As for you, my dear Dick,
with determined daring, and profiting by their alarm at
our fire-arms, your project might possibly succeed; but,
were it to fail, you would be lost, and we should have two
persons to save instead of one. No! we must put ALL the
chances on OUR side, and go to work differently."
"But let us act at once!" said the hunter.
"Perhaps we may," said the doctor, throwing considerable
stress upon the words.
"Why, doctor, can you light up such darkness as this?"
"Who knows, Joe?"
"Ah! if you can do that, you're the greatest learned
man in the world!"
The doctor kept silent for a few moments; he was
thinking. His two companions looked at him with much
emotion, for they were greatly excited by the strangeness
of the situation. Ferguson at last resumed:
"Here is my plan: We have two hundred pounds of
ballast left, since the bags we brought with us are still
untouched. I'll suppose that this prisoner, who is evidently
exhausted by suffering, weighs as much as one of
us; there will still remain sixty pounds of ballast to throw
out, in case we should want to ascend suddenly."
"How do you expect to manage the balloon?" asked Kennedy.
"This is the idea, Dick: you will admit that if I can
get to the prisoner, and throw out a quantity of ballast,
equal to his weight, I shall have in nowise altered the
equilibrium of the balloon.
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