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Jules Verne: Around the World in Eighty Days

A New Plain-English Translation from the 1873 French · First Edition (2026)

Chapter 1 — In which Phileas Fogg and Passepartout come to terms, the one as master and the other as servant

In the year 1872, the house at number 7 Saville Row, Burlington Gardens—the very one where Sheridan had died in 1814—was occupied by Phileas Fogg, Esq., one of the most singular and most noticed members of the Reform Club of London, though he seemed to make it his business to do nothing that might attract attention.

So it was that one of the greatest orators who do England honor had been succeeded by this Phileas Fogg, an enigmatic figure about whom nothing was known, except that he was a thoroughly gallant man and one of the handsomest gentlemen in English high society.

He was said to resemble Byron—in the head, for his feet were beyond reproach—but a Byron with a mustache and side-whiskers, an impassive Byron who might have lived a thousand years without growing old.

English, most certainly, Phileas Fogg was perhaps not a Londoner. He had never been seen at the Stock Exchange, nor at the Bank, nor in any of the counting-houses of the City. Neither the basins nor the docks of London had ever received a ship whose owner was Phileas Fogg. This gentleman sat on no board of directors. His name had never sounded in any inn of court, neither at the Temple, nor at Lincoln's Inn, nor at Gray's Inn. He never pleaded before the Court of Chancery, nor the Queen's Bench, nor the Exchequer, nor the Ecclesiastical Court. He was neither an industrialist, nor a trader, nor a merchant, nor a farmer. He belonged neither to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, nor to the London Institution, nor to the Artisans' Institution, nor to the Russell Institution, nor to the Western Literary Institution, nor to the Law Institution, nor to that Institution of Combined Arts and Sciences which stands under the direct patronage of Her Gracious Majesty. In short, he belonged to none of the many societies that swarm in the capital of England, from the Armonica Society to the Entomological Society, founded chiefly for the purpose of destroying harmful insects.

Phileas Fogg belonged to the Reform Club, and that was all.

To anyone surprised that so mysterious a gentleman should be counted among the members of that honorable association, the answer is that he got in on the recommendation of Messrs. Baring Brothers, with whom he had an open line of credit. Hence a certain "standing," owing to the fact that his checks were regularly paid at sight against the balance of his current account, which was invariably in credit.

Was this Phileas Fogg rich? Unquestionably. But how he had made his fortune was something even the best-informed could not say, and Mr. Fogg was the last person one would think to ask about it. In any case, he was lavish with nothing, yet not miserly, for wherever some contribution was lacking for a cause noble, useful, or generous, he supplied it quietly and even anonymously.

All in all, nothing could be less communicative than this gentleman. He spoke as little as possible, and seemed all the more mysterious for being silent. And yet his life was there for all to see; but what he did was so mathematically always the same thing that the imagination, unsatisfied, went looking beyond it.

Had he traveled? Probably, for no one had a better command of the map of the world than he. There was no spot so remote that he did not seem to have some special knowledge of it. Sometimes, but in a few words, brief and clear, he set straight the thousand rumors circulating in the club about lost or missing travelers; he pointed out the true probabilities, and his words had often seemed as if inspired by second sight, so surely did events end up bearing them out. He was a man who must have traveled everywhere—in his mind, at the very least.

What was certain, however, was that for many long years Phileas Fogg had not left London. Those who had the honor of knowing him a little better than the rest attested that—except on that direct route he walked each day to come from his house to the club—no one could claim ever to have seen him anywhere else. His only pastime was reading the papers and playing whist. At this game of silence, so well suited to his nature, he often won, but his winnings never found their way into his purse and made up a considerable sum in his charity budget. Besides, it should be noted, Mr. Fogg plainly played for the sake of playing, not to win. The game was for him a contest, a struggle against a difficulty, but a struggle without movement, without travel, without fatigue, and that agreed with his character.

Phileas Fogg was known to have neither wife nor children—which can happen to the most honest of people—nor relatives nor friends—which is rarer, in truth. Phileas Fogg lived alone in his house on Saville Row, which no one entered. Of its interior there was never any question. A single servant was enough to wait on him. Lunching and dining at the club at times fixed to the second, in the same hall, at the same table, never entertaining his colleagues, never inviting a guest, he came home only to sleep, at midnight exactly, never making use of those comfortable bedrooms the Reform Club keeps available to the members of the circle. Out of twenty-four hours, he spent ten at his residence, whether sleeping or attending to his grooming. If he took a walk, it was invariably, at an even pace, in the parquet-inlaid entrance hall, or on the circular gallery, above which curves a dome of blue stained glass supported by twenty Ionic columns of red porphyry. If he dined or lunched, it was the club's kitchens, its pantry, its larder, its fish-store, its dairy, that supplied his table with their succulent reserves; it was the club's servants, grave figures in black coats, shod in shoes with padded soles, who waited on him with a special porcelain and on admirable linen of Saxony cloth; it was the club's cast-crystal glassware that held his sherry, his port, or his claret mixed with cinnamon, maidenhair, and cassia; it was, finally, the club's ice—ice brought at great expense from the lakes of America—that kept his drinks in a satisfying state of freshness.

If to live under such conditions is to be an eccentric, one must admit that eccentricity has its good side!

The house on Saville Row, without being sumptuous, recommended itself by its extreme comfort. Moreover, with the tenant's unvarying habits, the service it required was slight. Still, Phileas Fogg demanded of his one servant an extraordinary punctuality and regularity. That very day, the 2nd of October, Phileas Fogg had dismissed James Forster—the fellow being guilty of having brought his shaving water at eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit rather than eighty-six—and he now awaited his successor, who was to present himself between eleven and half past eleven.

Phileas Fogg, sitting squarely in his armchair, his two feet together like those of a soldier on parade, his hands laid on his knees, his torso erect, his head high, watched the clock's hand advance—an elaborate instrument that showed hours, minutes, seconds, days, dates, and year. On the stroke of half past eleven, Mr. Fogg was to leave the house, following his daily habit, and make his way to the Reform Club.

At that moment, there came a knock at the door of the little sitting room where Phileas Fogg was.

James Forster, the dismissed man, appeared.

"The new servant," he said.

A fellow of about thirty came forward and bowed.

"You are French, and your name is John?" Phileas Fogg asked him.

"Jean, if it please you, sir," replied the newcomer, "Jean Passepartout, a nickname that stuck to me, and that my natural knack for getting myself out of scrapes had earned. I believe I'm an honest fellow, sir, but, to be frank, I've tried my hand at several trades. I've been a traveling singer, a circus rider doing trick vaulting like Léotard and dancing on the tightrope like Blondin; then I became a gymnastics teacher, to make my talents more useful, and lastly I was a fire brigade sergeant in Paris. I even have some remarkable blazes on my record. But it's now five years since I left France, and, wanting a taste of family life, I've been a valet in England. Well, finding myself out of a place, and having learned that Monsieur Phileas Fogg was the most precise and the most stay-at-home man in all the United Kingdom, I came to your door in the hope of living quietly here and forgetting even this name of Passepartout..."

"Passepartout suits me," replied the gentleman. "You come recommended to me. I have good reports of you. You know my terms?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. What time do you make it?"

"Twenty-two minutes past eleven," replied Passepartout, drawing from the depths of his fob an enormous silver watch.

"You are slow," said Mr. Fogg.

"Forgive me, sir, but that's impossible."

"You are four minutes slow. No matter. It's enough to note the difference. So, from this moment, eleven twenty-nine in the morning, this Wednesday the 2nd of October, 1872, you are in my service."

That said, Phileas Fogg rose, took his hat in his left hand, set it on his head with the motion of an automaton, and vanished without another word.

Passepartout heard the street door close a first time: it was his new master going out; then a second time: it was his predecessor, James Forster, leaving in his turn.

Passepartout was left alone in the house on Saville Row.

Chapter 2 — In which Passepartout becomes convinced that he has found his ideal at last

"Upon my word," said Passepartout to himself, rather dazed at first, "I've seen figures at Madame Tussaud's every bit as lively as my new master!"

It should be explained here that Madame Tussaud's "figures" are of wax, much visited in London, and the only thing they truly lack is speech.

During the few moments he had just glimpsed Phileas Fogg, Passepartout had swiftly but carefully examined his future master. He was a man of perhaps forty, with a noble and handsome face, tall, not spoiled by a slight stoutness, fair of hair and side-whiskers, his forehead smooth with no sign of wrinkles at the temples, his complexion pale rather than colored, his teeth magnificent. He seemed to possess in the highest degree what the physiognomists term "repose in action," a quality common to all those who do more work than noise. Calm, phlegmatic, his eye clear, his eyelid still, he was the finished type of those cool-blooded Englishmen one meets fairly often in the United Kingdom, and whose somewhat academic bearing Angelica Kauffmann has wonderfully rendered with her brush. Seen through the various acts of his existence, this gentleman gave the impression of a being well balanced in all his parts, exactly weighted, as perfect as a chronometer by Leroy or Earnshaw. For Phileas Fogg was indeed precision personified, as could be plainly seen in "the expression of his feet and his hands," for in man, as in animals, the very limbs are organs expressive of the passions.

Phileas Fogg was one of those mathematically exact people who, never hurried and always ready, are sparing of their steps and their movements. He never took one stride too many, always going by the shortest way. He wasted no glance at the ceiling. He allowed himself no superfluous gesture. He had never been seen moved or troubled. He was the least hurried man in the world, but he always arrived on time. Still, one will understand that he lived on his own and, so to speak, apart from all social relations. He knew that in life one has to allow for friction, and since friction slows you down, he rubbed up against no one.

As for Jean, called Passepartout, a true Parisian of Paris, in the five years he had lived in England, working in London as a valet, he had searched in vain for a master to whom he could attach himself.

Passepartout was none of those Frontins or Mascarilles who, shoulders high, nose in the air, gaze cocksure, eye dry, are merely brazen rogues. No. Passepartout was a good fellow, of pleasant features, his lips a little full, always ready to taste or to kiss, a gentle and obliging creature, with one of those fine round heads one likes to see on a friend's shoulders. He had blue eyes, a lively complexion, a face plump enough that he could see his own cheekbones, a broad chest, a strong build, vigorous muscles, and he possessed a Herculean strength that the exercises of his youth had superbly developed. His brown hair was a bit unruly. If the sculptors of Antiquity knew eighteen ways of arranging Minerva's hair, Passepartout knew only one for doing his own: three strokes of the comb, and he was done.

Whether the expansive nature of this fellow would agree with that of Phileas Fogg is something the most elementary prudence forbids one to say. Would Passepartout be the thoroughly exact servant his master needed? That would only be seen with use. After a youth spent, as we know, rather on the roam, he longed for rest. Having heard the English method and the proverbial coolness of gentlemen praised, he came to seek his fortune in England. But until now fate had served him poorly. He had been unable to take root anywhere. He had been through ten households. In all of them the people were whimsical, uneven, chasing after adventures or after distant countries—which could no longer suit Passepartout. His last master, the young Lord Longsferry, a Member of Parliament, after spending his nights in the oyster-rooms of the Haymarket, came home too often on the shoulders of the policemen. Passepartout, wanting above all to be able to respect his master, ventured a few respectful observations that were badly received, and he broke it off. In the meantime he learned that Phileas Fogg, Esq., was looking for a servant. He made inquiries about this gentleman. A person whose life was so regular, who never slept away from home, who never traveled, who was never absent, not even for a day, could only suit him. He presented himself and was taken on in the circumstances we know.

Passepartout—half past eleven having struck—thus found himself alone in the house on Saville Row. At once he began his inspection of it. He went over it from cellar to attic. This clean, orderly, austere, puritanical house, well arranged for service, pleased him. It struck him as a fine snail's shell, but a shell lit and heated with gas, for carbureted hydrogen served there for all the needs of light and warmth. On the second floor Passepartout had no trouble finding the room meant for him. It suited him. Electric bells and speaking tubes put it in communication with the apartments on the mezzanine and the first floor. On the mantel, an electric clock kept time with the clock in Phileas Fogg's bedroom, and the two instruments struck at the same instant, the same second.

"This suits me, this suits me!" said Passepartout to himself.

He also noticed, in his room, a notice posted above the clock. It was the schedule of the daily service. It covered—from eight in the morning, the regulation hour at which Phileas Fogg rose, to half past eleven, the hour at which he left the house to go and lunch at the Reform Club—every detail of the service: the tea and toast at eight twenty-three, the shaving water at nine thirty-seven, the hairdressing at twenty to ten, and so on. Then from half past eleven in the morning to midnight—when the methodical gentleman retired for the night—everything was noted, foreseen, regulated. Passepartout took delight in mulling over this schedule and in fixing its various articles in his mind.

As for monsieur's wardrobe, it was very well stocked and marvelously thought out. Each pair of trousers, coat, or waistcoat bore a serial number reproduced in a register of items in and out, indicating the date on which, according to the season, these garments were to be worn in turn. The same rule for the footwear.

All in all, in this house on Saville Row—which must have been the temple of disorder in the days of the illustrious but dissipated Sheridan—comfortable furnishings, announcing a handsome ease. No library, no books, which would have been of no use to Mr. Fogg, since the Reform Club placed two libraries at his disposal, one devoted to letters, the other to law and politics. In the bedroom, a safe of medium size, whose construction protected it from fire as well as from theft. No weapons in the house, no implement of hunting or of war. Everything there denoted the most peaceful habits.

After examining this dwelling in detail, Passepartout rubbed his hands, his broad face beamed, and he repeated cheerfully:

"This suits me! This is just the thing for me! We shall get on perfectly, Mr. Fogg and I! A stay-at-home, regular man! A real machine! Well, I've no objection to serving a machine!"

Chapter 3 — In which a conversation is begun that may cost Phileas Fogg dear

Phileas Fogg had left his house on Saville Row at half past eleven, and, after putting his right foot in front of his left five hundred seventy-five times, and his left in front of his right five hundred seventy-six times, he arrived at the Reform Club, a vast edifice raised on Pall Mall that cost no less than three million to build.

Phileas Fogg went at once to the dining room, whose nine windows opened onto a fine garden with trees already gilded by autumn. There he took his place at the usual table, where his cover was waiting for him. His lunch consisted of a side dish, a boiled fish dressed with a first-rate "Reading sauce," a scarlet roast beef garnished with "mushroom" condiments, a cake stuffed with stalks of rhubarb and green gooseberries, a piece of Cheshire—all washed down with a few cups of that excellent tea specially gathered for the pantry of the Reform Club.

At forty-seven minutes past noon, this gentleman rose and made his way to the great drawing room, a sumptuous chamber adorned with richly framed paintings. There a servant handed him the uncut Times, whose laborious unfolding Phileas Fogg carried out with a sureness of hand that betrayed long practice at this difficult operation. Reading this paper kept Phileas Fogg occupied until a quarter to four, and the Standard—which followed it—lasted until dinner. This meal was accomplished under the same conditions as the lunch, with the addition of "royal British sauce."

At twenty to six, the gentleman reappeared in the great drawing room and became absorbed in reading the Morning Chronicle.

Half an hour later, various members of the Reform Club came in and drew near the fireplace, where a coal fire was burning. They were Mr. Phileas Fogg's usual partners, like him rabid whist players: the engineer Andrew Stuart, the bankers John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, the brewer Thomas Flanagan, and Gauthier Ralph, one of the administrators of the Bank of England—rich and respected figures, even in this club, which counts among its members the leading lights of industry and finance.

"Well, Ralph," asked Thomas Flanagan, "how does that robbery business stand?"

"Well," replied Andrew Stuart, "the Bank will be out its money."

"On the contrary, I hope," said Gauthier Ralph, "that we shall lay our hands on the perpetrator of the theft. Police inspectors, very clever men, have been sent to America and Europe, to all the principal ports of embarkation and landing, and it will be hard for this gentleman to slip past them."

"But so a description of the thief exists?" asked Andrew Stuart.

"To begin with, he is not a thief," Gauthier Ralph replied gravely.

"What—not a thief, this individual who has made off with fifty-five thousand pounds in bank notes (1,375,000 francs)?"

"No," replied Gauthier Ralph.

"A man of industry, then?" said John Sullivan.

"The Morning Chronicle assures us that he is a gentleman."

The one who gave this answer was none other than Phileas Fogg, whose head then emerged from the flood of paper heaped around him. At the same time, Phileas Fogg greeted his colleagues, who returned his greeting.

The affair in question, which the various papers of the United Kingdom were discussing hotly, had taken place three days earlier, on the 29th of September. A bundle of bank notes, forming the enormous sum of fifty-five thousand pounds, had been lifted from the counter of the chief cashier of the Bank of England.

To anyone astonished that such a theft could have been carried out so easily, the deputy governor Gauthier Ralph merely replied that at that very moment the cashier was busy recording a receipt of three shillings sixpence, and that one cannot have an eye on everything.

But it is worth pointing out here—which makes the thing more understandable—that this admirable establishment, the Bank of England, seems to care enormously about the dignity of the public. No guards, no pensioners, no grilles! The gold, the silver, the notes are freely exposed and, so to speak, at the mercy of the first comer. One would not think of casting suspicion on the honor of any passerby whatever. One of the best observers of English customs even relates this: In one of the Bank's halls where he happened to be one day, he had the curiosity to look more closely at an ingot of gold weighing seven or eight pounds that lay exposed on the cashier's counter; he picked up this ingot, examined it, passed it to his neighbor, who passed it to another, so that the ingot, from hand to hand, went all the way to the end of a dark corridor, and did not come back for half an hour to resume its place, without the cashier so much as raising his head.

But on the 29th of September, things did not go quite like that. The bundle of bank notes did not come back, and when the magnificent clock set above the drawing office struck five, the closing of the offices, the Bank of England had nothing left to do but pass fifty-five thousand pounds to the profit-and-loss account.

