If needs be, we can direct our course to that
quarter, and it seems out of the question that we should
not come across some oasis, or some well, where we could
replenish our stock of water. But, what we want now, is
the wind, for without it we are held here suspended in the
air at a dead calm.
"Let us wait with resignation," said the hunter.
But, each of the party, in his turn, vainly scanned the
space around him during that long wearisome day. Nothing
could be seen to form the basis of a hope. The very
last inequalities of the soil disappeared with the setting
sun, whose horizontal rays stretched in long lines of fire
over the flat immensity. It was the Desert!
Our aeronauts had scarcely gone a distance of fifteen
miles, having expended, as on the preceding day, one
hundred and thirty-five cubic feet of gas to feed the
cylinder, and two pints of water out of the remaining
eight had been sacrificed to the demands of intense thirst.
The night passed quietly--too quietly, indeed, but the
doctor did not sleep!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH.
A Little Philosophy.--A Cloud on the Horizon.--In the Midst of a Fog.--The
Strange Balloon.--An Exact View of the Victoria.--The Palm-Trees.--Traces
of a Caravan.
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