way.
When old Elspeth, his trusted housekeeper, ventured to hint that it might actually be a hoax:
“Get along with you!” he replied. “Don’t I know him? Isn’t this the doctor all over? Travel through the skies! Now he has eagle envy! No, this positively mustn’t happen! It’s up to me to put a stop to it! Lord, he’d be off to the moon one fine day if they let him!”
Half anxious, half furious, Kennedy caught a train that same evening at the main railway station and reached London the next day.
Forty-five minutes later a cab dropped him off at the doctor’s humble abode on Greek St. in Soho Square; he went up the front steps and announced his coming by giving the door five firmly delivered thumps.
Fergusson opened it personally.
“Dick!” he said without much surprise.
“His own self,” Kennedy shot back.
“What’s this, my dear Dick—you’re in London during the winter hunting season?”
“I’m in London.”
“And why are you here?”
“To prevent an act of indescribable lunacy!”
“Lunacy?” the doctor said.
“Is it true what this paper says?” Kennedy responded, holding out the issue of the Daily Telegraph.
“Ah, that’s what you’re referring to! These newspapers are so irresponsible! But have a seat, my dear Dick.”
“I won’t have a seat. You’re definitely intending to go on this trip?”
“Definitely; my preparations are coming along nicely, and I—”
“Where are they, these preparations of yours? Where are they? I’ll rip ’em to pieces! I’ll tear ’em to shreds!”
The worthy Scot was growing seriously angry.
“Easy, my dear Dick,” the doctor went on. “I understand your annoyance. You’re after me because I haven’t told you yet about my new plan.”
“He calls that a plan!”
“I’ve been so busy,” Samuel continued, not acknowledging the interruption. “I’ve had so much to do! But never fear, I wouldn’t have left without writing you—”
“Don’t make me laugh!”
“Because I intend to take you with me.”
The Scot gave a leap that would have done credit to a mountain goat.
“Hang it all,” he said, “do you want ’em to lock us both up in Bedlam hospital?”*
“I’m absolutely counting on you, my dear Dick, and you’re my first choice over many, many others.”
Kennedy froze, totally astonished.
“Hear me out for the next ten minutes,” the doctor replied serenely, “then you’ll thank me!”
“You’re serious about this?”
“Very serious.”
“And what if I refuse to come along?”
“You won’t refuse.”
“But what if I do in the end?”
“I’ll go alone.”
“Let’s sit down,” the hunter said, “and let’s talk without flying off the handle. If you aren’t trying to be funny, maybe it’s worth discussing.”
“We’ll discuss it over breakfast, my dear Dick, if that meets with your approval.”
The two friends took their seats at a little table, facing each other between a stack of sandwiches and an enormous teapot.
“My dear Samuel,” the hunter said, “your plan’s crazy! It’s impossible! There isn’t a thing realistic or workable about it!”
“We’ll see after we’ve given it a try.”
“But that’s the point—you mustn’t give it a try.”
“Why not, if you please?”
“What about the dangers, all the different obstacles!”
“Obstacles,” Fergusson replied solemnly, “are made to be overcome; as for the dangers, who can delude himself that he’ll avoid them? Danger is a part of life; it can be dangerous to sit down at table or clap a hat on your head; in any case we must regard what’s bound to happen as having happened already—and see only the present in the future, because the future is merely the present a little farther along.”
“There you go!” Kennedy said, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re always a fatalist!”
“Always, but in the positive sense of the word. So let’s not agonize over what destiny has in store for us, and let’s not forget our old English proverb: ‘The man who was born to die on the scaffold will never die of drowning!’”
To this there was no comeback, which didn’t keep Kennedy from dusting off a series of arguments easy to imagine but too long-winded to go into here.
“Anyhow,” he said after a sixty-minute debate, “if you’re dead set on going across Africa, if nothing else will make you happy, why not travel the usual way?”
“Why not?” the doctor replied heatedly. “Because all such efforts until now have come to grief! Think of Mungo Park who was murdered on the Niger, Vogel who vanished in Wadaï, Oudney who died in Murmur, Clapperton who died in Sokoto, the Frenchman Maizan who was sliced to pieces, Major Laing who was killed by the Tuaregs, Roscher from Hamburg who was slaughtered early in 1860—there are so many victims recorded in Africa’s death register! Because it’s an impossible struggle against the elements, against hunger, thirst, and fever, against wild animals and even wilder tribesmen! Because what can’t be done one way needs to be tackled in another! Because, in short, what you can’t go through you have to sidestep or go over!”
“This isn’t about going over,” Kennedy fired back, “but flying over!”
“All right,” the doctor went on with all the composure in the world. “What have I to fear? You’ll readily agree that I’ve taken such thorough precautions, I won’t need to worry if my balloon falls out of the sky; if she isn’t equal to the task, I’ll end up on the ground under the usual conditions other explorers face; but my balloon won’t fail me, and we won’t need to make any allowances.”
“On the contrary, you will need to.”
“Not so, my