The theft duly and properly acknowledged, agents, "detectives," chosen among the ablest, were sent to the principal ports—to Liverpool, to Glasgow, to Le Havre, to Suez, to Brindisi, to New York, and so on—with the promise, in case of success, of a reward of two thousand pounds (50,000 F) and five percent of the sum recovered. While awaiting the information the inquiry, begun at once, was to furnish, these inspectors had the task of scrupulously observing all arriving or departing travelers.

Now, precisely, as the Morning Chronicle said, there was reason to suppose that the perpetrator of the theft belonged to none of the gangs of thieves in England. During that day of the 29th of September, a well-dressed gentleman, of good manners, with a distinguished air, had been noticed coming and going in the payments hall, the scene of the theft. The inquiry had made it possible to reconstruct fairly exactly the description of this gentleman, a description that was at once sent to all the detectives of the United Kingdom and the Continent. A few clever minds—and Gauthier Ralph was among them—thus believed themselves justified in hoping that the thief would not escape.

As one can imagine, this affair was the talk of the day in London and throughout England. People debated it, took sides for or against the chances of the metropolitan police succeeding. So it will surprise no one to hear the members of the Reform Club taking up the same question, all the more so since one of the deputy governors of the Bank was among them.

The honorable Gauthier Ralph would not doubt the outcome of the search, reckoning that the reward offered ought to sharpen the zeal and the wits of the agents singularly. But his colleague, Andrew Stuart, was far from sharing this confidence. The discussion therefore went on among the gentlemen, who had sat down at a whist table, Stuart facing Flanagan, Fallentin facing Phileas Fogg. During the play, the players did not speak, but between the rubbers the interrupted conversation started up again livelier than ever.

"I maintain," said Andrew Stuart, "that the odds are in favor of the thief, who cannot fail to be a clever man!"

"Come now!" Ralph replied, "there is not a single country left where he could take refuge."

"Oh, really!"

"Where would you have him go?"

"I've no idea," replied Andrew Stuart, "but, after all, the earth is big enough."

"It used to be..." said Phileas Fogg under his breath. Then: "Yours to cut, sir," he added, holding out the cards to Thomas Flanagan.

The discussion was suspended during the rubber. But soon Andrew Stuart took it up again, saying:

"What do you mean, used to be! Has the earth shrunk, by any chance?"

"No doubt," replied Gauthier Ralph. "I am of Mr. Fogg's opinion. The earth has shrunk, since one now travels around it ten times faster than a century ago. And this is what, in the case we are dealing with, will make the search quicker."

"And will make the thief's escape easier too!"

"It's your play, Mr. Stuart!" said Phileas Fogg.

But the incredulous Stuart remained unconvinced, and, the hand finished:

"One must admit, Mr. Ralph," he went on, "that you have hit on an amusing way of saying the earth has shrunk! So because one now makes the tour of it in three months..."

"In eighty days only," said Phileas Fogg.

"Indeed, gentlemen," added John Sullivan, "eighty days, ever since the section between Rothal and Allahabad was opened on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, and here is the reckoning drawn up by the Morning Chronicle:"

"From London to Suez by the Mont Cenis and Brindisi, railways and steamers: 7 days. From Suez to Bombay, steamer: 13 days. From Bombay to Calcutta, railway: 3 days. From Calcutta to Hong Kong (China), steamer: 13 days. From Hong Kong to Yokohama (Japan), steamer: 6 days. From Yokohama to San Francisco, steamer: 22 days. From San Francisco to New York, railroad: 7 days. From New York to London, steamer and railway: 9 days. Total: 80 days."

"Yes, eighty days!" cried Andrew Stuart, who in his distraction trumped a winning card, "but not counting bad weather, contrary winds, shipwrecks, derailments, and so on."

"All included," replied Phileas Fogg, continuing to play, for this time the discussion no longer respected the whist.

"Even if the Hindoos or the Indians tear up the rails!" cried Andrew Stuart, "if they stop the trains, plunder the luggage vans, scalp the passengers!"

"All included," replied Phileas Fogg, who, laying down his hand, added: "Two trump cards."

Andrew Stuart, whose deal it now was, gathered up the cards, saying:

"In theory, you are right, Mr. Fogg, but in practice..."

"In practice too, Mr. Stuart."

"I'd very much like to see you do it."

"It rests entirely with you. Let us set off together."

"Heaven forbid!" cried Stuart, "but I would readily wager four thousand pounds (100,000 F) that such a trip, carried out under these conditions, is impossible."

"Very possible, on the contrary," replied Mr. Fogg.

"Well then, do it!"

"Go around the world in eighty days?"

"Yes."

"I'm quite willing."

"When?"

"At once."

"This is madness!" cried Andrew Stuart, who was beginning to be irritated by his partner's insistence. "Look here! Let's rather play."

"Deal again, then," replied Phileas Fogg, "for there's a misdeal."

Andrew Stuart took up the cards with a feverish hand; then, all at once, laying them on the table:

"Well, yes, Mr. Fogg," he said, "yes, I bet four thousand pounds!..."

"My dear Stuart," said Fallentin, "calm yourself. This isn't serious."

"When I say I bet," replied Andrew Stuart, "it's always serious."

"So be it!" said Mr. Fogg. Then, turning to his colleagues:

"I have twenty thousand pounds (500,000 F) deposited with Baring Brothers. I will gladly risk it..."

"Twenty thousand pounds!" cried John Sullivan. "Twenty thousand pounds that an unforeseen delay could make you lose!"

"The unforeseen does not exist," Phileas Fogg replied simply.

"But, Mr. Fogg, this span of eighty days is calculated only as a minimum of time!"

"A minimum well used is enough for anything."

"But to avoid exceeding it, you have to jump mathematically from railways into steamers, and from steamers into railways!"

"I will jump mathematically."

"This is a joke!"

"A good Englishman never jokes when it comes to something as serious as a wager," replied Phileas Fogg. "I bet twenty thousand pounds against anyone who likes that I shall complete the tour of the earth in eighty days or less, that is, nineteen hundred and twenty hours, or one hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred minutes. Will you accept?"

"We accept," answered Messrs. Stuart, Fallentin, Sullivan, Flanagan, and Ralph, once they had conferred among themselves.

"Good," said Mr. Fogg. "The Dover train leaves at eight forty-five. I shall take it."

"This very evening?" asked Stuart.

"This very evening," replied Phileas Fogg. "So," he added, consulting a pocket calendar, "seeing that today is Wednesday, October the 2nd, I am due back in London, in this same drawing room of the Reform Club, on Saturday, December the 21st, at forty-five minutes past eight in the evening, failing which the twenty thousand pounds now standing to my credit with Baring Brothers will pass to you in fact and in law, gentlemen.—Here is a check for that amount."

A written record of the wager was drawn up and signed on the spot by the six interested parties. Phileas Fogg had remained cool. He had certainly not bet to win, and had staked these twenty thousand pounds—half his fortune—only because he anticipated that he might need to spend the other half to carry through this difficult, not to say unworkable, project. As for his adversaries, they seemed moved, not on account of the value of the stake, but because they made it a kind of scruple to compete under such conditions.

Seven o'clock was then striking. Mr. Fogg was offered the chance to break off the whist so that he could make his preparations for departure.

"I am always ready!" replied this impassive gentleman, and dealing the cards:

"I turn up diamonds," he said. "It's your play, Mr. Stuart."

Chapter 4 — In which Phileas Fogg leaves Passepartout, his servant, thunderstruck

At twenty-five past seven, Phileas Fogg, having won a score of guineas at whist, took leave of his honorable colleagues and left the Reform Club. At ten to eight, he opened the door of his house and went in.

Passepartout, who had conscientiously studied his schedule, was rather surprised to see Mr. Fogg, guilty of inexactitude, appear at this unusual hour. According to the notice, the tenant of Saville Row was not to come home until midnight exactly.

Phileas Fogg had first gone up to his room, then he called:

"Passepartout."

Passepartout did not answer. This call could not be meant for him. It was not the hour.

"Passepartout," Mr. Fogg said again, without raising his voice any further.

Passepartout appeared.

"That's the second time I've called you," said Mr. Fogg.

"But it isn't midnight," replied Passepartout, his watch in hand.

"I know," Phileas Fogg went on, "and I'm not reproaching you. We leave in ten minutes for Dover and Calais."

A sort of grimace took shape on the Frenchman's round face. It was plain that he had misheard.

"Monsieur is going away?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Phileas Fogg. "We are going to make the tour of the world."

Passepartout, his eye immoderately wide, eyelid and eyebrow raised, arms slack, body sagging, then presented every symptom of astonishment carried to the point of stupor.

"The tour of the world!" he murmured.

"In eighty days," replied Mr. Fogg. "So we haven't a moment to lose."

"But the trunks?..." said Passepartout, unconsciously swaying his head from side to side.

"No trunks. Only an overnight bag. Inside, two woolen shirts, three pairs of stockings. The same for you. We'll buy along the way. You'll bring down my mackintosh and my traveling blanket. Have good shoes. Besides, we'll walk little or not at all. Go."

Passepartout would have liked to reply. He could not. He left Mr. Fogg's room, went up to his own, dropped onto a chair, and, using a rather vulgar phrase of his own country:

"Well, that's a good one!" he said to himself, "that really takes the cake! And here I was wanting to keep quiet!..."

And, mechanically, he set about his preparations for departure. A tour of the world in eighty days! Was he dealing with a madman? No... Was it a joke? They were going to Dover, fine. To Calais, all right. After all, that couldn't much upset the good fellow, who for five years had not trodden the soil of his homeland. Perhaps they would even go as far as Paris, and, my word, he would gladly see the great capital again. But surely a gentleman so sparing of his steps would stop there... Yes, no doubt, but it was nonetheless true that he was leaving, that he was traveling, this gentleman, so stay-at-home until now!

At eight o'clock, Passepartout had prepared the modest bag that held his own wardrobe and his master's; then, his mind still troubled, he left his room, whose door he carefully shut, and he rejoined Mr. Fogg.

Mr. Fogg was ready. He carried under his arm Bradshaw's Continental Railway Steam Transit and General Guide, which was to furnish him all the information necessary for his journey. He took the bag from Passepartout's hands, opened it, and slipped into it a thick bundle of those fine bank notes that pass current in every country.

"You've forgotten nothing?" he asked.

"Nothing, sir."

"My mackintosh and my blanket?"

"Here they are."

"Good, take this bag."

Mr. Fogg handed the bag back to Passepartout.

"And take care of it," he added. "There are twenty thousand pounds inside (500,000 F)."

The bag nearly slipped from Passepartout's hands, as if the twenty thousand pounds had been in gold and weighed considerably.

Master and servant then went down, and the street door was double-locked.

A cab stand stood at the end of Saville Row. Phileas Fogg and his servant got into a cab, which drove quickly toward Charing Cross station, where one of the branches of the South Eastern Railway ends.

At twenty past eight, the cab stopped before the station gate. Passepartout jumped down. His master followed him and paid the driver.

At that moment, a poor beggar woman, holding a child by the hand, barefoot in the mud, wearing a battered hat from which hung a pitiful feather, a tattered shawl over her rags, approached Mr. Fogg and asked him for alms.

Mr. Fogg drew from his pocket the twenty guineas he had just now won at whist, and, holding them out to the beggar woman:

"Here, my good woman," he said, "I'm glad to have met you!"

Then he passed on.

Passepartout felt something like a moistness around his eye. His master had taken a step into his heart.

Mr. Fogg and he went at once into the great hall of the station. There Phileas Fogg gave Passepartout the order to take two first-class tickets to Paris. Then, turning around, he caught sight of his five colleagues from the Reform Club.

"Gentlemen, I am off," he said, "and the various visas stamped on a passport I am taking along for the purpose will let you, on my return, verify my itinerary."

"Oh, Mr. Fogg," Gauthier Ralph replied politely, "that's unnecessary. We shall rely on your honor as a gentleman!"

"It's better this way," said Mr. Fogg.

"You don't forget that you're to be back?..." Andrew Stuart remarked.

"In eighty days," replied Mr. Fogg, "on Saturday the 21st of December, 1872, at forty-five minutes past eight in the evening. Goodbye, gentlemen."

At twenty to nine, Phileas Fogg and his servant took their seats in the same compartment. At eight forty-five, a whistle blew, and the train started off.

The night was black. A fine rain was falling. Phileas Fogg, leaning back in his corner, did not speak. Passepartout, still dazed, mechanically hugged the bag of bank notes against himself.

But the train had not passed Sydenham when Passepartout let out a veritable cry of despair!

"What's the matter with you?" asked Mr. Fogg.

"It's... that... in my haste... my confusion... I forgot..."

"Forgot what?"

"To turn off the gas jet in my room!"

"Well, my boy," Mr. Fogg replied coolly, "it burns on your account!"

Chapter 5 — In which a new security appears on the London market

Phileas Fogg, on leaving London, doubtless had little idea of the great stir his departure was going to cause. News of the wager spread first through the Reform Club and produced a real commotion among the members of the honorable circle. Then, from the club, this commotion passed to the newspapers by way of the reporters, and from the newspapers to the public of London and of the whole United Kingdom.

This "question of the tour of the world" was commented on, debated, dissected, with as much passion and ardor as if it had been a new Alabama affair. Some took Phileas Fogg's side, others—and they soon formed a considerable majority—came out against him. This tour of the world, to be accomplished otherwise than in theory and on paper, in that minimum of time, with the means of communication currently in use, was not merely impossible, it was insane!

The Times, the Standard, the Evening Star, the Morning Chronicle, and a score of other widely circulated papers declared against Mr. Fogg. Only the Daily Telegraph backed him to a certain extent. Phileas Fogg was generally treated as a maniac, a madman, and his colleagues of the Reform Club were blamed for having taken up this wager, which pointed to a weakening in the mental faculties of its author.

Extremely impassioned but logical articles appeared on the question. One knows the interest taken in England in everything touching on geography. And so there was not a reader, of whatever class, who did not devour the columns devoted to the case of Phileas Fogg.

During the first few days, a few bold spirits—chiefly women—were for him, especially when the Illustrated London News published his portrait after his photograph deposited in the archives of the Reform Club. Certain gentlemen dared to say: "Ha! ha! why not, after all? More extraordinary things have been seen!" These were above all the readers of the Daily Telegraph. But it was soon felt that even this paper was beginning to waver.

Indeed, a lengthy article appeared, on October the 7th, in the Royal Geographical Society's Bulletin. It examined the question from every angle and clearly demonstrated the folly of the undertaking. According to this article, everything was against the traveler—obstacles of man, obstacles of nature. To succeed in this project, one had to assume a miraculous concordance of the hours of departure and arrival, a concordance that did not exist, that could not exist. At a pinch, and in Europe, where the distances involved are relatively modest, one may count on the trains arriving on time; but when they take three days to cross India, seven days to cross the United States, could one base the terms of such a problem on their punctuality? And the engine breakdowns, the derailments, the collisions, the bad season, the piling up of snow—was not all of it against Phileas Fogg? On the steamers, would he not find himself, during winter, at the mercy of gales or of fogs? Is it then so rare for the best runners of the transoceanic lines to suffer delays of two or three days? Now, a single delay, just one, was enough for the chain of connections to be irreparably broken. If Phileas Fogg missed, even by a few hours, the departure of a steamer, he would be forced to wait for the next steamer, and by that very fact his journey would be irrevocably compromised.

The article made a great noise. Almost all the papers reprinted it, and the shares of Phileas Fogg dropped sharply.

During the first days that followed the gentleman's departure, important dealings had been struck on the "hazard" of his undertaking. One knows what the world of bettors is in England, a world more intelligent, more elevated than that of gamblers. Betting is in the English temperament. And so not only did the various members of the Reform Club lay considerable bets for or against Phileas Fogg, but the mass of the public entered into the movement. Phileas Fogg was entered like a racehorse in a kind of studbook. He was also made into a stock-exchange security, which was immediately quoted on the London market. People asked for, and offered, "Phileas Fogg" outright or at a premium, and enormous deals were done. But five days after his departure, after that article in the Geographical Society's Bulletin, the offers began to pour in. Phileas Fogg fell. He was offered in job lots. Taken first at five, then at ten, he was no longer taken except at twenty, at fifty, at a hundred!

One backer alone stayed with him. This was the old paralytic, Lord Albermale. The honorable gentleman, nailed to his armchair, would have surrendered his fortune to be able to go around the world, even in ten years! and he staked five thousand pounds (100,000 F) in favor of Phileas Fogg. And when, along with the foolishness of the project, its uselessness was demonstrated to him, he was content to reply: "If the thing is doable, it's a good idea that it should be an Englishman who is the first to have done it!"

Now, matters had reached this point—Phileas Fogg's backers were growing ever scarcer; everyone, and not without reason, was turning against him; he was no longer taken except at a hundred and fifty, at two hundred to one—when, seven days after his departure, a completely unexpected incident meant that he was no longer taken at all.

Indeed, during that day, at nine in the evening, the director of the metropolitan police had received a telegraphic dispatch worded thus:

"Suez to London.

"Rowan, police director, central administration, Scotland Place.

"I am shadowing the Bank robber, Phileas Fogg. Send warrant of arrest without delay to Bombay (British India).

"Fix, detective."

The effect of this dispatch was immediate. The honorable gentleman vanished to make way for the bank-note thief. His photograph, deposited at the Reform Club with those of all his colleagues, was examined. It reproduced feature for feature the man whose description had been furnished by the inquiry. People recalled what there was of the mysterious in Phileas Fogg's existence—his isolation, his abrupt departure—and it seemed obvious that this individual, pretending to a journey around the world and propping it on an insane wager, had had no other aim than to throw off the agents of the English police.

Chapter 6 — In which the agent Fix shows a quite legitimate impatience

Here are the circumstances under which that dispatch concerning the said Phileas Fogg had been sent.

