“Ah!” ejaculated Kennedy, “the horrible brute! I can hold back no longer,” and, as he spoke, the huge savage, struck full in the forehead with a rifle-ball, fell headlong to the ground. Upon this sudden mishap of their leader, his warriors seemed struck dumb with amazement; his supernatural death awed them, while it reanimated the courage and ardor of their adversaries, and, in a twinkling, the field was abandoned by half the combatants. “Come, let us look higher up for a current to bear us away. I am sick of this spectacle,” said the doctor. But they could not get away so rapidly as to avoid the sight of the victorious tribe rushing upon the dead and the wounded, scrambling and disputing for the still warm and reeking flesh, and eagerly devouring it. “Faugh!” uttered Joe, “it’s sickening.” The balloon rose as it expanded; the howlings of the brutal horde, in the delirium of their orgy, pursued them for a few minutes; but, at length, borne away toward the south, they were carried out of sight and hearing of this horrible spectacle of cannibalism. The surface of the country was now greatly varied, with numerous streams of water, bearing toward the east. The latter, undoubtedly, ran into those affluents of Lake Nu, or of the River of the Gazelles, concerning which M. Guillaume Lejean has given such curious details. At nightfall, the balloon cast anchor in twenty-seven degrees east longitude, and four degrees twenty minutes north latitude, after a day’s trip of one hundred and fifty miles. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST. Strange Sounds.—A Night Attack.—Kennedy and Joe in the Tree.—Two Shots.—“Help! help!”—Reply in French.—The Morning.—The Missionary.—The Plan of Rescue. The night came on very dark. The doctor had not been able to reconnoitre the country. He had made fast to a very tall tree, from which he could distinguish only a confused mass through the gloom. As usual, he took the nine-o’clock watch, and at midnight Dick relieved him. “Keep a sharp lookout, Dick!” was the doctor’s good-night injunction. “Is there any thing new on the carpet?” “No; but I thought that I heard vague sounds below us, and, as I don’t exactly know where the wind has carried us to, even an excess of caution would do no harm.” “You’ve probably heard the cries of wild beasts.” “No! the sounds seemed to me something altogether different from that; at all events, on the least alarm don’t fail to waken us.” “I’ll do so, doctor; rest easy.” After listening attentively for a moment or two longer, the doctor, hearing nothing more, threw himself on his blankets and went asleep. The sky was covered with dense clouds, but not a breath of air was stirring; and the balloon, kept in its place by only a single anchor, experienced not the slightest oscillation.