Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (37 page)

Fergusson leaned over the balloon’s basket, pursing his lips so that his mustache bunched up like a hissing black cat.
 
“Far south of here, Dr. David Livingstone took his wife and four children deep inland.
 
Amazing that a man -- and an Englishman, yet -- would even attempt to bring his family, eh?”

“Some might call it foolhardy,” Caroline said, appalled at Livingstone’s callousness.
 
“What about the safety of his wife, his children?”

“He was a
missionary
,” Fergusson said, as if that explained everything.
 
“They took a wagon across the Kalahari Desert, without water and without food.
 
I should say it’s amazing they survived at all, eh?”
 
The explorer patted the basket.
 
“Indeed, my friends, this is the correct way to travel across hostile territory.”

The
Victoria
continued at a gentle but respectable speed, and many miles passed beneath them.
 
All that first day, the expedition seemed like a charming country outing.
 
As they ate fresh supplies, Nemo imagined himself on a pleasurable picnic with Caroline, rather than venturing into unexplored and unfriendly wilderness.

At nightfall, Nemo operated the balloon’s gaseous recondensing apparatus, cooling the enclosed hydrogen and decreasing their buoyancy so that the
Victoria
descended with effortless grace.
 
They could have continued to float through the hours of darkness, but then Dr. Fergusson would not have been able to see the landscape or take notes.
 
Nemo tossed down one of their iron anchors, and the grappling hooks snagged in the tall trees.
 
Thus, tethered to the ground yet still aloft in safety, they spent their first night with the evening breezes swaying the basket like an infant’s cradle. . . .

Over the next several days, the
Victoria
drifted inland, generally westward but with a tendency toward the north.
 
The river they had followed from the coast took a sharp turn to the right and flowed out of sight.
 
Before long the ground rose, and to the north they spotted the bulwarks of an enormous mountain far greater than anything Nemo had ever seen.
 
Its crest was adorned with a glittering white that could not be explained by clouds.
 

Nemo stared and studied, then passed the spyglass to Caroline.
 
“Snow,” he said.

“Impossible,” Fergusson answered, taking the spyglass from her.
 
“We’re on the equator.
 
There cannot be snow at the equator.”
 
Then he let out a sharp cry of recognition.
 
“Ah, indeed!
 
I remember recent reports by a German missionary who also went inland from Zanzibar.
 
He claimed to have seen a snow-covered peak in eastern Africa, and he became a laughingstock.
 
He was German, after all.”

Nemo thought for a moment.
 
“Rebmann?
 
Could that be Johann Rebmann’s mountain?”

“Yes, the natives named it Kilimanjaro.
 
Now it appears he was right.”
 
Fergusson began scribbling notes in his journal, while Nemo took out a sextant and other navigational devices.
 
Using trigonometry, he estimated the height of Kilimanjaro at an impossible 20,000 feet above sea level.

The winds tugged them westward, where the ground flattened out into a sprawling veldt.
 
Tall, dry grass rippled like golden waves on a stormy sea, and the sheer abundance of animal life took Nemo’s breath away.
 
According to the maps drawn by native slave traders and intrepid missionaries, this was called the Serengeti Plain.
 

Dr. Fergusson removed his two shooting rifles, loaded them, and checked the sights.
 
“Use the recondenser to take us down, eh?
 
It’s time to collect some specimens.”
 
He gave a formal nod to Caroline.
 
“And Madame, if you would be so kind as to sketch the specimens I shoot?
 
Our friend Nemo insists that you are quite an accomplished artist.”

Glad to be considered a part of the expedition, Caroline took out her sketchpad and used a small knife to sharpen the drawing points of her lead pencils.

The balloon descended toward the plain, where the vegetation was broken by strange baobab trees that looked like oaks uprooted and planted upside down.
 
Tall termite mounds towered above the grass like abstract concrete art.

Nemo threw a grappling hook over the side and secured the balloon to one of the baobab trees.
 
Using a winch, they lowered the balloon down to where Nemo could drop a chain ladder.
 
Fergusson took his loaded rifles and scanned the congregation of animals.
 
Some had already run from the odd apparition in the sky, but throngs of zebras and wildebeests remained, restless but not yet fleeing.

Long-necked giraffes stood at another cluster of baobabs, munching leaves from the upper branches.
 
Caroline stared at them.
 
“Those are the strangest animals I have ever seen.
 
A spotted horse with a neck stretched like taffy.”

A shot rang out, startling them, and Dr. Fergusson lifted the barrel of his long rifle to watch a wildebeest tumble to the ground.
 
“Good shot!”
 
The other herd animals ran about in confusion.
 
Fergusson picked up the second rifle and aimed.
 
It took him two shots to bring down a young zebra.
 
Reloading, he fired four more times to secure a pair of antelope.

“That’s quite sufficient for now.”
 
Fergusson gestured to the ladder.
 
“Come along, my friends.
 
We must take measurements and do our duty for science, eh?”

The three explorers climbed down the jingling chain ladder to the branches; Fergusson reloaded and took one rifle with him, slung over his shoulder.
 
