor continued calmly, 'you'll thank me.'

'You're talking seriously?'

'Absolutely.'

'And what if I refuse to go with you?'

'You won't refuse.'

'But what if I do?'

'I shall go alone.'

'Let's sit down,' said the sportsman, 'and talk quietly. Now I know you're not joking it's worth discussing.'

'We'll discuss it over lunch, if you've no objection, old man.'

The two friends sat facing one another over a little table on which was a pile of sandwiches and an enormous tea-pot.

'My dear Samuel,' said the sportsman, 'your plan is madness. It's impossible. It's unheard of, beyond all reason.'

'We'll see, when we've tried.'

'But that's just what we are not going to do; we're not going to try.'

'And why, if you please?'

'The danger, and the obstacles of every kind.'

'Obstacles,' Fergusson answered gravely, 'are created to be overcome, and as for dangers, who has the confidence to think he can avoid them? There's danger everywhere in life. It may be very dangerous to sit at this table or to put your hat on. Besides, what is to happen should be regarded as having happened already, and the future should be regarded like the present, for the future is only the present a little further away.'

'Bah!' said Kennedy, shrugging his shoulders. 'You're still a fatalist!'

'Yes, but in the best sense of the word. Well, don't let us bother our heads about what Fate has up her sleeve for us, and never forget our good old English proverb: “The man born to be hanged will never be drowned.”'this was unanswerable, but did not prevent Kennedy from producing a number of further arguments, easy to imagine but too long to reproduce here.

'But after all,' he said, after an hour's discussion, 'if you insist on crossing Africa, if you can't be happy unless you do, why not go the ordinary way?'

'Why?' answered the doctor, with spirit. 'Because up to now every attempt has failed. Because from Mungo Park's assassination on the Niger down to Vogel's disappearance in the Wadai; from Oudney's death at Murmur and Clapperton's at Sackatou down to the time when the Frenchman Maizan was cut to pieces; between the murder of Major Laing by the Tuaregs and the massacre of Roscher of Hamburg at the beginning of 1860, the names of many victims have been added to the records of African martyrology. Because to struggle against the elements, against hunger, thirst and fever, against savage animals, and still more savage people, is impossible. Because what can't be done in one way ought to be tried in another. Lastly, because where you can't go through you must go round or over.'

'Passing over would be all right,' Kennedy answered, 'but flying over—'

'Well, what is there to be frightened of?' the doctor continued, completely unmoved. 'You'll admit that the precautions I have taken leave no fear of the balloon falling, so if I do come to grief, I'll be back on land in the same position as an ordinary explorer. But my balloon won't foil me; we needn't think of that.'

'We must think of it.'

'Not at all, Dick. I don't intend to leave it till I get to the West Coast of Africa. With it all is possible; without it I should be back among all the natural dangers and obstacles of such an expedition. With it there will be nothing to fear from either heat, torrents, storms, the simoon, unhealthy climate, wild animals or men. If I'm too hot, I go up; if I'm cold, I come down. If I come to a mountain, I fly over it; a precipice, I cross it; a river, I cross it; a storm, I rise above it; a torrent, I skim over it like a bird. I travel without fatigue and halt without need of rest. I soar over the new cities. I fly with the swiftness of the storm; sometimes near the limit of the air, sometimes a hundred feet above the ground, with the map of Africa unwinding below my eyes in the greatest atlas in the world.'

The excellent Kennedy began to feel excited, and yet the vision raised before his eyes made him dizzy. He regarded Samuel admiringly, but also in fear. He already felt as though he were hovering in space.

'Look here, Samuel. Hold on a bit. Do you mean to say you've found out a way of steering balloons?'

'Rather not, that's Utopian—'

'But you're going—'

'Where Providence thinks fit, but in any case from east to west.'

'Why?'

'Because I'm going to rely on the trade winds whose direction is constant.'

'Oh, indeed, that's true,' mused Kennedy. 'Trade winds—yes—at a pinch one can—there's something in that—'

'Something, my good fellow! Why there's everything. The British Government has placed a transport at my disposal. They've also agreed for three or four ships to go and cruise off the West Coast about the time estimated for my arrival. In three months at the outside I'll be at Zanzibar, where I shall inflate my balloon and where we launch her—'

'We ?' said Dick.

'Have you the shadow of an objection to raise now, Kennedy? Out with it.'

'Objection! I've a thousand. But to take one, tell me: if you intend seeing the country, and going up and coming down as you please, you can't do it without losing gas. So far there's been no way out of that, and that's what has always knocked on the head long journeys through the air.'

'My dear Dick, I'll merely tell you that I shan't lose an atom of gas, not a molecule.'

'And you'll come down when you please?'

'I shall come down when I please.'

'How?'

'That's my secret, old man. Rely on me, and let my motto be yours: Excelsior!'

'All right. Excelsior !' answered the sportsman, who didn't know a word of Latin.

But he was fully determined to oppose his friend's departure by every means in his power, so he feigned agreement and settled down to watch. As for Samuel, he went off to supervise his preparations. ftCkKHIEpl29N3G+ft9qS/b4kbgm1IxppkaPL1rOept+g0f3bOy20ABto1Z+tKbP