On Wednesday the 9th of October, the steamer Mongolia, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, was expected at Suez at eleven in the morning—an iron screw steamer with a spardeck, carrying a burden of two thousand eight hundred tons and a nominal power of five hundred horses. The Mongolia ran regularly between Brindisi and Bombay by way of the Suez Canal. She was one of the Company's fastest runners, and the regulation speeds—ten miles an hour from Brindisi to Suez, and nine and fifty-three hundredths from Suez to Bombay—she had always exceeded.

While awaiting the arrival of the Mongolia, two men were walking on the quay amid the crowd of natives and foreigners who throng this town, once a mere village, to which the great work of Monsieur de Lesseps assures a considerable future.

Of these two men, one was the consular agent of the United Kingdom, stationed at Suez, who—in spite of the gloomy forecasts of the British government and the sinister predictions of the engineer Stephenson—saw English ships pass through this canal every day, thus cutting in half the old route from England to the Indies by the Cape of Good Hope.

The other was a small, thin man, of a rather intelligent face, nervous, who contracted his brow muscles with a remarkable persistence. Through his long lashes shone a very keen eye, whose fire he could dim at will. At this moment he was giving certain signs of impatience, coming and going, unable to keep still.

This man was named Fix, and he was one of those "detectives," or English police agents, who had been sent to the various ports after the theft committed at the Bank of England. This Fix was to keep the closest watch on all travelers taking the Suez route, and if one of them seemed suspect to him, to "shadow" him while awaiting a warrant of arrest.

Precisely, two days before, Fix had received from the director of the metropolitan police the description of the presumed perpetrator of the theft. It was that of the distinguished, well-dressed individual who had been observed in the payments hall of the Bank.

The detective, plainly much tempted by the large reward promised in case of success, was therefore awaiting the arrival of the Mongolia with an impatience easy to understand.

"And you say, Consul," he asked for the tenth time, "that this boat can't be long?"

"No, Mr. Fix," the consul replied. "She was sighted yesterday off Port Said, and the hundred and sixty kilometers of the canal are nothing to such a runner. I tell you again that the Mongolia has always earned the reward of twenty-five pounds that the government grants for every twenty-four hours gained over the regulation times."

"This steamer comes straight from Brindisi?" asked Fix.

"From Brindisi itself, where she picked up the India mail, from Brindisi that she left on Saturday at five in the evening. So be patient, she can't be long in arriving. But I really don't see how, with the description you've received, you'll be able to recognize your man, if he's aboard the Mongolia."

"Consul," replied Fix, "those people, one senses them rather than recognizes them. It's a flair one must have, and flair is like a special sense to which hearing, sight, and smell all contribute. In my time I've collared more than one of these gentlemen, and provided my thief is aboard, I promise you he won't slip through my fingers."

"I hope so, Mr. Fix, for it's an important theft."

"A magnificent theft," replied the agent, growing enthusiastic. "Fifty-five thousand pounds! We don't often get such windfalls! Thieves are turning petty! The breed of Sheppards is dying out! Nowadays a man gets himself hanged for a few shillings!"

"Mr. Fix," replied the consul, "you speak in such a way that I heartily wish you success; but, I repeat, given the conditions you're in, I fear it may be difficult. You do realize that, from the description you've received, this thief looks exactly like an honest man."

"Consul," the police inspector replied dogmatically, "great thieves always look like honest people. You understand that those with rascals' faces have only one course to take, which is to stay upright, otherwise they'd get themselves arrested. It's the honest-looking faces that one must scrutinize above all. Difficult work, I grant, and no longer a trade but an art."

One sees that the said Fix was not without a certain dose of self-regard.

Meanwhile the quay was gradually coming to life. Sailors of various nationalities, merchants, brokers, porters, fellahs, were thronging it. The arrival of the steamer was evidently near.

The weather was fairly fine, but the air cold, with that east wind. A few minarets stood out above the town under the pale rays of the sun. Toward the south, a jetty two thousand meters long stretched like an arm across the roadstead of Suez. On the surface of the Red Sea rolled several fishing or coasting boats, some of which have kept in their lines the elegant build of the antique galley.

Moving about amid this crowd, Fix, by a habit of his profession, sized up the passersby with a quick glance.

It was then half past ten.

"But she'll never arrive, this steamer!" he cried, hearing the harbor clock strike.

"She can't be far off," replied the consul.

"How long will she stop at Suez?" asked Fix.

"Four hours. Time to take on her coal. From Suez to Aden, at the far end of the Red Sea, it's thirteen hundred and ten miles, and she must lay in a supply of fuel."

"And from Suez, does this boat go straight to Bombay?" asked Fix.

"Straight through, without breaking cargo."

"Well then," said Fix, "if the thief has taken this route and this boat, it must be part of his plan to disembark at Suez, so as to make for the Dutch or French possessions of Asia by some other route. He must know very well that he wouldn't be safe in India, which is English soil."

"Unless he's a very shrewd man," replied the consul. "As you know, an English criminal is always better hidden in London than he would be abroad."

On this reflection, which gave the agent much to think about, the consul went back to his offices, situated a short distance away. The police inspector was left alone, gripped by a nervous impatience, with that rather odd presentiment that his thief must be aboard the Mongolia—and in truth, if this rascal had left England intending to reach the New World, the route of the Indies, less watched or harder to watch than that of the Atlantic, must have won his preference.

Fix was not long left to his reflections. Sharp whistle-blasts announced the arrival of the steamer. The whole horde of porters and fellahs rushed toward the quay in a tumult somewhat alarming for the limbs and clothes of the passengers. A dozen boats put off from the shore and went out to meet the Mongolia.

Soon the gigantic hull of the Mongolia was seen passing between the banks of the canal, and eleven o'clock was striking when the steamer came to anchor in the roadstead, while her steam roared loudly through the escape pipes.

The passengers aboard were fairly numerous. Some stayed on the spardeck to gaze at the picturesque panorama of the town; but most disembarked in the boats that had come to lie alongside the Mongolia.

Fix scrupulously examined everyone who set foot ashore.

At that moment, one of them approached him, after vigorously pushing back the fellahs who were assailing him with their offers of service, and asked him very politely whether he could point out the offices of the English consular agent. And at the same time this passenger held out a passport on which he no doubt wished to have the British visa stamped.

Fix, by instinct, took the passport, and at a quick glance read its description.

An involuntary movement nearly escaped him. The sheet trembled in his hand. The description drawn up on the passport was identical to the one he had received from the director of the metropolitan police.

"This passport isn't yours?" he said to the passenger.

"No," the man replied, "it's my master's passport."

"And your master?"

"He has stayed aboard."

"But," the agent went on, "he must present himself in person at the consular offices to establish his identity."

"What! Is that necessary?"

"Indispensable."

"And where are these offices?"

"There, at the corner of the square," replied the inspector, pointing to a house two hundred paces off.

"Then I'll go and fetch my master, though it won't much please him to be disturbed!"

Whereupon the passenger bowed to Fix and went back aboard the steamer.

Chapter 7 — Which bears witness once more to the uselessness of passports in police matters

The inspector went back down onto the quay and made his way quickly to the consul's offices. At once, and at his urgent request, he was shown in to this official.

"Consul," he said without further preamble, "I have strong grounds to believe that our man has taken passage aboard the Mongolia."

And Fix related what had passed between that servant and himself concerning the passport.

"Good, Mr. Fix," replied the consul, "I wouldn't be sorry to see the face of this rascal. But perhaps he won't present himself at my office, if he's what you suppose. A thief doesn't like to leave traces of his passage behind him, and besides, the passport formality is no longer compulsory.

"Consul," replied the agent, "if he's a shrewd man, as one must suppose, he'll come!

"To have his passport visaed?"

"Yes. Passports never serve any purpose but to inconvenience honest folk and to help rascals escape. I assure you this one's will be in order, but I do hope you won't visa it...

"And why not? If this passport is in order," replied the consul, "I have no right to refuse my visa.

"Still, Consul, I must keep this man here until I've received a warrant of arrest from London.

"Ah, that, Mr. Fix, is your affair," replied the consul, "but I cannot..."

The consul did not finish his sentence. At that moment there came a knock at the door of his office, and the office boy showed in two strangers, one of whom was precisely that servant who had talked with the detective.

They were, in fact, master and servant. The master presented his passport, laconically asking the consul to be so good as to stamp his visa on it.

The consul took the passport and read it attentively, while Fix, in a corner of the office, watched, or rather devoured, the stranger with his gaze.

When the consul had finished his reading:

"You are Phileas Fogg, Esquire?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," replied the gentleman.

"And this man is your servant?"

"Yes. A Frenchman named Passepartout."

"You come from London?"

"Yes."

"And you are bound for?"

"Bombay."

"Good, sir. You know that this visa formality is pointless, and that we no longer require the presentation of the passport?"

"That I know, sir," replied Phileas Fogg, "but it is my wish to establish, by your visa, my passage through Suez."

"So be it, sir."

And the consul, having signed and dated the passport, stamped his seal on it. Mr. Fogg paid the visa fees, and, after coolly bowing, went out, followed by his servant.

"Well?" asked the inspector.

"Well," replied the consul, "he has the air of a perfectly honest man!"

"Possibly," replied Fix, "but that's not what's at issue. Do you find, Consul, that this phlegmatic gentleman resembles feature for feature the thief whose description I've received?"

"I grant it, but as you know, all descriptions..."

"I'll get to the bottom of it," replied Fix. "The servant strikes me as less inscrutable than the master. Besides, he's a Frenchman, who won't be able to keep himself from talking. Until soon, Consul."

That said, the agent went out and set about looking for Passepartout.

Meanwhile Mr. Fogg, on leaving the consular house, had headed for the quay. There he gave a few orders to his servant; then he got into a boat, returned aboard the Mongolia, and went back into his cabin. He then took out his notebook, which carried the following entries:

"Left London, Wednesday 2 October, 8:45 p.m.

"Arrived Paris, Thursday 3 October, 7:20 a.m.

"Left Paris, Thursday, 8:40 a.m.

"Arrived by the Mont Cenis at Turin, Friday 4 October, 6:35 a.m.

"Left Turin, Friday, 7:20 a.m.

"Arrived Brindisi, Saturday 5 October, 4:00 p.m.

"Embarked on the Mongolia, Saturday, 5:00 p.m.

"Arrived Suez, Wednesday 9 October, 11:00 a.m.

"Total hours spent: 158½, that is, in days: 6½ days."

Mr. Fogg entered these dates in an itinerary arranged in columns, which indicated—running from October the 2nd through to December the 21st—the month, the date, the day, the regulation arrivals and the actual arrivals at each main point: Paris, Brindisi, Suez, Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, then Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York, Liverpool, London, and which made it possible to reckon the gain obtained or the loss suffered at each place along the route.

This methodical itinerary thus accounted for everything, and Mr. Fogg knew at every moment whether he was ahead or behind.

So he entered, that day, Wednesday the 9th of October, his arrival at Suez, which, tallying with the regulation arrival, put him neither in gain nor in loss.

Then he had lunch served in his cabin. As for seeing the town, he did not even think of it, being of that breed of Englishmen who have the countries they pass through visited by their servant.

Chapter 8 — In which Passepartout talks perhaps a little more than he ought

In a few moments Fix had rejoined Passepartout on the quay, as he strolled and looked about, not believing himself, for his part, obliged to see nothing.

"Well, my friend," Fix said to him, coming up, "is your passport visaed?"

"Ah, it's you, sir," replied the Frenchman. "Much obliged. We're perfectly in order."

"And you're taking a look at the country?"

"Yes, but we go so fast that it seems to me I'm traveling in a dream. And so we're at Suez?"

"At Suez."

"In Egypt?"

"In Egypt, precisely."

"And in Africa?"

"In Africa."

"In Africa!" repeated Passepartout. "I can't believe it. Imagine, sir, that I fancied I'd go no farther than Paris, and that famous capital I saw again for just about seven-twenty in the morning to eight-forty, between the Gare du Nord and the Gare de Lyon, through the windows of a cab and in driving rain! I'm sorry for it! I'd have liked to see Père-Lachaise and the Circus of the Champs-Élysées again!"

"You're in a great hurry, then?" asked the police inspector.

"Me, no, but it's my master. By the way, I must buy socks and shirts! We left without trunks, with only an overnight bag."

"I'll take you to a bazaar where you'll find everything you need."

"Sir," replied Passepartout, "you're really most obliging!..."

And the two of them set off. Passepartout kept talking all the while.

"Above all," he said, "let me take good care not to miss the boat!"

"You have time," replied Fix, "it's still only noon!"

Passepartout drew out his big watch.

"Noon," he said. "Come now! It's nine fifty-two!"

"Your watch is slow," replied Fix.

"My watch! A family watch, that comes down from my great-grandfather! It doesn't vary by five minutes a year. It's a real chronometer!"

"I see what it is," replied Fix. "You've kept London time, which is about two hours behind Suez. You must take care to set your watch to the local noon of each country."

"Me! touch my watch!" cried Passepartout, "never!"

"Well, then it won't agree with the sun."

"So much the worse for the sun, sir! It'll be the one in the wrong!"

And the good fellow put his watch back into his fob with a superb gesture.

A few moments later, Fix said to him:

"So you left London in a hurry?"

"I should say so! Last Wednesday, at eight in the evening, against all his habits, Mr. Fogg came back from his club, and scarcely three-quarters of an hour after that we were off."

"But where is he going, then, this master of yours?"

"Always straight ahead! He's going around the world!"

"Around the world?" cried Fix.

"Yes, in eighty days! A wager, he says, but, between us, I don't believe a word of it. It wouldn't stand to reason. There's something else behind it."

"Ah! he's a character, this Mr. Fogg?"

"I should think so."

"He's rich, then?"

"Obviously, and he's carrying a tidy sum with him, in brand-new bank notes! And he doesn't spare the money along the way! Look! he's promised a magnificent reward to the Mongolia's engineer if we reach Bombay well ahead of time!"

"And you've known him long, this master of yours?"

"Me!" replied Passepartout, "I entered his service the very day of our departure."

One easily imagines the effect these answers were bound to produce on the already overexcited mind of the police inspector.

This hurried departure from London, so soon after the theft, this large sum carried off, this haste to reach far-off countries, this pretext of an eccentric wager—everything confirmed, and was bound to confirm, Fix in his ideas. He got the Frenchman talking some more and acquired the certainty that this fellow did not know his master at all, that the latter lived in isolation in London, that he was said to be rich without anyone knowing the source of his fortune, that he was an impenetrable man, and so on. But at the same time Fix could hold it for certain that Phileas Fogg was not landing at Suez, and that he really was going to Bombay.

"Is it far, Bombay?" asked Passepartout.

"Fairly far," replied the agent. "You've still got some ten days at sea."

"And where do you place Bombay?"

"In India."

"In Asia?"

"Naturally."

"The devil! The thing is, I'll tell you... there's something that nags at me... it's my jet!"

"What jet?"

"My gas jet that I forgot to turn off and that's burning on my account. Now, I've worked out that it costs me two shillings every twenty-four hours, just sixpence more than I earn, and you understand that however little the journey drags on..."

Did Fix understand the business of the gas? It's not likely. He was no longer listening and was making up his mind. The Frenchman and he had reached the bazaar. Fix left his companion to do his shopping there, urged him not to miss the departure of the Mongolia, and hurried back to the offices of the consular agent.

Fix, now that his conviction was formed, had recovered all his composure.

"Sir," he said to the consul, "I've no doubt left. I have my man. He's passing himself off as an eccentric who wants to go around the world in eighty days."

"Then he's a sly one," replied the consul, "and he means to come back to London after throwing off all the police forces of both continents!"

"We shall see," replied Fix.

"But aren't you mistaken?" the consul asked once again.

"I'm not mistaken."

"Then why did this thief insist on having his passage through Suez confirmed by a visa?"

"Why?... I've no idea, Consul," replied the detective, "but listen to me."

And, in a few words, he reported the salient points of his conversation with the servant of the said Fogg.

"Indeed," said the consul, "all the presumptions point to this man. And what do you mean to do?"

"Send a dispatch to London with an urgent request to forward me a warrant of arrest at Bombay, embark on the Mongolia, shadow my thief as far as the Indies, and there, on that English soil, accost him politely, my warrant in hand and my hand on his shoulder."

These words spoken coolly, the agent took leave of the consul and went to the telegraph office. From there he sent to the director of the metropolitan police that dispatch we already know.

A quarter of an hour later, Fix, his light luggage in hand, well provided with money besides, was embarking aboard the Mongolia, and soon the fast steamer was running at full steam over the waters of the Red Sea.

Chapter 9 — In which the Red Sea and the Sea of the Indies show themselves kindly to Phileas Fogg's designs

The distance between Suez and Aden is exactly thirteen hundred and ten miles, and the Company's terms of service allot its steamers a span of one hundred and thirty-eight hours to cover it. The Mongolia, her fires driven hard, was running so as to arrive ahead of the scheduled time.

Nearly all the passengers who had boarded at Brindisi were bound for India. Some were headed to Bombay, others to Calcutta, but by way of Bombay, for now that a railway crosses the whole width of the Indian peninsula, there is no longer any need to round the tip of Ceylon.

Among these passengers of the Mongolia were various civil servants and officers of every rank. Of the latter, some belonged to the British army proper, others commanded the native sepoy troops, all handsomely paid, even now that the government has taken over the rights and obligations of the old East India Company: second lieutenants at 7,000 F, brigadiers at 60,000, generals at 100,000[1].

[1] The pay of the civil servants is higher still. The mere assistants, at the first rung of the hierarchy, get 12,000 francs; the judges, 60,000 F; the presiding judges of the court, 250,000 F; the governors, 300,000 F; and the governor general, more than 600,000 F. (Author's note.)

