"Ah, ha!" said Joe, "one of those cursed blacks is
hanging to the car!"
"Dick! Dick!" cried the doctor, "the water-tank!"
Kennedy caught his friend's idea on the instant, and,
snatching up with desperate strength one of the water-tanks
weighing about one hundred pounds, he tossed it
overboard. The balloon, thus suddenly lightened, made a
leap of three hundred feet into the air, amid the howlings
of the tribe whose prisoner thus escaped them in a blaze
of dazzling light.
"Hurrah!" shouted the doctor's comrades.
Suddenly, the balloon took a fresh leap, which carried
it up to an elevation of a thousand feet.
"What's that?" said Kennedy, who had nearly lost
his balance.
"Oh! nothing; only that black villain leaving us!"
replied the doctor, tranquilly, and Joe, leaning over, saw
the savage that had clung to the car whirling over and
over, with his arms outstretched in the air, and presently
dashed to pieces on the ground. The doctor then separated
his electric wires, and every thing was again buried
in profound obscurity. It was now one o'clock in the
morning.
The Frenchman, who had swooned away, at length
opened his eyes.
"You are saved!" were the doctor's first words.
"Saved!" he with a sad smile replied in English,
"saved from a cruel death! My brethren, I thank you,
but my days are numbered, nay, even my hours, and I
have but little longer to live.
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