The latter whirled and swung, but steadily ascended, and, ere the hour was over, it had passed the stormy belt. The electric display was going on below it like a vast crown of artificial fireworks suspended from the car.
Then they enjoyed one of the grandest spectacles that Nature can offer to the gaze of man. Below them, the tempest; above them, the starry firmament, tranquil, mute, impassible, with the moon projecting her peaceful rays over these angry clouds.
Dr. Ferguson consulted the barometer; it announced twelve thousand feet of elevation. It was then eleven o’clock at night.
“Thank Heaven, all danger is past; all we have to do now, is, to keep ourselves at this height,” said the doctor.
“It was frightful!” remarked Kennedy.
“Oh!” said Joe, “it gives a little variety to the trip, and I’m not sorry to have seen a storm from a trifling distance up in the air. It’s a fine sight!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
The Mountains of the Moon.—An Ocean of Verdure.—They cast Anchor.—The Towing Elephant.—A Running Fire.—Death of the Monster.—The Field-Oven.—A Meal on the Grass.—A Night on the Ground.
About four in the morning, Monday, the sun reappeared in the horizon; the clouds had dispersed, and a cheery breeze refreshed the morning dawn.
The earth, all redolent with fragrant exhalations, reappeared to the gaze of our travellers. The balloon, whirled about by opposing currents, had hardly budged from its place, and the doctor, letting the gas contract, descended so as to get a more northerly direction. For a long while his quest was fruitless; the wind carried him toward the west until he came in sight of the famous Mountains of the Moon, which grouped themselves in a semicircle around the extremity of Lake Tanganayika; their ridges, but slightly indented, stood out against the bluish horizon, so that they might have been mistaken for a natural fortification, not to be passed by the explorers of the centre of Africa. Among them were a few isolated cones, revealing the mark of the eternal snows.