So life aboard the Mongolia was good, in this society of officials, among whom were mixed a few young Englishmen who, with a million in their pockets, were off to found trading houses far away. The purser, the Company's trusted man, the captain's equal aboard, did things lavishly. At the morning breakfast, at the two o'clock lunch, at the half-past-five dinner, at the eight o'clock supper, the tables groaned under the dishes of fresh meat and the side dishes supplied by the steamer's butchery and pantries. The women passengers—there were a few—changed their outfits twice a day. There was music, there was even dancing, when the sea allowed it.

But the Red Sea is highly capricious and too often foul, like all these long, narrow gulfs. When the wind blew either from the Asian coast or from the African coast, the Mongolia, a long screw-driven spindle, caught broadside, rolled frightfully. The ladies then vanished; the pianos fell silent; songs and dances ceased together. And yet, despite the squall, despite the swell, the steamer, driven by its powerful engine, ran without delay toward the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb.

What was Phileas Fogg doing all this while? One might suppose that, forever worried and anxious, he fretted over the shifts of wind that hampered the ship's progress, over the disorderly heaving of the swell that risked causing an accident to the engine, in short over all the possible breakdowns that, by forcing the Mongolia to put in at some port, would have compromised his journey?

Not at all; or at least, if this gentleman gave a thought to such contingencies, he let nothing of it show. He was still the impassive man, the imperturbable Reform Club member whom no mishap or accident could catch off guard. He seemed no more stirred than the ship's chronometers. He was rarely seen on deck. He cared little to observe that Red Sea, so rich in memories, that stage of humanity's first historical scenes. He did not come up to make out the curious towns strewn along its shores, whose picturesque outline sometimes stood out against the horizon. He did not even dream of the dangers of that Arabian gulf, which the ancient historians—Strabo, Arrian, Artemidorus, Edrisi—always spoke of with dread, and onto which navigators in the old days never ventured without first consecrating their voyage with propitiatory sacrifices.

What, then, was this odd character doing, shut up in the Mongolia? First, he ate his four meals a day, without either roll or pitch ever managing to derange a machine so marvelously ordered. Then he played whist.

Yes! He had found partners as rabid as himself: a tax collector on his way to his post at Goa, a minister, the Reverend Decimus Smith, returning to Bombay, and an English-army brigadier general on his way to rejoin his corps at Benares. These three passengers shared Mr. Fogg's passion for whist, and they played for hours on end, no less silently than he.

As for Passepartout, seasickness had no hold on him. He occupied a cabin forward and ate, he too, conscientiously. It must be said that, decidedly, this journey, made under such conditions, no longer displeased him. He was making the best of it. Well fed, well lodged, he was seeing the world, and besides he kept assuring himself that this whole fancy would end at Bombay.

The day after leaving Suez, October 10, it was not without a certain pleasure that he met on deck the obliging person he had approached on landing in Egypt.

"I'm not mistaken," he said, coming up to him with his most amiable smile, "you are indeed the gentleman who so obligingly served as my guide at Suez?

—Indeed I am," replied the detective, "I recognize you! You're the servant of that eccentric Englishman—

—Precisely, Mr.—?

—Fix.

—Mr. Fix," replied Passepartout. "Delighted to run into you aboard. And where are you headed?

—Why, to Bombay, same as you.

—Splendid! Have you made this trip before?

—Several times," replied Fix. "I'm an agent of the Peninsular Company.

—Then you know India?

—Well... yes...," replied Fix, who did not care to commit himself too far.

—And is it a curious place, this India?

—Very curious indeed! Mosques, minarets, temples, fakirs, pagodas, tigers, snakes, and dancing girls! But let's hope you'll have the time to see the country?

—I hope so, Mr. Fix. You'll understand that a man in his right mind can hardly spend his life leaping from a steamer into a railway and from a railway into a steamer, on the pretext of going around the world in eighty days! No. All this gymnastics will stop at Bombay, have no doubt of it.

—And is he keeping well, Mr. Fogg?" asked Fix in the most natural tone.

—Very well, Mr. Fix. And so am I, for that matter. I eat like an ogre who's been fasting. It's the sea air.

—And your master—I never see him on deck.

—Never. He isn't curious.

—Do you know, Mr. Passepartout, that this supposed eighty-day trip could well be hiding some secret mission... a diplomatic mission, for instance!

—Honestly, Mr. Fix, I have no idea, I'll admit it, and at bottom I wouldn't give half a crown to find out."

From that meeting on, Passepartout and Fix often chatted together. The police inspector was keen to get on good terms with Mr. Fogg's servant. It might serve him when the occasion arose. So he often stood him, in the Mongolia's bar-room, a few glasses of whisky or pale ale, which the good fellow accepted without ceremony and even returned in kind so as not to be in his debt—finding, moreover, this Fix a thoroughly decent gentleman.

Meanwhile the steamer was pushing on rapidly. On the 13th they sighted Mocha, which appeared in its belt of ruined walls, above which a few green date palms stood out. Far off, in the mountains, spread vast fields of coffee trees. Passepartout was delighted to gaze at this famous town, and even thought that, with its circular walls and a dismantled fort shaped like the handle of a cup, it looked like an enormous demitasse.

During the following night, the Mongolia made its way through the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, whose Arabic name means the Gate of Tears, and the next day, the 14th, it put in at Steamer Point, northwest of the roadstead of Aden. There it was to take on fuel again.

A grave and important matter, this feeding of the steamers' furnaces at such distances from the centers of production. For the Peninsular Company alone it comes to an annual expense running to eight hundred thousand pounds (20 million francs). Depots have in fact had to be set up at several ports, and in these far-off seas coal comes to eighty francs a ton.

The Mongolia still had sixteen hundred and fifty miles to go before reaching Bombay, and it was to stay four hours at Steamer Point in order to fill its bunkers.

But this delay could in no way harm Phileas Fogg's program. It had been foreseen. Besides, the Mongolia, instead of reaching Aden only on the morning of October 15, entered there on the evening of the 14th. That was a gain of fifteen hours.

Mr. Fogg and his servant went ashore. The gentleman wanted to have his passport stamped. Fix followed him without being noticed. The visa formality done, Phileas Fogg returned aboard to take up his interrupted game.

Passepartout, for his part, strolled, as was his habit, through this population of Somalis, Banians, Parsis, Jews, Arabs, and Europeans that made up Aden's twenty-five thousand inhabitants. He admired the fortifications that make this town the Gibraltar of the Indian Ocean, along with the magnificent cisterns still being worked on by English engineers two thousand years after King Solomon's engineers.

"Very curious, very curious!" Passepartout said to himself as he came back aboard. "I see that it isn't useless to travel, if one wants to see something new."

At six in the evening, the Mongolia beat the waters of the Aden roadstead with the blades of its screw and was soon running over the Indian Ocean. It was allowed one hundred and sixty-eight hours to make the crossing between Aden and Bombay. In any case, that Indian sea was kind to it. The wind held in the northwest. The sails came to the aid of the steam.

The ship, better steadied, rolled less. The women passengers, in fresh outfits, reappeared on deck. The songs and the dances began again.

So the voyage went off in the best of conditions. Passepartout was delighted with the agreeable companion that chance had procured him in the person of Fix.

On Sunday, October 20, toward noon, they sighted the coast of India. Two hours afterward, the pilot came aboard the Mongolia. On the horizon, a backdrop of hills traced itself harmoniously against the sky. Soon the rows of palm trees that cover the city stood out sharply. The steamer entered the roadstead formed by the islands of Salsette, Colaba, Elephanta, and Butcher, and at half past four it drew alongside the quays of Bombay.

Phileas Fogg was then finishing the thirty-third rubber of the day, and he and his partner, thanks to a bold maneuver, having taken all thirteen tricks, ended this fine crossing with an admirable grand slam.

The Mongolia was not due to reach Bombay until October 22. Yet it arrived on the 20th. That was, since its departure from London, a gain of two days, which Phileas Fogg methodically entered in his itinerary in the column of gains.

Chapter 10 — In which Passepartout counts himself lucky to escape with nothing worse than the loss of his shoes

No one is unaware that India—this great inverted triangle whose base is to the north and whose point is to the south—comprises an area of fourteen hundred thousand square miles, over which is unevenly spread a population of one hundred and eighty million inhabitants. The British government exercises a real dominion over a certain part of this immense country. It maintains a governor general at Calcutta, governors at Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, and a lieutenant governor at Agra.

But British India proper counts only an area of seven hundred thousand square miles, with a population of a hundred to a hundred and ten million inhabitants. That is enough to say that a considerable part of the territory still escapes the Queen's authority; and indeed, among certain rajahs of the interior, fierce and terrible, Hindu independence is still absolute.

From 1756—when the first English establishment was founded on the site now occupied by the city of Madras—down to that year in which the great sepoy insurrection broke out, the famous East India Company was all-powerful. It gradually annexed the various provinces, bought from the rajahs for annuities that it paid little or not at all; it appointed its governor general and all its civil and military employees; but now it exists no longer, and the English possessions in India come directly under the Crown.

And so the appearance, the customs, the ethnographic divisions of the peninsula tend to change with each passing day. In the old days one traveled there by every ancient means of transport—on foot, on horseback, by cart, by wheelbarrow, by palanquin, on a man's back, by coach, and so on. Now steamboats ply the Indus and the Ganges at high speed, and a railway that crosses the whole width of India, branching out along its route, puts Bombay only three days from Calcutta.

The route of this railway does not follow a straight line across India. The distance as the crow flies is only a thousand to eleven hundred miles, and trains at no more than a moderate speed would not take three days to cover it; but this distance is increased by a third, at least, by the arc the railway describes as it climbs up to Allahabad in the north of the peninsula.

Here, in short, is the rough outline of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. Leaving the island of Bombay, it crosses Salsette, leaps onto the mainland opposite Tannah, clears the range of the Western Ghats, runs northeast as far as Burhampour, threads across the roughly independent territory of Bundelkund, climbs up to Allahabad, bends toward the east, meets the Ganges at Benares, veers away from it slightly, and, coming back down to the southeast through Burdwan and the French town of Chandernagor, makes its terminus at Calcutta.

It was at half past four in the afternoon that the Mongolia's passengers had disembarked at Bombay, and the Calcutta train left at eight o'clock sharp.

So Mr. Fogg took leave of his partners, left the steamer, gave his servant the details of a few purchases to make, expressly instructed him to be at the station before eight o'clock, and, with his steady stride that beat the second like the pendulum of an astronomical clock, he made his way to the passport office.

Thus, of the wonders of Bombay, he thought of seeing none—neither the town hall, nor the magnificent library, nor the forts, nor the docks, nor the cotton market, nor the bazaars, nor the mosques, nor the synagogues, nor the Armenian churches, nor the splendid pagoda of Malabar Hill, adorned with two polygonal towers. He would gaze upon neither the masterpieces of Elephanta, nor its mysterious rock-cut chambers, hidden to the southeast of the roadstead, nor the Kanheri caves on Salsette Island, those admirable remnants of Buddhist architecture!

No! Nothing. On leaving the passport office, Phileas Fogg went quietly to the station, and there he had dinner served to him. Among other dishes, the head waiter felt bound to recommend to him a certain fricassee of "local rabbit," which he praised to the skies.

Phileas Fogg accepted the fricassee and tasted it conscientiously; but, in spite of its spiced sauce, he found it detestable.

He rang for the head waiter.

"Sir," he said, looking him straight in the eye, "is this rabbit?

—Yes, my lord," the rogue answered brazenly, "jungle rabbit.

—And this rabbit didn't meow when it was killed?

—Meow! Oh, my lord! A rabbit! I swear to you—

—Head waiter," Mr. Fogg went on coldly, "don't swear, and remember this: in the old days, in India, cats were regarded as sacred animals. Those were the good times.

—For the cats, my lord?

—And perhaps for the travelers too!"

This observation made, Mr. Fogg calmly went on with his dinner.

A few moments after Mr. Fogg, the agent Fix had also come off the Mongolia and hurried to the head of the Bombay police. He made known his standing as a detective, the mission he was charged with, his position with regard to the presumed perpetrator of the theft. Had a warrant of arrest come from London?... Nothing had come. And indeed the warrant, having left after Fogg, could not yet have arrived.

Fix was left greatly disconcerted. He tried to obtain from the director an order of arrest against Mr. Fogg. The director refused. The matter concerned the metropolitan administration, and that body alone could lawfully issue a warrant. This strictness of principle, this rigorous observance of legality, is perfectly understandable given English ways, which, in matters of individual liberty, admit no arbitrary action.

Fix did not press the point and understood that he would have to resign himself to waiting for his warrant. But he resolved not to lose sight of his impenetrable rogue for the whole time the man remained in Bombay. He had no doubt that Phileas Fogg would stay there, and, as we know, that was Passepartout's conviction too—which would give the warrant of arrest time to arrive.

But since the last orders his master had given him on leaving the Mongolia, Passepartout had understood well enough that it would be with Bombay as it had been with Suez and Paris, that the journey would not end here, that it would continue at least to Calcutta, and perhaps beyond. And he began to wonder whether this bet of Mr. Fogg's wasn't entirely serious, and whether fate wasn't dragging him—who wanted to live in peace—into going around the world in eighty days!

Meanwhile, and after acquiring a few shirts and socks, he wandered through the streets of Bombay. There was a great throng of common folk, and, amid Europeans of every nationality, Persians in pointed caps, Bunhyas in round turbans, Sindhis in square caps, Armenians in long robes, Parsis in black miters. It happened to be a festival being celebrated by these Parsis, or Guebres, direct descendants of the followers of Zoroaster, who are the most industrious, the most civilized, the most intelligent, the most austere of the Hindus—the race to which the wealthy native merchants of Bombay now belong. That day they were celebrating a kind of religious carnival, with processions and entertainments in which appeared dancing girls dressed in rose-colored gauze brocaded with gold and silver, who, to the sound of viols and the din of tom-toms, danced marvelously, and, moreover, with perfect decency.

Whether Passepartout watched these curious ceremonies, whether his eyes and ears opened inordinately wide to see and hear, whether his look, his whole face was that of the greenest booby imaginable—there is no need to dwell on it here.

Unfortunately for him and for his master, whose journey he came near to compromising, his curiosity drew him farther than was proper.

In fact, after catching a glimpse of that Parsi carnival, Passepartout was heading toward the station when, passing before the admirable pagoda of Malabar Hill, he had the unlucky idea of visiting its interior.

He was unaware of two things: first, that entry into certain Hindu pagodas is strictly forbidden to Christians, and second, that the believers themselves may not enter without having left their shoes at the door. It should be noted here that, out of sound policy, the English government, respecting—and requiring respect for, down to its most trivial details—the religion of the country, severely punishes anyone who violates its practices.

Passepartout, having gone in there without a thought of harm, like a mere tourist, was admiring, inside Malabar Hill, that dazzling tinsel of Brahmin ornamentation, when suddenly he was thrown down onto the sacred flagstones. Three priests, their eyes full of fury, hurled themselves upon him, tore off his shoes and socks, and set about raining blows on him, letting out savage cries.

The Frenchman, vigorous and agile, sprang up at once. With a punch and a kick, he knocked over two of his adversaries, badly hampered in their long robes, and, darting from the pagoda with every ounce of speed in his legs, he soon outdistanced the third Hindu, who had thrown himself on his trail, rousing the crowd.

At five to eight, only a few minutes before the train's departure, hatless, barefoot, having lost in the scuffle the parcel containing his purchases, Passepartout reached the railway station.

Fix was there, on the boarding platform. Having followed Mr. Fogg to the station, he had understood that this rogue was about to leave Bombay. He at once resolved to accompany him to Calcutta and farther if need be. Passepartout did not see Fix, who kept to the shadows, but Fix overheard the account of his adventures, which Passepartout related in a few words to his master.

"I hope this won't happen to you again," Phileas Fogg replied simply, taking his seat in one of the train's carriages.

The poor fellow, barefoot and thoroughly crestfallen, followed his master without a word.

Fix was about to get into a separate carriage when a thought held him back and abruptly changed his plan to leave.

"No, I'm staying," he said to himself. "An offense committed on Indian soil... I've got my man."

At that moment, the locomotive let out a vigorous whistle, and the train vanished into the night.

Chapter 11 — In which Phileas Fogg buys a mount at a fabulous price

The train had left on schedule. It carried a certain number of travelers, some officers, civil servants, and dealers in opium and indigo whose trade called them to the eastern part of the peninsula.

Passepartout occupied the same compartment as his master. A third traveler was seated in the opposite corner.

It was the brigadier general, Sir Francis Cromarty, one of Mr. Fogg's partners during the crossing from Suez to Bombay, who was rejoining his troops stationed near Benares.

Sir Francis Cromarty, tall, fair-haired, about fifty years old, who had greatly distinguished himself during the last sepoy revolt, would truly have deserved to be called a native. Since his youth he had lived in India and had made only rare appearances in his home country. He was an educated man, who would gladly have given information about the customs, the history, the organization of the Hindu country, if Phileas Fogg had been the sort of man to ask for it. But this gentleman asked for nothing. He was not traveling, he was describing a circumference. He was a grave body, tracing an orbit around the terrestrial globe, following the laws of rational mechanics. At that moment he was going back over in his mind the tally of the hours consumed since he had left London, and he would have rubbed his hands together, were it in his nature to make a needless movement.

Sir Francis Cromarty had not failed to recognize the oddity of his traveling companion, even though he had studied him only cards in hand and between two rubbers. He was therefore entitled to wonder whether a human heart beat beneath that cold exterior, whether Phileas Fogg had a soul sensitive to the beauties of nature, to moral aspirations. For him, that was an open question. Of all the eccentrics the brigadier general had met, not one could compare with this product of the exact sciences.

