The remainder of that day passed uneventfully, as did the next, with the exception that, the ship having been raised to an altitude of two thousand feet above the surface of the earth, in order that the travellers might be above and out of the layer of highly heated air produced by the reflection of the sun’s rays from the surface of the sand, they again caught sight of the Nile, which swam into view on their left hand during the forenoon of the second day, near the little village of Dashi, and remained in sight thereafter until they descended to earth for the night, some twenty-five miles west of the town of New Dongola. Here they were again treated to the spectacle of a superb desert sunset.
This leisurely mode of progression, however, was beginning to pall somewhat upon the travellers, or rather, upon the male portion of them. It was altogether too uneventful for their taste; moreover, their appetite for sport had been whetted afresh by their experience among the rocks, and as they sat at dinner that night they unanimously decided that, as the climate seemed to agree thoroughly with little Ida—who was growing better and stronger every day—they would waste no further time in dawdling, but would forthwith make the best of their way to the spot where, on their previous cruise, they had seen that wonderful animal the unicorn, almost precisely the creature depicted in the royal arms of Great Britain, and endeavour to secure a specimen or two. Accordingly, after spending a very enjoyable evening in the music-saloon, the ladies retired to rest about midnight, while the men, producing their large-scale map of Africa, carefully laid down upon it the course, and measured off the distance necessary to carry them to the point which they desired to reach. This ascertained, Mildmay—who usually performed the duties of navigator—ascended to the pilot-house and, injecting a sufficient quantity of vapour into the air-chambers to produce the required vacuum, caused the ship to rise to a height of ten thousand feet into the calm belt, sent the engines ahead, gradually raising their speed to the maximum, and meanwhile heading the ship upon her proper course. Then he returned below, and reported to Sir Reginald what he had done, and all hands retired to their respective cabins for the night, quite confident, from past experience, of the ship’s ability to take care of herself during the hours of darkness.
They all slept well, as was usual with them while enjoying this delightful, untrammelled, open-air existence; but the eager enthusiasm of the scientist and explorer caused the professor to be astir with the first streak of dawn, and rising quietly, he made his way noiselessly, in pyjamas and slippered feet, to the pilot-house, out of the windows of which he peered eagerly about him.
The Flying Fish was still sweeping steadily along through the air at a speed of one hundred and twenty miles an hour, with her sharp snout holding steadily to the course at which it had been set overnight; but beneath her nothing was visible save a vast sea of impenetrably thick white fog. The professor consulted his watch.
“We should be close to the spot by this time,” he murmured. “Let us get down beneath that fog, and see where we are.”
He stopped the engines, opened the air-valve, and the great ship instantly began to settle quietly down. In a few minutes she sank gently into the fog-bank, and the professor, after touching another lever or two, ran nimbly down the pilot-house stairs and out on deck, that he might get a clear view of his surroundings. Stepping to the guard-rail that took the place of bulwarks in the Flying Fish, he looked eagerly about and under him. For a few seconds there was nothing to be seen but huge wreaths of dense white steam-like mist writhing and curling about the ship; then, here and there, great shapeless phantom forms dimly appeared through the enshrouding fog, and the professor knew that he was in the midst of a country thickly dotted with extensive clumps of “bush.” A moment later a slight grating jar told that the ship had grounded, and hastening back to the pilot-house, von Schalckenberg brought the four grip-anchors into action, thus securing the ship to the spot on which she had landed, after which he made his way to one of the bathrooms, took his bath, and then returned to his cabin and dressed.
The shock of the ship taking the ground, light though it was, sufficed to arouse the other sleepers, and half an hour later the male contingent of the party were assembled in the dining-saloon, taking their early coffee and biscuit. By glancing from time to time through the saloon windows, they were able to see that the fog still hung thick about them; but while they lingered, chatting over their coffee, the professor suddenly cried out that the mist was clearing, and with one accord they emptied their cups and made for the deck.
Yes, the fog was certainly thinning away under the influence of the now risen sun; and in a few minutes it was possible to see with tolerable distinctness, not only the ground beneath them, but also the clumps of bush in their immediate neighbourhood, while other and more distant objects were momentarily stealing into view as the mist-wreaths thinned away and vanished. A few minutes later the entire landscape lay clearly revealed before them, sharp and distinct in the crystalline purity of the early morning light.
And then exclamations of astonishment burst simultaneously from the lips of four of the five male voyagers; for, as they glanced about them, they instantly recognised their surroundings, and discovered that von Schalckenberg, in the blindness of fog that had enveloped him, had brought the Flying Fish to earth within less than a hundred yards of the identical spot which she had occupied upon the memorable occasion when they had first beheld the unicorns. Yes, there was the little shallow lake amid the tall bordering reeds of which they had ambushed themselves for the purpose of shooting the game that came down there to drink at night; there was the streamlet from which they had replenished their supply of fresh water; they were now in the same open, grassy, bush-enveloped space that the ship had previously occupied; and over there, to the left, within a stone’s throw, was the precise spot upon which she had rested; and they doubted not that within five minutes they could find the actual holes in the soil made by her grip-anchors some six years or more ago. And there, some two miles away, rose the low, bare hill upon the crest of which the professor had first seen the troop of unicorns standing out against the background of pale primrose sky as they grazed. Ay, and there were animals of some sort up there now! The professor rushed below, and presently reappeared with a pair of binoculars in his hand, which he hastily levelled at the tiny dots. Alas! they were only black antelope, interesting creatures enough from the mere sportsman’s point of view, but not what he wanted and hoped to see. He lowered the glasses with a sigh of resignation, which said as plainly as words, that he supposed it was too much to hope that they would be lucky enough to find instantly what they were in search of.
And while they stood chatting together the ladies and little Ida stepped out on deck and joined them; and then there were renewed exclamations of wonder and delight at the change from the desert scenery upon which they had gazed the day before, and for so many days previously that they had begun to tire of it slightly.