The faithful Arabs, who had never seen a pair of boots in their lives, became terrified with the terror of the botanist, and bravely fired at the wellingtons, which fell riddled with balls.
From the top of his palm-tree the Professor heard the report, and at first felt inclined to curse the troublesome individual who had come to disturb him in his solitude and meditation. But human weakness at last gained the day, and he resolved to make signals of distress to the three men whom he now perceived on the left bank of the Nile.
He broke off a long branch from the palm-tree, stripped it of its leaves everywhere but at the end, where he left a large tuft, and waved it vigorously above his head with one hand, while with the other he threw into the Nile a quantity of dates, the only projectiles at his command.
The botanist, who was surrounded by that silence which is known to aëronauts alone, turned round at the sound of the dates falling into the water, and this time experienced a surprise which was greater even than the former one. The apparition of the boots was forgotten: he saw a palm-tree with a lofty crest, which waved to and fro in the midst of a perfectly calm atmosphere! After the first shock, this discovery caused him infinite delight, and he would have given all the yellow lotuses in the world for this phenomenon of a palm-tree.
Von Thorigkeit opened his note-book and wrote in it the following lines: “In Upper Egypt there exists a kind of palm-tree, which possesses the peculiarities of the aloe; with this difference, however, that the stem of the aloe attains an elevation of twenty feet above the level of the soil, and remains motionless, while the palm-tree of Upper Egypt agitates the top of its stem vertically and with a movement of prodigious regularity. We have named this tree the Von Thorigkeit palm.”
Having written this, the botanist made a sketch of the palm-tree and showed it to the two Arabs, having no other public to exhibit it to. The children of the desert, with their lynx-like eyes, had just discovered a human form beneath the thick foliage of the island palm-tree, and they resorted to the most energetic gestures in order to make the botanist see it too. But Von Thorigkeit could think of nothing but the grandeur of his discovery and the beauty of his drawing. He paid no attention to the gestures of the Arabs, and thought only of the sensation that would be produced in the learned world by the Von Thorigkeit palm.
The two Arabs persisted in their pantomime, which said as plainly as possible: “Look there on that little island; there is a human being there up in the palm-tree; he is in danger; he is making signals, and we must go to his aid at once.”
Von Thorigkeit pulled out a pocket telescope, shrugging his shoulders at the same time with the air of a man who makes a concession merely from politeness, and looked carelessly towards the Von Thorigkeit palm-tree. He had now his third surprise within the hour—the last completely absorbing the two others. He had seen distinctly a human face, and even a German face, surrounded by leaves; and a human hand shaking a naked branch with a tuft of foliage at the end. He replaced his telescope in his pocket with regret, read his article again, cast another glance at his drawing, and after reflecting, like Brutus, whether he should destroy his two children or let them live, decided at length upon the latter course. “Well, so much the worse,” he said to himself: “what is written is written, and I shall not cut out a single word. Besides, as the aloe exists the Von Thorigkeit palm-tree might have existed, if Nature had only seen its utility; I see its utility, and I shall let it remain.”
This resolution having been taken, the three men held a council. The first thing to do was to find a boat, which, after two hours’ walking, they met with. It was a fishing vessel, and the botanist had only to hold out a piece of gold and to point to the river in order to make the fisherman understand what was required of him. He then pointed down the stream, and said, in a haughty voice, as if the fisherman was likely to understand him—
“The island of the Von Thorigkeit palm-tree!”