Phileas Fogg had not hidden from Sir Francis Cromarty his plan of traveling around the world, nor the conditions under which he was carrying it out. The brigadier general saw in this wager nothing but an eccentricity without useful purpose, and one that would necessarily lack the transire benefaciendo that should guide every reasonable man. At the rate the odd gentleman was going, he would clearly pass through life without "doing" anything, either for himself or for others.

An hour after leaving Bombay, the train, crossing the viaducts, had passed over Salsette Island and was running on the mainland. At Callyan station, it left on the right the branch line that, by way of Kandallah and Poonah, descends toward the southeast of India, and it reached Pauwell station. At that point it entered the much-branched mountains of the Western Ghats, ranges with a base of trap and basalt, whose highest peaks are covered with thick woods.

From time to time, Sir Francis Cromarty and Phileas Fogg exchanged a few words, and at that moment the brigadier general, picking up a conversation that kept dropping, said:

"A few years ago, Mr. Fogg, you would have suffered at this spot a delay that would probably have wrecked your itinerary.

—Why so, Sir Francis?

—Because the railway stopped at the foot of these mountains, which had to be crossed by palanquin or on pony-back to Kandallah station, on the opposite slope.

—This delay would in no way have upset the economy of my program," replied Mr. Fogg. "I am not without having foreseen the likelihood of certain obstacles.

—Still, Mr. Fogg," the brigadier general went on, "you risked having a very nasty business on your hands with that young man's escapade."

Passepartout, his feet wrapped in his travel blanket, was sleeping soundly and hardly dreamed that he was being talked about.

"The English government is extremely severe, and rightly so, about this kind of offense," Sir Francis Cromarty went on. "It insists above all that the Hindus' religious customs be respected, and if your servant had been caught—

—Well, if he had been caught, Sir Francis," replied Mr. Fogg, "he would have been sentenced, he would have served his term, and then he would have come quietly back to Europe. I don't see how this business could have delayed his master!"

And with that, the conversation dropped again. During the night, the train crossed the Ghats, passed through Nassik, and the next day, October 21, it was rushing across a relatively flat country formed by the territory of Khandeish. The well-cultivated countryside was dotted with small towns, above which the minaret of the pagoda took the place of the European church steeple. Numerous little watercourses, most of them tributaries or sub-tributaries of the Godavery, watered this fertile region.

Passepartout, awake now, looked out and could not believe he was crossing the country of the Hindus in a train of the Great Peninsular Railway. It seemed unlikely to him. And yet nothing was more real! The locomotive, driven by the arm of an English engineer and stoked with English coal, threw its smoke over the plantations of coffee, nutmeg, clove, and red pepper. The steam coiled in spirals around the clumps of palm trees, among which appeared picturesque bungalows, a few viharas—sorts of abandoned monasteries—and marvelous temples enriched by the inexhaustible ornamentation of Indian architecture. Then vast stretches of ground unrolled as far as the eye could see, jungles that lacked neither the snakes nor the tigers that the train's roar terrified, and finally forests, split by the line of the track, still haunted by elephants that, with a pensive eye, watched the disheveled convoy go by.

During that morning, beyond Malligaum station, the travelers crossed that ill-fated territory so often drenched in blood by the followers of the goddess Kali. Nearby stood Ellora and its admirable pagodas, close by the famous Aurungabad, capital of the fierce Aurangzeb, now a mere provincial seat of one of the provinces detached from the kingdom of the Nizam. It was over this region that Feringhea, the chief of the Thugs, the king of the Stranglers, exercised his dominion. These murderers, united in an elusive brotherhood, strangled, in honor of the goddess of Death, victims of every age, without ever shedding blood, and there was a time when one could not dig anywhere in this soil without turning up a corpse. The English government has indeed managed to prevent these murders in a considerable measure, but the dreadful brotherhood still exists and still operates.

At half past twelve, the train came to a stop at Burhampour station, and Passepartout was able to get himself, at a steep price, a pair of babouches trimmed with imitation pearls, which he put on with a feeling of obvious vanity.

The travelers lunched quickly and set off again for Assurghur station, after skirting for a moment the bank of the Tapty, a small river that flows into the Gulf of Cambay, near Surat.

It is fitting to make known what thoughts then occupied Passepartout's mind. Until his arrival at Bombay, he had believed, and been able to believe, that these things would stop there. But now, since he had been racing at full steam across India, a reversal had taken place in his mind. His true nature came galloping back. He recovered the fanciful ideas of his youth, he took his master's schemes seriously, he believed in the reality of the wager, and consequently in this trip around the world and in this maximum of time that must not be exceeded. Already he was fretting over possible delays, over the accidents that might arise along the way. He felt as if he had a stake in this bet, and shuddered at the thought that the day before he might have compromised it by his unpardonable gawking. And so, far less phlegmatic than Mr. Fogg, he was far more anxious. He counted and recounted the days that had passed, cursed the train's halts, accused it of slowness, and blamed Mr. Fogg in petto for not having promised the engineer a bonus. The good fellow did not know that what was possible on a steamer was no longer possible on a railway, whose speed is regulated.

Toward evening, they entered the passes of the Sutpour mountains, which separate the territory of Khandeish from that of Bundelkund.

The next day, October 22, in answer to a question from Sir Francis Cromarty, Passepartout, having consulted his watch, answered that it was three o'clock in the morning. And indeed, that famous watch, still set to the Greenwich meridian, which lay nearly seventy-seven degrees to the west, was bound to be, and in fact was, four hours slow.

Sir Francis therefore corrected the time Passepartout had given, making him the same remark that Passepartout had already received from Fix. He tried to make him understand that he ought to set his watch by each new meridian, and that, since he was constantly heading east, that is, toward the sun, each day grew shorter by four minutes for every degree he covered. It was useless. Whether the stubborn fellow had understood the brigadier general's remark or not, he obstinately refused to set his watch forward, keeping it invariably at London time. An innocent quirk, at any rate, and one that could harm no one.

At eight in the morning, fifteen miles ahead of Rothal station, the train stopped in the middle of a vast clearing bordered by a few bungalows and workers' huts. The train conductor passed along the line of carriages saying:

"Passengers get out here."

Phileas Fogg looked at Sir Francis Cromarty, who seemed to understand nothing of this halt in the middle of a forest of tamarinds and date palms.

Passepartout, no less surprised, sprang out onto the track and came back almost at once, crying:

"Sir, no more railway!

—What do you mean?" asked Sir Francis Cromarty.

—I mean the train doesn't go any farther!"

The brigadier general got out of the carriage at once. Phileas Fogg followed, in no hurry. Both turned to the conductor:

"Where are we?" asked Sir Francis Cromarty.

—At the hamlet of Kholby," the conductor replied.

—We stop here?

—No doubt about it. The railway isn't finished...

—What! It isn't finished?

—No! There's still a stretch of about fifty miles to be built between this point and Allahabad, where the line picks up again.

—But the newspapers announced the complete opening of the railway!

—What can you do, officer, the newspapers got it wrong.

—And yet you issue tickets from Bombay to Calcutta!" shot back Sir Francis Cromarty, who was beginning to heat up.

—No doubt," replied the conductor, "but the travelers know perfectly well that they have to arrange to be carried from Kholby to Allahabad."

Sir Francis Cromarty was furious. Passepartout would gladly have brained the conductor, who was not to blame. He dared not look at his master.

"Sir Francis," Mr. Fogg said simply, "we shall, if you please, see about some way of reaching Allahabad.

—Mr. Fogg, this is a delay absolutely prejudicial to your interests?

—No, Sir Francis, it was foreseen.

—What! You knew that the line—

—By no means, but I knew perfectly well that some obstacle would crop up sooner or later on my route. Now, nothing is compromised. I have two days in hand to sacrifice. There is a steamer that leaves Calcutta for Hong Kong on the 25th at noon. We are still only at the 22nd, and we shall get to Calcutta in time."

There was nothing to say to an answer given with such complete assurance.

It was all too true that the railway works stopped at this point. Newspapers are like certain watches that have a mania for running fast, and they had prematurely announced the completion of the line. Most of the travelers knew of this break in the track, and, getting off the train, they had seized on the vehicles of every kind the town possessed—four-wheeled palki-gharis, carts drawn by zebus, a sort of humped ox, traveling wagons resembling moving pagodas, palanquins, ponies, and so on. And so Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, having combed the whole town, came back empty-handed.

"I'll go on foot," said Phileas Fogg.

Passepartout, who was just then rejoining his master, made a meaningful grimace as he considered his splendid but inadequate babouches. Very luckily, he had gone off searching on his own side, and, hesitating a little:

"Sir," he said, "I think I've found a means of transport.

—Which one?

—An elephant! An elephant belonging to an Indian who lives a hundred paces from here.

—Let's go see the elephant," replied Mr. Fogg.

Five minutes later, Phileas Fogg, Sir Francis Cromarty, and Passepartout arrived at a hut adjoining an enclosure fenced with high palisades. In the hut there was an Indian, and in the enclosure an elephant. At their request, the Indian led Mr. Fogg and his two companions into the enclosure.

There they found themselves in the presence of a half-tamed animal that its owner was raising, not to make a beast of burden of it, but a fighting beast. To that end, he had begun to alter the naturally gentle character of the animal, so as to lead it gradually to that paroxysm of rage called "mutsh" in the Hindu tongue, and this by feeding it for three months on sugar and butter. This treatment may seem unsuited to producing such a result, but it is nonetheless successfully used by the breeders. Very luckily for Mr. Fogg, the elephant in question had only just been put on this diet, and the "mutsh" had not yet declared itself.

Kiouni—that was the beast's name—could, like all its kind, keep up a rapid pace for a long while, and, for want of any other mount, Phileas Fogg resolved to use it.

But elephants are dear in India, where they are beginning to grow scarce. The males, which alone are suited to the contests of the arenas, are extremely sought after. These animals reproduce only rarely when reduced to domestication, so that they can be obtained only by hunting. And so they are the object of extreme care, and when Mr. Fogg asked the Indian whether he would hire out his elephant to him, the Indian flatly refused.

Fogg pressed and offered an excessive price for the beast, ten pounds (250 F) an hour. Refusal. Twenty pounds? Refusal again. Forty pounds? Refusal still. Passepartout jumped at each raise. But the Indian would not be tempted.

The sum was handsome, though. Assuming the elephant took fifteen hours to reach Allahabad, that would be six hundred pounds (15,000 F) it would bring in for its owner.

Phileas Fogg, without getting worked up in the least, then proposed to the Indian to buy his beast, and offered him, right off, a thousand pounds (25,000 F).

The Indian did not want to sell! Perhaps the rascal scented a splendid piece of business.

Sir Francis Cromarty drew Mr. Fogg aside and urged him to think before going any further. Phileas Fogg replied to his companion that it was not his habit to act without reflection, that it came down in the end to a wager of twenty thousand pounds, that this elephant was necessary to him, and that, even if he had to pay twenty times its worth, he would have this elephant.

Mr. Fogg went back to the Indian, whose small eyes, lit up with greed, plainly showed that for him it was only a question of price. Phileas Fogg offered successively twelve hundred pounds, then fifteen hundred, then eighteen hundred, at last two thousand (50,000 F). Passepartout, usually so red, was pale with emotion.

At two thousand pounds, the Indian gave in.

"By my babouches," cried Passepartout, "that puts a fine price on elephant meat!"

The deal concluded, it was now only a matter of finding a guide. That was easier. A young Parsi with an intelligent face offered his services. Mr. Fogg accepted and promised him a hefty payment, which could only sharpen his wits.

The elephant was brought and equipped without delay. The Parsi knew perfectly the trade of "mahout," or elephant driver. He covered the elephant's back with a kind of caparison and rigged, on each of its flanks, two rather uncomfortable sorts of pannier seats.

Phileas Fogg paid the Indian in bank notes drawn from the famous bag. It really seemed as though they were being pulled from Passepartout's own entrails. Then Mr. Fogg offered to carry Sir Francis Cromarty to Allahabad station. The brigadier general accepted. One more traveler was not going to tire the gigantic animal.

Provisions were bought at Kholby. Sir Francis Cromarty took his place in one of the pannier seats, Phileas Fogg in the other. Passepartout sat astride the caparison between his master and the brigadier general. The Parsi perched on the elephant's neck, and at nine o'clock the animal, leaving the town, plunged by the shortest way into the thick forest of fan palms.

Chapter 12 — In which Phileas Fogg and his party venture through the forests of India, and what comes of it

The guide, in order to shorten the distance to be covered, left on his right the line of the track, whose works were still under way. This route, much thwarted by the capricious ramifications of the Vindhia mountains, did not follow the shortest path, which it was in Phileas Fogg's interest to take. The Parsi, thoroughly familiar with the roads and trails of the country, claimed to gain a good twenty miles by cutting across the forest, and they trusted him on it.

Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, buried up to the neck in their pannier seats, were badly jolted by the stiff trot of the elephant, to which its mahout gave a rapid gait. But they endured the situation with the most British composure, saying little, moreover, and barely seeing each other.

As for Passepartout, posted on the beast's back and directly exposed to its jolts and counter-jolts, he took good care, on his master's advice, not to keep his tongue between his teeth, for it would have been sliced clean off. The good fellow, now flung onto the elephant's neck, now thrown back onto its rump, did acrobatics like a clown on a springboard. But he joked, he laughed in the midst of his flying leaps, and from time to time he pulled a lump of sugar out of his bag, which the intelligent Kiouni took with the tip of its trunk without interrupting its steady trot for a moment.

After two hours' march, the guide halted the elephant and gave it an hour's rest. The animal devoured branches and shrubs, after first slaking its thirst at a nearby pool. Sir Francis Cromarty did not complain of this halt. He was worn out. Mr. Fogg seemed as fresh as if he had just got out of bed.

"Why, the man is made of iron!" said the brigadier general, looking at him with admiration.

—Of forged iron," replied Passepartout, who busied himself with getting a quick breakfast ready.

At noon, the guide gave the signal to set off. The country soon took on a very wild aspect. The great forests gave way to thickets of tamarind and dwarf palms, then to vast arid plains bristling with meager shrubs and studded with big blocks of syenite. This whole part of the upper Bundelkund, little visited by travelers, is home to a fanatical population, hardened in the most terrible practices of the Hindu religion. The rule of the English could not be established in any regular way over a territory subject to the influence of the rajahs, who would have been hard to reach in their inaccessible retreats in the Vindhias.

Several times they caught sight of bands of fierce Indians, who made a gesture of anger at seeing the swift quadruped go by. Besides, the Parsi avoided them as much as possible, holding them to be dangerous company. Few animals were seen during that day, hardly a few monkeys, which fled with a thousand contortions and grimaces that greatly amused Passepartout.

One thought, among many others, was troubling this fellow. What was Mr. Fogg to do with the elephant once he reached Allahabad station? Would he take it along? Impossible! The cost of transport added to the cost of purchase would make a ruinous animal of it. Would it be sold, or set free? This estimable beast surely deserved to be treated with regard. If, by chance, Mr. Fogg were to make a present of it to him, Passepartout, he would be quite embarrassed by it. It did not cease to weigh on his mind.

At eight in the evening, the main range of the Vindhias had been crossed, and the travelers halted at the foot of the northern slope, in a ruined bungalow.

The distance covered during that day was about twenty-five miles, and as much again remained to reach Allahabad station.

The night was cold. Inside the bungalow, the Parsi lit a fire of dry branches, whose warmth was much appreciated. Supper consisted of the provisions bought at Kholby. The travelers ate like men worn out and battered. The conversation, which began with a few broken phrases, soon ended in sonorous snoring. The guide kept watch beside Kiouni, who slept standing up, leaning against the trunk of a big tree.

No incident marked that night. A few roars from cheetahs and panthers now and then broke the silence, mingled with the sharp sniggering of monkeys. But the carnivores kept to their cries and made no hostile demonstration against the bungalow's guests. Sir Francis Cromarty slept heavily like a brave soldier worn out by fatigues. Passepartout, in a restless sleep, went through in his dreams the tumbling of the day before, while Mr. Fogg rested as peacefully as though he lay in his own quiet house on Savile Row.

At six in the morning, they set off again. The guide hoped to reach Allahabad station that very evening. In that way, Mr. Fogg would forfeit only part of the forty-eight hours he had banked since the journey began.

They came down the last slopes of the Vindhias. Kiouni had taken up its rapid pace again. Toward noon, the guide skirted the town of Kallenger, which stands on the Cani, one of the Ganges's sub-tributaries. He always avoided inhabited places, feeling safer in these deserted stretches of country that mark the first depressions of the great river's basin. Allahabad station was not twelve miles off to the northeast. They halted under a clump of banana trees, whose fruit, as wholesome as bread, "as luscious as cream," so travelers say, was extremely welcome.

At two o'clock, the guide entered under the cover of a thick forest, which he was to cross over a stretch of several miles. He preferred to travel thus in the shelter of the woods. In any case, he had so far met no unpleasant encounter, and the journey seemed likely to go off without mishap, when the elephant, giving a few signs of uneasiness, suddenly stopped.

It was four o'clock then.

"What is it?" asked Sir Francis Cromarty, raising his head above his pannier seat.

—I don't know, officer," replied the Parsi, listening to a confused murmur that passed beneath the thick boughs.

A few moments later, this murmur became more distinct. It sounded like a concert, still quite far off, of human voices and brass instruments.

Passepartout was all eyes, all ears. Mr. Fogg waited patiently, without uttering a word.

The Parsi jumped to the ground, tied the elephant to a tree, and pushed off into the thickest of the undergrowth. A few minutes later, he came back, saying:

"A procession of Brahmins coming this way. If we can, let's avoid being seen."

The guide untied the elephant and led it into a thicket, warning the travelers not to set foot on the ground. He himself kept ready to mount his beast quickly, should flight become necessary. But he reckoned that the troop of the faithful would pass without noticing him, for the thickness of the foliage hid him completely.