Nemo carried a satchel filled with scientific instruments, while Caroline followed, sketchpad tucked under her arm.

As they descended the baobab, startled birds took wing.
 
On ground again, the explorers waded through a rustling sea of tall grasses that rose higher than their heads.
 
Nemo kept a sharp watch for snakes in the underbrush, but Dr. Fergusson strode with childlike determination toward his trophy.

The zebra lay sprawled on the ground.
 
The black and white stripes on its hide formed a perfect camouflage among the rippling shadows of the Serengeti.
 
“Magnificent specimen.
 
Well-fed and well-muscled.”
 
Fergusson asked for the measuring tape, and he and Nemo noted the animal’s statistics.
 

Caroline stood back, scratching her lead pencil across the paper to capture the major details.
 
Later, she would spend the slow hours aboard the balloon to complete the fine points of the drawing.

With a sigh, the doctor gazed down.
 
“A pity we can’t take these specimens back with us, eh?
 
Imagine what this one would look like stuffed in the Royal Museum in London.”

Nemo looked back at the colorful balloon tethered to the tree.
 
“We could never carry the extra weight.”

“My sketches will have to do,” Caroline said.

Next, they set off to where the wildebeest had fallen.
 
They took similar measurements, and Fergusson used a bone saw to remove the beast’s horns.
 
Nemo put the souvenirs in his canvas satchel.
 
By the time they reached the two dead antelopes, some animals had returned to the vicinity, wary and confused.

While Dr. Fergusson again recorded the vital statistics and made meticulous notes regarding the differences among the three species, Nemo bent down with the hunting knife and began to carve steaming strips from the antelope’s back.
 
“This is the best meat we’ll find in a long time, I suspect,” he said.
 
“We’ll make camp on the ground so we can build a fire to roast it.”

Caroline continued to sketch.
 
She turned around, studying the particulars of the landscape to add to the picture.
 
Fergusson puttered with his notebook, adding thoughts and details.
 

Then Nemo realized that the air around them had grown oppressively silent.
 
His awareness raised to a high peak, as when he’d hunted wild boars on his mysterious island.
 
Ears attuned, ready to protect Caroline, he heard a rustle in the grasses -- then a muscular form like a tawny liquid shadow burst forward.
 
He saw bright feline eyes and long teeth.
 

Nemo reacted without thinking.
 
He snatched the rifle Fergusson had laid on the ground, swiveled, and fired.
 
The booming sound startled the nearby herd of animals.
 

Caroline stumbled backward, dropping her pencil.
 
Fergusson cried out, and Nemo stared in amazement as a lioness collapsed to the ground, a bullet hole blossoming scarlet at the center of her breast.

Dr. Fergusson stepped away from the antelope, astonished.
 
“Good Lord!
 
I never expected a magnificent specimen like this.”
 
He went about making measurements of the lioness, wishing he could take the time to skin it.
 
“This pelt would have made a marvelous display.”
 

Nemo reloaded the gun and kept careful watch.
 
“Just be quick about your work, Doctor.”

Taking their antelope steaks, the three adventurers returned to the balloon, scrambled up the baobab and the ladder and into the
Victoria
’s basket.
 

When he looked down onto the plain again, Nemo was alarmed to see that half a dozen lions had appeared from the deep grasses, as if by magic, and were feasting on the dead animals.
 
Timid hyenas lurked around the fringes, waiting for their turn at the carcasses.

Shaken, but enthralled, Caroline began a new sketch, trying to draw the tawny lioness in mid-leap.

ii

Buoyed by warm and fragrant air, they floated across the Serengeti until the end of the first week.
 
Fergusson shot dozens of specimens and made numerous notations in his journals.
 
The explorer had been quite a sportsman back in England.
 
They ate fresh meat every night, after the specimens provided data for Fergusson’s scientific logbook and scenes for Caroline’s increasingly detailed drawings.
 
Otherwise, the slain animals would have been wasted.

While drifting along, the crew of the
Victoria
had considerable idle time, and the doctor told them his life story.
 
Samuel Fergusson’s younger years had been rather checkered:
 
He’d served aboard a ship from the age of eighteen and had sailed around the world before his twenty-second birthday.
 
He had spent a year in Australia and Tasmania, and later trudged across India and into Nepal and Tibet, always bearing the British flag.
 
He had a restless nature, a burning curiosity, and so much impatience to move on to the next conquest that he rarely enjoyed the fruits of his own discoveries.

Nemo got along well enough with the man, though Caroline grew weary of Fergusson’s constant killing in the name of science.
 
The doctor neither scorned her presence nor opposed her desire to do her share of the work, since Caroline’s finances had made the entire adventure possible.
 
The only things that inspired great enthusiasm in Fergusson were his hunt and the expedition.

#

As they floated over rock-studded plains, they came upon a ponderous herd of elephants.
 
Beaming, Dr. Fergusson insisted that they obtain a pachyderm specimen so that he could perform meticulous physiognomic measurements on the size and thickness of the ears, the biological hydraulics of the trunk, and the protective qualities of the hide.
 
But the herd milled about in the open grasslands, far from any convenient tree for the balloon’s anchorage.