The discordant noise of voices and instruments came nearer. Monotonous chanting mingled with the sound of drums and cymbals. Soon the head of the procession appeared under the trees, some fifty paces from the post held by Mr. Fogg and his companions. Through the branches they easily made out the curious personnel of this religious ceremony.

In the front rank advanced priests, wearing miters and dressed in long richly trimmed robes. Around them pressed men, women, and children who set up a kind of funereal chant, broken at even intervals by strokes of tom-toms and cymbals. Behind them, on a car with broad wheels whose spokes and rim figured an interlacing of snakes, appeared a hideous statue, drawn by two pairs of richly caparisoned zebus. This statue had four arms; its body was colored a dark red, its eyes haggard, its hair matted, its tongue hanging out, its lips tinted with henna and betel. Around its neck coiled a necklace of skulls, at its flanks a belt of severed hands. It stood upright on a felled giant whose head was missing.

Sir Francis Cromarty recognized this statue.

"The goddess Kali," he murmured, "the goddess of love and death.

—Of death, I'll grant, but of love, never!" said Passepartout. "The ugly old hag!"

The Parsi signaled him to keep quiet.

Around the statue there stirred, thrashed about, and writhed a group of old fakirs, striped with ocher bands, covered with cross-shaped incisions that let their blood escape drop by drop—stupid zealots who, in the great Hindu ceremonies, still hurl themselves under the wheels of Juggernaut's car.

Behind them, a few Brahmins, in all the sumptuousness of their oriental costume, were dragging along a woman who could barely hold herself up.

This woman was young, white as a European. Her head, her neck, her shoulders, her ears, her arms, her hands, her toes were loaded down with jewels—necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and rings. A gold-lamé tunic, covered with a light muslin, traced the contours of her figure.

Behind this young woman—a violent contrast to the eye—guards armed with bare sabers thrust through their belts and with long damascened pistols carried a corpse on a palanquin.

It was the corpse of an aged man, clad in his opulent rajah's garments, wearing, as in life, the pearl-embroidered turban, the robe woven of silk and gold, the diamond-set cashmere belt, and his magnificent weapons of an Indian prince.

Then musicians and a rear guard of fanatics, whose cries sometimes drowned the deafening din of the instruments, closed the procession.

Sir Francis Cromarty watched all this pomp with a singularly saddened air, and, turning to the guide:

"A suttee!" he said.

The Parsi gave a nod and put a finger to his lips. The long procession wound slowly away beneath the trees, and before long its rearmost ranks vanished into the depths of the forest.

Little by little, the chanting died away. There were still a few bursts of distant cries, and at last all this tumult gave way to a deep silence.

Phileas Fogg had heard that word, spoken by Sir Francis Cromarty, and the moment the procession had vanished:

"What is a suttee?" he asked.

—A suttee, Mr. Fogg," replied the brigadier general, "is a human offering—though a willing one. The woman you saw just now will be burned tomorrow at the first hours of daylight.

—Ah! the wretches!" cried Passepartout, who could not hold back this cry of indignation.

—And that corpse?" asked Mr. Fogg.

—It's that of the prince, her husband," replied the guide, "an independent rajah of Bundelkund.

—What!" Phileas Fogg went on, without his voice betraying the least emotion, "these barbarous customs still survive in India, and the English have not been able to stamp them out?

—In the greater part of India," replied Sir Francis Cromarty, "these sacrifices no longer take place, but we have no influence over these wild regions, and chiefly over this territory of Bundelkund. The whole northern flank of the Vindhias is the scene of ceaseless murders and pillage.

—The poor woman!" murmured Passepartout, "burned alive!

—Yes," the brigadier general went on, "burned, and if she were not, you would not believe to what a wretched condition she would be reduced by her own relatives. They would shave off her hair, they would feed her scarcely a few handfuls of rice, they would cast her out, she would count as an unclean creature and perish in some corner like a mangy dog. And so the prospect of that dreadful existence often drives these unfortunate women to their doom, far more than love or religious fanaticism does. Sometimes, however, the sacrifice really is voluntary, and it takes the energetic intervention of the government to prevent it. Thus, a few years ago, I was living in Bombay when a young widow came to ask the governor's leave to burn herself with her husband's body. As you may well imagine, the governor refused. So the widow fled the city, sought shelter with an independent rajah, and there she completed her sacrifice."

During the brigadier general's account, the guide kept shaking his head, and when the account was finished:

"The sacrifice that is to take place tomorrow at daybreak is not voluntary," he said.

—How do you know that?

—It's a story that everyone in Bundelkund knows," replied the guide.

—And yet this unfortunate woman seemed to be putting up no resistance," observed Sir Francis Cromarty.

—That's because they have drugged her with the smoke of hemp and opium.

—But where are they taking her?

—To Pillaji's pagoda, two miles off from here. There she will spend the night, awaiting the hour of the sacrifice.

—And this sacrifice will take place?...

—Tomorrow, at the first appearance of day."

After this answer, the guide brought the elephant out of the thick thicket and hoisted himself onto the animal's neck. But just as he was about to spur it on with a peculiar whistle, Mr. Fogg checked him, and, addressing Sir Francis Cromarty:

"What if we saved this woman?" he said.

—Save this woman, Mr. Fogg!..." cried the brigadier general.

—I still have twelve hours in hand. I can devote them to that.

—Well now! So you're a man of heart!" said Sir Francis Cromarty.

—Sometimes," replied Phileas Fogg simply, "when I have the time."

Chapter 13 — In which Passepartout proves once again that fortune smiles on the bold

The plan was daring, bristling with difficulties, perhaps impracticable. Mr. Fogg was about to risk his life, or at the very least his freedom, and consequently the success of his projects, but he did not hesitate. He found, moreover, in Sir Francis Cromarty, a determined helper.

As for Passepartout, he was ready, one could count on him. His master's idea thrilled him. He felt a heart, a soul beneath that casing of ice. He was coming to love Phileas Fogg.

There remained the guide. What side would he take in the affair? Would he not lean toward the Hindus? Failing his help, they had at least to secure his neutrality.

Sir Francis Cromarty put the question to him frankly.

"Officer," replied the guide, "I am a Parsi, and this woman is a Parsi. Dispose of me as you will.

—Good, guide," replied Mr. Fogg.

—Only, understand this clearly," the Parsi went on, "not only do we stake our lives, but face horrible tortures, should we be caught. So, look sharp.

—Understood," replied Mr. Fogg. "I think we shall have to wait for nightfall to act?

—I think so too," replied the guide.

This brave Hindu then gave a few details about the victim. She was an Indian woman of famous beauty, of Parsi stock, the daughter of wealthy Bombay merchants. In that city she had received an entirely English education, and from her manners and her schooling one would have taken her for a European. Her name was Aouda.

An orphan, she had been married against her will to this old rajah of Bundelkund. Three months later, she became a widow. Aware of the fate in store for her, she fled, was retaken at once, and the rajah's kin, to whom her death was profitable, doomed her to this ordeal from which it seemed there was no escape for her.

This account could only root Mr. Fogg and his companions more firmly in their generous resolve. It was decided that the guide would steer the elephant toward the pagoda of Pillaji, getting as close to it as possible.

Half an hour later, a halt was made under a thicket, five hundred paces from the pagoda, which could not be seen; but the howls of the fanatics could be heard distinctly.

The means of reaching the victim were then discussed. The guide knew this pagoda of Pillaji, in which he maintained the young woman was imprisoned. Could they get in through one of the doors, when the whole band was sunk in the sleep of drunkenness, or would they have to make a hole in a wall? That could only be decided at the very moment and place. But one thing admitted no doubt: the abduction had to be carried out that very night, and not when, day having come, the victim would be led to her ordeal. At that point, no human intervention could have saved her.

Mr. Fogg and his companions waited for night. As soon as darkness fell, toward six in the evening, they resolved to scout the ground around the pagoda. The last cries of the fakirs were then dying away. According to their habit, these Indians were bound to be sunk in the thick drunkenness of "hang"—liquid opium mixed with an infusion of hemp—and it might perhaps be possible to creep between them as far as the temple.

The Parsi, guiding Mr. Fogg, Sir Francis Cromarty, and Passepartout, advanced noiselessly through the forest. After ten minutes of crawling under the boughs, they reached the edge of a small river, and there, by the light of iron torches burning resin at their tips, they made out a heap of piled wood. It was the pyre, made of precious sandalwood and already soaked with a scented oil. On its upper part rested the embalmed body of the rajah, who was to be burned along with his widow. A hundred paces from this pyre rose the pagoda, whose minarets pierced the treetops in the darkness.

"Come!" said the guide in a low voice.

And, redoubling his caution, followed by his companions, he slipped silently through the tall grass.

The silence was now broken only by the murmur of the wind in the branches.

Soon the guide stopped at the edge of a clearing. A few resin torches lit the place. The ground was strewn with clusters of sleepers, heavy with drunkenness. It looked like a battlefield covered with the dead. Men, women, children, all were jumbled together. A few drunkards were still groaning here and there.

In the background, among the mass of trees, the temple of Pillaji rose up dimly. But to the guide's great disappointment, the rajah's guards, lit by smoky torches, kept watch at the doors and paced about, sabers drawn. One could suppose that inside the priests were keeping watch as well.

The Parsi went no farther. He had recognized the impossibility of forcing the temple entrance, and he led his companions back.

Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty had understood as he had that they could attempt nothing on that side.

They stopped and conferred in low voices.

"Let's wait," said the brigadier general. "It's only eight o'clock yet, and it's possible that these guards may give in to sleep as well.

—That is possible, indeed," replied the Parsi.

Phileas Fogg and his companions therefore stretched out beneath a tree and waited.

The time seemed long to them! The guide left them now and then and went to watch the edge of the wood. The rajah's guards were still on watch by the light of the torches, and a faint light filtered through the windows of the pagoda.

They waited like this until midnight. The situation did not change. The same watch outside. It was clear they could not count on the guards' dozing off. The drunkenness of "hang" had probably been spared them. They would therefore have to act otherwise and get in through an opening made in the pagoda's walls. There remained the question of whether the priests were watching over their victim with as much care as the soldiers at the temple door.

After a last conversation, the guide declared himself ready to set out. Mr. Fogg, Sir Francis, and Passepartout followed him. They made a fairly long detour in order to reach the pagoda from the rear.

Toward half past midnight, they arrived at the foot of the walls without having met anyone. No watch had been set on that side, but it is true to say that windows and doors were entirely lacking.

The night was dark. The moon, then in its last quarter, was barely leaving the horizon, which was piled with heavy clouds. The tallness of the trees deepened the darkness still further.

But it was not enough to have reached the foot of the walls; an opening still had to be made in them. For this operation, Phileas Fogg and his companions had absolutely nothing but their pocketknives. Very luckily, the temple walls were made of a mixture of brick and wood that could not be hard to pierce. Once the first brick was removed, the others would come away easily.

They set to work, making as little noise as possible. The Parsi on one side, Passepartout on the other, worked at prying loose the bricks, so as to obtain an opening two feet wide.

The work was coming along when a cry rang out inside the temple, and almost at once other cries answered it from outside.

Passepartout and the guide broke off their work. Had they been discovered? Had the alarm been raised? The most ordinary prudence urged them to slip away—which they did, along with Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty. They crouched down again under the cover of the wood, waiting for the alarm, if it was one, to die away, and ready, in that case, to resume their operation.

But—dire mischance—guards appeared at the rear of the pagoda and posted themselves there so as to bar any approach.

It would be hard to describe the disappointment of these four men, halted in their work. Now that they could no longer reach the victim, how would they save her? Sir Francis Cromarty gnawed his knuckles. Passepartout was frantic, and the guide had some trouble restraining him. The impassive Fogg waited without showing his feelings.

"Have we nothing left but to leave?" asked the brigadier general in a low voice.

—We have nothing left but to leave," replied the guide.

—Wait," said Fogg. "It's enough that I be at Allahabad tomorrow before noon.

—But what do you hope for?" replied Sir Francis Cromarty. "In a few hours the day will break, and...

—The chance that eludes us may present itself at the supreme moment."

The brigadier general would have liked to be able to read in Phileas Fogg's eyes.

What, then, was this cold Englishman counting on? Did he mean, at the moment of the ordeal, to rush toward the young woman and openly tear her from her executioners?

That would have been madness, and how could one admit that this man was mad to that degree? Nevertheless, Sir Francis Cromarty consented to wait until the denouement of this terrible scene. However, the guide did not leave his companions at the spot where they had taken refuge, and he led them back toward the forward part of the clearing. There, sheltered by a clump of trees, they could observe the sleeping groups.

Meanwhile Passepartout, perched among the lowest branches of a tree, kept turning over an idea that had first crossed his mind like a flash of lightning, and that ended by lodging itself in his brain.

He had begun by saying to himself: "What madness!" and now he kept repeating: "Why not, after all? Here's a chance, maybe the only one, and with brutes like these!..."

In any case, Passepartout put his thought into no clearer words, but he was not slow to slip, with the suppleness of a snake, along the low branches of the tree, whose ends bent toward the ground.

The hours slipped by, and soon a few less somber shades announced the approach of day. The darkness was still deep, however.

It was the moment. Something like a resurrection stirred in that drowsy crowd. The groups came to life. Strokes of the tom-tom rang out. Chants and cries burst out anew. The hour had come at which the unfortunate woman was to die.

Indeed, the doors of the pagoda opened. A brighter light escaped from within. Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty could make out the victim, brightly lit, whom two priests were dragging outside. It even seemed to them that, shaking off the numbness of drunkenness by a supreme instinct of self-preservation, the unfortunate woman was trying to escape her executioners. Sir Francis Cromarty's heart leaped, and with a convulsive movement, seizing Phileas Fogg's hand, he felt that this hand was holding an open knife.

At that moment, the crowd stirred into motion. The young woman had sunk back into that torpor brought on by the fumes of hemp. She was borne along among the fakirs, who flanked her with their religious howling.

Phileas Fogg and his companions, mingling with the last ranks of the crowd, followed her.

Two minutes later, they arrived at the bank of the river and stopped less than fifty paces from the pyre, on which lay the body of the rajah. In the half-darkness, they saw the victim utterly inert, stretched out beside her husband's corpse.

Then a torch was brought near, and the oil-soaked wood caught fire at once.

At that moment, Sir Francis Cromarty and the guide held back Phileas Fogg, who in a fit of generous madness was flinging himself toward the pyre...

But Phileas Fogg had already pushed them off, when the scene suddenly changed. A cry of terror rose up. The whole crowd threw itself to the ground, aghast.

Was the old rajah not dead, then, that he should be seen to rise up all at once, like a ghost, lift the young woman in his arms, and come down from the pyre amid whirls of vapor that gave him a spectral appearance?

The fakirs, the guards, the priests, seized with a sudden terror, lay there face to the ground, not daring to raise their eyes and look upon such a prodigy!

The inanimate victim passed between the vigorous arms that carried her, and without seeming to weigh on them at all. Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty had remained standing. The Parsi had bowed his head, and Passepartout, no doubt, was no less astounded!...

This risen figure came thus close to the spot where Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty were standing, and there, in a curt voice:

"Let's clear off!..." he said.

It was Passepartout himself who had slipped up to the pyre amid the thick smoke! It was Passepartout who, taking advantage of the still-deep darkness, had snatched the young woman back from death! It was Passepartout who, acting out his part with daring luck, was passing through the general terror!

A moment later, all four vanished into the wood, and the elephant bore them off at a rapid trot. But cries, clamors, and even a bullet, piercing Phileas Fogg's hat, told them the trick had been discovered.

Indeed, on the flaming pyre the body of the old rajah now stood out. The priests, recovered from their fright, had understood that an abduction had just been carried out.

At once they had dashed into the forest. The guards had followed them. A volley was fired, but the abductors were fleeing fast, and in a few instants they were out of range of the bullets and arrows.

Chapter 14 — In which Phileas Fogg goes down the whole admirable valley of the Ganges without so much as a thought of looking at it

The bold rescue had succeeded. An hour later, Passepartout was still laughing over his success. Sir Francis Cromarty had shaken the intrepid fellow's hand. His master had said to him: "Good," which, in that gentleman's mouth, amounted to high praise. To which Passepartout had replied that all the honor of the affair belonged to his master. For his own part, he had had merely one "droll" idea, and it made him laugh to recall that, for a few moments, he—Passepartout, onetime gymnast, ex-fire-brigade sergeant—had been the widower of a charming woman, an old embalmed rajah!

As for the young Indian, she had been unaware of all that had happened. Wrapped in the travel blankets, she rested on one of the pannier seats.

Meanwhile the elephant, guided with extreme sureness by the Parsi, ran swiftly through the still-dark forest. An hour after leaving the pagoda of Pillaji, it launched out across an immense plain. At seven o'clock, they halted. The young woman still lay in utter prostration. The guide got her to swallow a few sips of water and brandy, but the stupefying influence that weighed on her was bound to last some time yet.

Sir Francis Cromarty, who knew the effects of the intoxication produced by inhaling the fumes of hemp, had no worry on her account.

But if the young Indian woman's recovery raised no question in the brigadier general's mind, he showed himself less reassured about the future. He did not hesitate to tell Phileas Fogg that if Mrs. Aouda stayed in India, she would inevitably fall back into the hands of her executioners. These zealots held themselves throughout the peninsula, and certainly, despite the English police, they would find a way to recapture their victim, be it at Madras, at Bombay, or at Calcutta. And Sir Francis Cromarty cited, in support of this claim, an incident of the same kind that had happened recently. In his view, the young woman would truly be safe only after leaving India.

Phileas Fogg replied that he would take these observations into account and would see about it.

Toward ten o'clock, the guide announced Allahabad station. There the interrupted line of the railway began again, its trains covering, in less than a day and a night, the distance that separates Allahabad from Calcutta.

Phileas Fogg was therefore to arrive in time to catch a steamer that was not to leave until the following day, October 25, at noon, for Hong Kong.

The young woman was set down in a room at the station. Passepartout was charged with going to buy for her various articles of dress—a gown, a shawl, furs, and so on, whatever he could find. His master opened him an unlimited line of credit.

Passepartout set off at once and ran through the streets of the town. Allahabad is the City of God, among the most revered in all India, because it is built at the confluence of two sacred rivers, the Ganges and the Jumna, whose waters draw pilgrims from all over the peninsula. It is known, moreover, that, according to the legends of the Ramayana, the Ganges has its source in the sky, from where, thanks to Brahma, it descends to the earth.

While making his purchases, Passepartout soon saw the town, formerly defended by a magnificent fort that has become a state prison. No more trade, no more industry in this city, once industrial and commercial. Passepartout, who searched in vain for a fancy-goods shop, as if he had been in Regent Street a few steps from Farmer and Co., found the articles he needed only at a dealer's, an awkward old Jew, where he got a dress of Scotch cloth, a broad cloak, and a magnificent otter-skin pelisse, and he did not flinch at paying seventy-five pounds (1,875 F) for it. Then, altogether triumphant, he returned to the station.

Mrs. Aouda was beginning to come to herself. The spell that the priests of Pillaji had laid on her was clearing away little by little, and her beautiful eyes were recovering all their Indian gentleness.

When Ucaf Uddaul, the poet-king, sings the graces of the queen of Ahmehnagara, he puts it thus:

"Her glossy hair, evenly parted in two, frames the harmonious contours of her delicate white cheeks, bright with polish and freshness. Her ebony brows have the shape and the power of the bow of Kama, god of love, and under her long silky lashes, in the black pupil of her large limpid eyes, there float, as in the sacred lakes of the Himalaya, the purest reflections of the celestial light. Fine, even, and white, her teeth shine between her smiling lips like drops of dew in the half-open bosom of a pomegranate flower. Her dainty ears with their symmetrical curves, her rosy hands, her little feet arched and tender as the buds of the lotus, glow with the brilliance of the finest pearls of Ceylon, of the finest diamonds of Golconda. Her slender, supple waist, which a single hand suffices to encircle, sets off the elegant arch of her rounded hips and the richness of her bust, where youth in flower displays its most perfect treasures, and, under the silky folds of her tunic, she appears to have been fashioned in pure silver by the divine hand of Vicvacarma, the eternal sculptor."

But, without all this amplification, it is enough to say that Mrs. Aouda, the widow of the rajah of Bundelkund, was a charming woman in the full European sense of the word. She spoke English with real purity, and the guide had in no way overstated the case in asserting that this young Parsi had been transformed by education.

Meanwhile the train was about to leave Allahabad station. The Parsi was waiting. Mr. Fogg settled his wages at the agreed price, without exceeding it by a farthing. This surprised Passepartout a little, for he knew all that his master owed to the guide's devotion. The Parsi had, in fact, voluntarily risked his life in the Pillaji affair, and if, later on, the Hindus learned of it, he would hardly escape their vengeance.

There remained the question of Kiouni too. What was to be done with an elephant bought so dear?

But Phileas Fogg had already made up his mind on this point.

"Parsi," he said to the guide, "you have been obliging and loyal. I have paid for your service, though not for your loyalty. Do you want this elephant? It is yours."

The guide's eyes shone.

"It's a fortune Your Honor is giving me!" he cried.

—Accept it, guide," replied Mr. Fogg, "and I shall still be in your debt.

—Well done!" cried Passepartout. "Take it, friend! Kiouni is a brave and courageous animal!"

And, going up to the beast, he offered it a few lumps of sugar, saying:

"Here, Kiouni, here, here!"

The elephant let out a few grunts of satisfaction. Then, taking Passepartout by the waist and coiling him with its trunk, it lifted him up to the height of its head. Passepartout, not the least bit frightened, gave the animal a good caress, and to the trunk-clasp of the honest Kiouni there answered a vigorous handshake from the honest fellow.

A few moments later, Phileas Fogg, Sir Francis Cromarty, and Passepartout, settled in a comfortable carriage in which Mrs. Aouda had the best seat, were racing at full steam toward Benares.

Eighty miles at most separate this city from Allahabad, and they were covered in two hours.

During this stretch, the young woman came completely to herself; the drowsy fumes of the hang cleared away.

What was her astonishment to find herself on the railway, in this compartment, dressed in European clothes, among travelers who were entirely unknown to her!

First of all, her companions lavished their care on her and revived her with a few drops of liqueur; then the brigadier general told her her story. He dwelt on the devotion of Phileas Fogg, who had not hesitated to stake his life to save her, and on the outcome of the adventure, owed to the bold imagination of Passepartout.

Mr. Fogg let him talk without uttering a word. Passepartout, all abashed, kept repeating that "it wasn't worth the trouble"!

Mrs. Aouda thanked her rescuers with effusion, by her tears more than by her words. Her beautiful eyes, better than her lips, were the interpreters of her gratitude. Then, her thoughts carrying her back to the scenes of the suttee, her eyes seeing again that Indian land where so many dangers still awaited her, she was seized with a shudder of terror.

Phileas Fogg understood what was passing in Mrs. Aouda's mind, and, to reassure her, he offered, very coldly at that, to take her to Hong Kong, where she would stay until this affair had blown over.

Mrs. Aouda accepted the offer with gratitude. As it happened, at Hong Kong there lived one of her relatives, a Parsi like herself, and one of the principal merchants of that city, which is entirely English while occupying a point on the Chinese coast.

At half past twelve, the train drew up at Benares station. The Brahmin legends assert that this city occupies the site of the ancient Casi, which was once suspended in space, between the zenith and the nadir, like Mahomet's tomb. But, in this more realistic age, Benares, the Athens of India in the orientalists' phrase, rested quite prosaically on the ground, and Passepartout could for a moment catch a glimpse of its brick houses, its wattle huts, which gave it an utterly desolate look, without any local color.

It was there that Sir Francis Cromarty was to stop. The troops he was rejoining were camped a few miles north of the city. So the brigadier general took his leave of Phileas Fogg, wishing him all possible success, and expressing the wish that he might make this journey over again in a less eccentric but more profitable style. Mr. Fogg gave his companion's fingers a light press. Mrs. Aouda's compliments were more affectionate. Never would she forget what she owed to Sir Francis Cromarty. As for Passepartout, he was honored with a real handshake from the brigadier general. Deeply moved, he wondered where and when he might ever devote himself for him. Then they parted.

From Benares on, the railway followed in part the valley of the Ganges. Through the carriage windows, in fairly clear weather, appeared the varied landscape of Behar, then mountains covered with greenery, fields of barley, maize, and wheat, rios and ponds teeming with greenish alligators, well-kept villages, forests still verdant. A few elephants, some big-humped zebus came to bathe in the sacred river's waters, and also, despite the advanced season and the already cold temperature, bands of Hindus of both sexes, who piously performed their holy ablutions. These faithful, bitter enemies of Buddhism, are fervent followers of the Brahmin religion, which is incarnate in these three persons: Vishnu, the solar divinity, Shiva, the divine personification of the forces of nature, and Brahma, the supreme master of priests and lawgivers. But with what eye must Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu regard this now "Britishized" India, when some steamboat passed by whinnying and troubled the consecrated waters of the Ganges, frightening off the gulls that flew over its surface, the turtles that swarmed on its banks, and the devout stretched out along its shores!

This whole panorama filed past like a flash, and often a cloud of white steam hid its details. The travelers could barely catch sight of the fort of Chunar, twenty miles southeast of Benares, an old fortress of the rajahs of Behar, Ghazepour and its important rosewater works, the tomb of Lord Cornwallis that lifts above the Ganges's left bank, the fortified town of Buxar, Patna, a great industrial and commercial city where the chief opium market of India is held, Monghir, a more-than-European town, English like Manchester or Birmingham, renowned for its ironworks, its factories of edge tools and cold steel, and whose tall chimneys fouled Brahma's sky with a black smoke—a veritable punch in the face for the land of dreams!

Then night came and, amid the howls of the tigers, bears, and wolves that fled before the locomotive, the train passed at full speed, and nothing more was seen of the marvels of Bengal, neither Golconda, nor Gour in ruins, nor Murshidabad, which was once a capital, nor Burdwan, nor Hooghly, nor Chandernagor, that French point of Indian territory over which Passepartout would have been proud to see the flag of his homeland flying!

At last, at seven in the morning, Calcutta was reached. The steamer bound for Hong Kong was not to weigh anchor until noon. Phileas Fogg therefore had five hours before him.

According to his itinerary, this gentleman was to reach the capital of the Indies on October 25, twenty-three days after leaving London, and he arrived there on the appointed day. So he was neither behind nor ahead. Unfortunately, the two days he had won between London and Bombay had been squandered, we know how, in that crossing of the Indian peninsula—but it is to be supposed that Phileas Fogg did not regret them.

Chapter 15 — In which the bag of banknotes grows lighter by another few thousand pounds

The train had stopped at the station. Passepartout was the first out of the carriage, followed by Mr. Fogg, who helped his young companion step down onto the platform. Phileas Fogg meant to go straight to the Hong Kong steamer, so as to settle Mrs. Aouda comfortably aboard; he did not want to leave her while she remained in a country so dangerous for her.

As Mr. Fogg was on the point of leaving the station, a policeman approached him and said:

"Mr. Phileas Fogg?

—That is I.

—This man is your servant? added the policeman, indicating Passepartout.

—Yes.

—Both of you, kindly come with me."

Mr. Fogg made not a single movement that might have betrayed any surprise in him. This officer was a representative of the law, and to any Englishman the law is sacred. Passepartout, with his French habits, wanted to argue, but the policeman touched him with his staff, and Phileas Fogg signaled to him to obey.

"This young lady may come with us? asked Mr. Fogg.

—She may," replied the policeman.

The policeman led Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and Passepartout to a palki-ghari, a kind of four-wheeled, four-seat carriage drawn by two horses. They set off. No one spoke during the drive, which lasted about twenty minutes.

The carriage first crossed the "black town," with its narrow streets lined by hovels in which swarmed a cosmopolitan population, filthy and in rags; then it passed through the European town, brightened by brick houses, shaded by coconut palms, bristling with ships' masts, and already crossed, despite the early hour, by elegant riders and magnificent teams of horses.

The palki-ghari stopped in front of a plain-looking building, but one that was surely not meant for domestic use. The policeman made his prisoners get down—one really could call them that—and led them into a room with barred windows, telling them:

"At half past eight you will appear before Judge Obadiah."

Then he withdrew and shut the door.

"There! we're caught!" cried Passepartout, dropping into a chair.

Mrs. Aouda, at once turning to Mr. Fogg, said to him in a voice whose emotion she tried in vain to disguise:

"Sir, you must give me up! It is because of me that you are being pursued! It is for having rescued me!"

Phileas Fogg merely replied that this was not possible. Prosecuted over that suttee affair! Out of the question! How would the plaintiffs dare come forward? There was some mistake. Mr. Fogg added that, in any case, he would not abandon the young woman, and that he would take her to Hong Kong.

"But the boat leaves at noon! Passepartout pointed out.

—Before noon we shall be aboard," the impassive gentleman replied simply.

This was stated so plainly that Passepartout could not help saying to himself:

"By Jove! it's certain! before noon we shall be aboard!" But he was not reassured in the least.

At half past eight the door of the room opened. The policeman reappeared and brought the prisoners into the adjoining room. It was a courtroom, and a fairly large public, made up of Europeans and natives, already filled the well of the court.

Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and Passepartout sat down on a bench facing the seats reserved for the magistrate and the clerk.

That magistrate, Judge Obadiah, came in almost at once, followed by the clerk. He was a fat, perfectly round man. He unhooked a wig hanging from a nail and clapped it briskly on his head.

"The first case," he said.

But, putting his hand to his head:

"Hey! this is not my wig!

—Indeed, Mr. Obadiah, it is mine, replied the clerk.

—My dear Mr. Oysterpuf, how do you expect a judge to hand down a sound sentence in a clerk's wig!"

The wigs were exchanged. During these preliminaries, Passepartout was seething with impatience, for the hand seemed to him to be racing dreadfully fast around the dial of the courtroom's big clock.

"The first case, Judge Obadiah then resumed.

—Phileas Fogg? said Oysterpuf the clerk.

—Here I am, replied Mr. Fogg.

—Passepartout?

—Present! replied Passepartout.

—Good! said Judge Obadiah. For two days now, defendants, you have been watched for at every train from Bombay.

—But what are we accused of? cried Passepartout, out of patience.

—You shall soon know, replied the judge.

—Sir, Mr. Fogg then said, I am an English citizen, and I have the right...

—Have you been treated with disrespect? asked Mr. Obadiah.

—Not at all.

—Good! bring in the plaintiffs."

On the judge's order, a door opened, and three Hindu priests were brought in by an usher.

"That's it! muttered Passepartout, these are the rascals who wanted to burn our young lady!"

The priests stood before the judge, and the clerk read aloud a charge of sacrilege, laid against Mr. Phileas Fogg and his servant, accused of having profaned a place consecrated by the Brahmin religion.

"You have heard? the judge asked Phileas Fogg.

—Yes, sir, replied Mr. Fogg, looking at his watch, and I confess it.

—Ah! you confess?...

—I confess, and I am waiting for these three priests to confess in their turn what they meant to do at the pagoda of Pillaji."

The priests looked at one another. They seemed to understand nothing of the accused man's words.

"Of course! cried Passepartout hotly, at that pagoda of Pillaji, in front of which they were about to burn their victim!"

Fresh amazement from the priests, and deep astonishment from Judge Obadiah.

"What victim? he asked. Burn whom! In the middle of the city of Bombay?

—Bombay? cried Passepartout.

—Of course. This is not about the pagoda of Pillaji, but about the pagoda of Malebar-Hill, in Bombay.

—And as evidence, here are the desecrator's shoes, added the clerk, setting a pair of shoes on his desk.

—My shoes!" cried Passepartout, who, taken utterly by surprise, could not hold back this involuntary exclamation.

One can guess the confusion that had arisen in the minds of master and servant. This incident at the Bombay pagoda they had forgotten, and it was the very thing bringing them before the magistrate of Calcutta.

Indeed, the agent Fix had grasped the whole advantage he could draw from this unfortunate affair. Delaying his departure by twelve hours, he had made himself counsel to the priests of Malebar-Hill; he had promised them substantial damages, knowing full well that the English government was very severe about this kind of offense; then, by the next train, he had sent them on the trail of the sacrilege. But because of the time spent rescuing the young widow, Fix and the Hindus reached Calcutta ahead of Phileas Fogg and his servant, whom the magistrates, warned by telegram, were to arrest as they stepped off the train. One can judge Fix's disappointment when he found out that Phileas Fogg had not yet arrived in the capital of India. He must have thought that his thief, stopping at one of the stations on the Peninsular Railway, had taken refuge in the northern provinces. For twenty-four hours, in mortal anxiety, Fix watched for him at the station. What joy, then, was his when, that very morning, he saw him step off the train—accompanied, it is true, by a young woman whose presence he could not explain. He at once set a policeman on him, and that is how Mr. Fogg, Passepartout, and the widow of the rajah of Bundelkund were brought before Judge Obadiah.

And had Passepartout been less absorbed in his own case, he would have noticed, in a corner of the courtroom, the detective, who followed the proceedings with an interest easy to understand—for at Calcutta, as at Bombay, as at Suez, he still lacked the warrant of arrest!

Meanwhile Judge Obadiah had taken note of the confession that had escaped Passepartout, who would have given all he owned to take back his reckless words.

"The facts are confessed? said the judge.

—Confessed, replied Mr. Fogg coldly.

—Whereas, the judge went on, whereas English law means to protect equally and rigorously all the religions of the peoples of India, the offense being confessed by Mr. Passepartout, convicted of having profaned with a sacrilegious foot the pavement of the pagoda of Malebar-Hill, in Bombay, on the day of the 20th of October, sentences the said Passepartout to fifteen days' imprisonment and a fine of three hundred pounds (7,500 F).

—Three hundred pounds? cried Passepartout, who was really only sensitive about the fine.

—Silence! snapped the usher in a shrill voice.

—And, added Judge Obadiah, whereas it is not materially proven that there is no collusion between servant and master, and that in any case the latter must answer for the acts of a servant in his pay, detains the said Phileas Fogg and sentences him to eight days' imprisonment and a hundred and fifty pounds' fine. Clerk, call another case!"

Fix, in his corner, felt an unspeakable satisfaction. Phileas Fogg held eight days at Calcutta—that was more than enough to give the warrant time to reach him.

Passepartout was thunderstruck. This sentence spelled his master's ruin. Twenty thousand pounds of wager lost, and all because, like a real gawker, he had gone into that accursed pagoda!

Phileas Fogg, as much master of himself as if the sentence had not concerned him, had not even knit his brow. But just as the clerk was calling another case, he rose and said:

"I offer bail.

—That is your right," replied the judge.

Fix felt a chill run down his spine, but he recovered his confidence when he heard the judge, "considering the foreign status of Phileas Fogg and his servant," set bail for each of them at the enormous sum of a thousand pounds (25,000 F).

It would cost Mr. Fogg two thousand pounds if he did not serve his sentence.

"I'll pay," said this gentleman.

And from the bag Passepartout was carrying he drew a packet of banknotes, which he laid on the clerk's desk.

"This sum will be returned to you on your release from prison, said the judge. In the meantime, you are free on bail.

—Come, said Phileas Fogg to his servant.

—But at least let them give back the shoes!" cried Passepartout in a fit of rage.

His shoes were returned to him.

"There's a costly pair! he muttered. More than a thousand pounds each! Not to mention that they pinch!"

Passepartout, utterly crestfallen, followed Mr. Fogg, who had offered his arm to the young woman. Fix still hoped that his thief would never make up his mind to sacrifice this sum of two thousand pounds and would serve his eight days in prison. So he threw himself onto Fogg's trail.

Mr. Fogg took a carriage, into which Mrs. Aouda, Passepartout, and he climbed at once. Fix ran behind the carriage, which soon stopped at one of the city's quays.

Half a mile out in the roadstead, the Rangoon lay at anchor, her departure flag hoisted to the masthead. Eleven o'clock was striking. Mr. Fogg was an hour ahead. Fix saw him get out of the carriage and board a boat with Mrs. Aouda and his servant. The detective stamped his foot on the ground.

"The scoundrel! he cried, he's leaving! Two thousand pounds thrown away! Lavish as a thief! Ah! I'll shadow him to the ends of the earth if I must; but at the rate he's going, all the stolen money will have gone!"

The police inspector had grounds for that reflection. Indeed, since leaving London, what with travel costs and rewards, the purchase of an elephant, bail and fines, Phileas Fogg had already scattered more than five thousand pounds (125,000 F) along his way, and the percentage of the recovered sum awarded to detectives kept dwindling.

Chapter 16 — In which Fix appears to know nothing at all about the matters he is told

The Rangoon, one of the steamers the Peninsular and Oriental Company employs on the China and Japan runs, was an iron screw steamer of seventeen hundred and seventy tons gross, with a nominal power of four hundred horse. She matched the Mongolia for speed but not for comfort. So Mrs. Aouda was not so well accommodated as Phileas Fogg would have wished. After all, it was only a crossing of three thousand five hundred miles, some eleven to twelve days, and the young woman did not prove a difficult passenger.

During the first days of this crossing, Mrs. Aouda came to know Phileas Fogg better. At every turn she showed him the liveliest gratitude. The phlegmatic gentleman listened to her, in appearance at least, with the utmost coldness, without an inflection or a gesture betraying in him the slightest emotion. He saw to it that she lacked for nothing. At certain hours he came regularly, if not to talk, at least to listen to her. He fulfilled toward her the duties of the strictest courtesy, but with the grace and spontaneity of an automaton whose movements had been arranged for that purpose. Mrs. Aouda hardly knew what to make of it, but Passepartout had explained a little of his master's eccentric character to her. He had told her what a wager was carrying this gentleman around the world. Mrs. Aouda had smiled; but after all, she owed him her life, and her rescuer could lose nothing by her seeing him through her gratitude.

Mrs. Aouda confirmed the account the Hindu guide had given of her touching story. She belonged, in fact, to that race which holds first rank among the native races. Several Parsi merchants have made great fortunes in India in the cotton trade. One of them, Sir James Jejeebhoy, was raised to the peerage by the English government, and Mrs. Aouda was related to this rich figure who lived in Bombay. It was indeed a cousin of Sir Jejeebhoy's, the honorable Jejeeh, whom she counted on joining at Hong Kong. Would she find refuge and help with him? She could not say for certain. To which Mr. Fogg replied that she need not worry, and that everything would sort itself out mathematically! That was his word for it.

Did the young woman understand this horrible adverb? No one knows. Still, her great eyes rested on Mr. Fogg's, her great eyes "limpid as the sacred lakes of the Himalaya"! But the unbending Fogg, as buttoned up as ever, did not seem the man to throw himself into that lake.

This first part of the Rangoon's crossing was accomplished under excellent conditions. The weather was manageable. All this stretch of the vast bay that sailors call the "fathoms of Bengal" proved favorable to the steamer's progress. The Rangoon soon raised the Great Andaman, the chief island of the group, which its picturesque Saddle-Peak, rising two thousand four hundred feet, signals from far off to navigators.

They ran fairly close along the coast. The savage Papuans of the island did not show themselves. They are beings placed on the lowest rung of the human ladder, but wrongly made out to be cannibals.

The panoramic sweep of these islands was superb. Immense forests of fan palms, areca palms, bamboo, nutmeg trees, teak, giant mimosas, and tree ferns covered the country in the foreground, and behind them stood out the elegant silhouette of the mountains. Along the coast swarmed by the thousand those precious swiftlets whose edible nests make a prized delicacy in the Celestial Empire. But all this varied spectacle offered to the eye by the Andaman group passed quickly, and the Rangoon steamed swiftly on toward the Strait of Malacca, which was to give it access to the seas of China.

What was Inspector Fix doing during this crossing, so unluckily dragged into a voyage round the world? On leaving Calcutta, after leaving instructions for the warrant, should it finally arrive, to be forwarded to him at Hong Kong, he had managed to board the Rangoon without being spotted by Passepartout, and he fully hoped to conceal his presence until the steamer's arrival. Indeed, it would have been hard for him to explain why he was aboard without rousing the suspicions of Passepartout, who was bound to believe him in Bombay. But he was led to renew his acquaintance with the honest fellow by the very logic of circumstances. How? We shall see.

All the hopes, all the wishes of the police inspector were now concentrated on a single point of the globe, Hong Kong, for the steamer stopped too briefly at Singapore for him to operate in that city. It was therefore at Hong Kong that the thief's arrest had to take place, or the thief would slip away from him, so to speak, for good.

Indeed, Hong Kong was still English soil, but the last to be met with along the route. Beyond it, China, Japan, and America offered Mr. Fogg a refuge that was more or less assured. At Hong Kong, if he at last found there the warrant of arrest that was obviously chasing after him, Fix would arrest Fogg and hand him over to the local police. No difficulty. But past Hong Kong, a mere warrant of arrest would no longer suffice. An extradition order would be needed. Hence delays, hold-ups, obstacles of every kind, which the rascal would use to escape for good. If the operation failed at Hong Kong, it would be, if not impossible, at least very hard, to take it up again with any chance of success.

"So, Fix kept repeating to himself during the long hours he spent in his cabin, so, either the warrant is at Hong Kong, and I arrest my man, or it won't be there, and this time I must at all costs delay his departure! I failed at Bombay, I failed at Calcutta! If I miss my stroke at Hong Kong, my reputation is ruined! Whatever it costs, I must succeed. But what means can I use to delay, if need be, the departure of that accursed Fogg?"

As a last resort, Fix was quite resolved to confess everything to Passepartout, to make known to him this master he served and whose accomplice he certainly was not. Passepartout, enlightened by this revelation, and fearing to be compromised, would no doubt side with him, Fix. But after all it was a risky means, one that could be used only when all else failed. A single word from Passepartout to his master would have been enough to wreck the affair beyond recall.

The police inspector was thus extremely at a loss, when the presence of Mrs. Aouda aboard the Rangoon, in Phileas Fogg's company, opened new prospects to him.

Who was this woman? What concurrence of circumstances had made her Fogg's companion? It was clearly between Bombay and Calcutta that the meeting had taken place. But at what point on the peninsula? Was it chance that had brought together Phileas Fogg and the young traveler? Had not this journey across India, on the contrary, been undertaken by that gentleman with the aim of joining this charming person? for she was charming! Fix had seen it plainly in the courtroom at Calcutta.

One can see how far the agent must have been intrigued. He wondered whether there was not in this affair some criminal abduction. Yes! that had to be it! This idea lodged itself in Fix's brain, and he recognized the whole advantage he could draw from the circumstance. Whether this young woman was married or not, there was an abduction, and it was possible, at Hong Kong, to raise for the abductor such difficulties as he could not buy his way out of.

But he must not wait for the Rangoon to arrive at Hong Kong. This Fogg had the detestable habit of leaping from one boat to the next, and, before the affair could be set going, he might already be far off.

The important thing, then, was to warn the English authorities and to report the Rangoon's passing before it landed. Now, nothing was easier, since the steamer put in at Singapore, and Singapore is linked to the Chinese coast by a telegraph wire.

Still, before acting, and in order to operate more surely, Fix resolved to question Passepartout. He knew it was not very hard to get this fellow talking, and he decided to break the incognito he had kept until then. Now, there was no time to lose. It was the 30th of October, and the very next day the Rangoon was to put in at Singapore.

So, that day, Fix, coming out of his cabin, went up on deck with the intention of being "the first" to approach Passepartout, with every mark of the utmost surprise. Passepartout was walking forward, when the inspector rushed toward him, exclaiming:

"You, on the Rangoon!

—Mr. Fix aboard! replied Passepartout, utterly surprised, recognizing his fellow traveler from the Mongolia. What! I leave you at Bombay, and I find you again on the way to Hong Kong! So you too are going round the world?

—No, no, replied Fix, and I mean to stop at Hong Kong—for a few days at least.

—Ah! said Passepartout, who seemed astonished for a moment. But how is it I haven't seen you aboard since we left Calcutta?

—My word, an indisposition... a touch of seasickness... I stayed lying down in my cabin... The Gulf of Bengal suits me less well than the Indian Ocean does. And your master, Mr. Phileas Fogg?

—In perfect health, and as punctual as his timetable! Not a day behind! Ah! Mr. Fix, you don't know this, but we also have a young lady with us.

—A young lady?" replied the agent, who looked perfectly as if he did not understand what the other meant.

But Passepartout soon had him up to date on the story. He told of the affair of the Bombay pagoda, the buying of the elephant at two thousand pounds, the suttee business, the rescue of Aouda, the sentence of the Calcutta court, the release on bail. Fix, who knew the last part of these incidents, seemed to know nothing of any of them, and Passepartout let himself be carried away by the charm of relating his adventures before a listener who showed him so much interest.

"But, in the end, asked Fix, does your master intend to take this young woman to Europe?

—Not at all, Mr. Fix, not at all! We shall simply hand her over to the care of one of her kinsmen, a wealthy merchant of Hong Kong."

"Nothing to be done!" the detective said to himself, masking his letdown. "A glass of gin, Mr. Passepartout?

—Gladly, Mr. Fix. It's the least we can do, to drink to our meeting aboard the Rangoon!"

Chapter 17 — In which this and that is discussed during the crossing from Singapore to Hong Kong

From that day on, Passepartout and the detective met often, but the agent kept extremely reserved toward his companion, and made no attempt to draw him out. Only once or twice did he catch a glimpse of Mr. Fogg, who was glad to stay in the Rangoon's grand saloon, either keeping company with Mrs. Aouda or playing whist, according to his unvarying habit.

As for Passepartout, he had set himself very seriously to brooding over the singular chance that had once more put Fix on his master's road. And indeed, one might have wondered at less. This gentleman, very amiable, very obliging to be sure, whom you first meet at Suez, who boards the Mongolia, who lands at Bombay, where he says he must stay, whom you find again on the Rangoon, bound for Hong Kong—in a word, following step by step Mr. Fogg's itinerary—that was worth thinking about. There was a coincidence here that was at the very least odd. What was this Fix after? Passepartout was ready to bet his slippers—he had carefully kept them—that Fix would leave Hong Kong at the same time as they, and probably on the same steamer.

Passepartout might have pondered for a century without ever guessing what mission the agent had been charged with. Never would he have imagined that Phileas Fogg was being "shadowed," like a thief, around the globe. But since it is in human nature to find an explanation for everything, here is how Passepartout, suddenly enlightened, interpreted Fix's constant presence—and, truly, his interpretation was quite plausible. According to him, in fact, Fix was and could only be an agent set on Mr. Fogg's trail by his colleagues of the Reform Club, in order to establish that this journey was being made properly around the world, following the agreed itinerary.

"It's obvious! it's obvious! the honest fellow kept telling himself, quite proud of his own shrewdness. He's a spy those gentlemen have set on our heels! Now there's something unworthy! Mr. Fogg so upright, so honorable! To have him spied on by an agent! Ah! gentlemen of the Reform Club, this will cost you dear!"

Passepartout, delighted with his discovery, resolved nonetheless to say nothing of it to his master, fearing the latter might be justly hurt by this mistrust his adversaries were showing him. But he firmly promised himself to twit Fix on occasion, in veiled terms and without giving himself away.

On Wednesday, the 30th of October, in the afternoon, the Rangoon passed into the Strait of Malacca, which divides the peninsula of that name from the lands of Sumatra. Steep, very picturesque mountainous islets hid the great island from the passengers' view.

The next day, at four in the morning, the Rangoon, having gained half a day on its regulation crossing, put in at Singapore to renew its supply of coal.

Phileas Fogg entered this gain in the column of profits and, this time, went ashore, accompanying Mrs. Aouda, who had expressed a wish to walk about for a few hours.

Fix, to whom Fogg's every action seemed suspect, followed him without letting himself be seen. As for Passepartout, who laughed in petto at watching Fix's maneuver, he went off to do his usual shopping.

The island of Singapore is neither large nor imposing in appearance. It lacks mountains—that is, skylines. Still, it is charming in its very slightness. It is a park cut through by fine roads. A handsome carriage, drawn by those elegant horses imported from New Holland, carried Mrs. Aouda and Phileas Fogg through clumps of palms with brilliant foliage and clove trees whose cloves are formed from the very bud of the half-opened flower. There, thickets of pepper plants replaced the thorny hedges of the European countryside; sago palms and great ferns with their superb fronds varied the aspect of this tropical region; nutmeg trees with glossy foliage saturated the air with a penetrating scent. Monkeys, in brisk, grimacing bands, were not lacking in the woods, nor perhaps the tigers in the jungles. To anyone surprised to learn that on this island, so relatively small, these terrible carnivores had not been wiped out to the last one, the answer is that they come over from Malacca by swimming across the strait.

After roaming the countryside for two hours, Mrs. Aouda and her companion—who looked about him a little without seeing—came back into the town, a vast huddle of heavy, squat houses surrounded by charming gardens where mangosteens, pineapples, and all the best fruits in the world grow.

At ten o'clock they were returning to the steamer, having been followed, without suspecting it, by the inspector, who had likewise had to go to the expense of hiring a carriage.

Passepartout was waiting for them on the Rangoon's deck. The good fellow had bought a few dozen mangosteens, big as medium-sized apples, a deep brown outside, a bright red within, and whose white flesh, melting between the lips, gives true gourmets a pleasure beyond compare. Passepartout was only too happy to offer them to Mrs. Aouda, who thanked him very graciously.

At eleven o'clock the Rangoon, having her full load of coal, cast off her moorings, and, a few hours later, the passengers lost sight of those high mountains of Malacca, whose forests shelter the finest tigers on earth.

About thirteen hundred miles separate Singapore from the island of Hong Kong, a small English territory detached from the Chinese coast. Phileas Fogg had an interest in covering them in six days at most, so as to catch at Hong Kong the boat due to sail on the 6th of November for Yokohama, one of the chief ports of Japan.

The Rangoon was heavily loaded. Numerous passengers had boarded at Singapore—Hindus, Ceylonese, Chinese, Malays, Portuguese—who, for the most part, occupied the second-class places.

The weather, fair enough until then, changed with the moon's last quarter. There was a heavy sea. The wind sometimes blew in a stiff breeze, but very luckily from the southeast, which favored the steamer's progress. When it was manageable, the captain had sail set. The Rangoon, brig-rigged, often sailed with her two topsails and her foresail, and her speed increased under the double action of steam and wind. In this way they ran, over a short and sometimes very trying swell, along the coasts of Annam and Cochinchina.

But the fault lay with the Rangoon rather than with the sea, and it was this steamer that the passengers, most of whom fell ill, had to blame for their exhaustion.

In fact, the Peninsular Company's ships that serve the China seas have a serious defect in their build. The ratio of their loaded draft to their depth of hold has been badly calculated, and, as a result, they offer only a feeble resistance to the sea. Their enclosed, watertight volume is insufficient. They are "swamped," to use the seaman's expression, and, in consequence of this arrangement, it takes only a few seas thrown aboard to alter their trim. These ships are therefore much inferior—if not in engine and evaporating apparatus, at least in construction—to the types of the French Messageries, such as the Impératrice and the Cambodge. Whereas, according to the engineers' calculations, the latter can take on a weight of water equal to their own before foundering, the Peninsular Company's boats, the Golgonda, the Corea, and finally the Rangoon, could not take on a sixth of their weight without going to the bottom.

So, in bad weather, great precautions had to be taken. It was sometimes necessary to lie to under low steam. This was a loss of time that seemed to affect Phileas Fogg in no way, but at which Passepartout showed himself extremely irritated. He then blamed the captain, the engineer, the Company, and consigned to the devil all those who meddle with carrying travelers. Perhaps, too, the thought of that gas jet still burning on his account in the house on Saville Row counted for much in his impatience.

"But are you in such a hurry, then, to get to Hong Kong? the detective asked him one day.

—In a great hurry! replied Passepartout.

—You think Mr. Fogg is eager to catch the Yokohama steamer?

—Terribly eager.

—So you now believe in this singular journey round the world?

—Absolutely. And you, Mr. Fix?

—Me? I don't believe in it!

—You joker!" replied Passepartout with a wink.

This word left the agent thoughtful. That description worried him, without his quite knowing why. Had the Frenchman guessed? He hardly knew what to think. But his status as a detective, whose secret he alone held, how could Passepartout have recognized it? And yet, in speaking to him thus, Passepartout had certainly had some ulterior meaning.

It even happened that the good fellow went further, another day, but he could not help it. He could not hold his tongue.

"Come now, Mr. Fix, he asked his companion in a sly tone, once we've reached Hong Kong, shall we have the misfortune of leaving you there?

—Well, replied Fix, rather embarrassed, I don't know!... Perhaps that...

—Ah! said Passepartout, if you were to come along with us, it would be a joy for me! Come now! an agent of the Peninsular Company couldn't stop halfway! You were bound only for Bombay, and now here you are in China! America isn't far, and from America to Europe is but a step!"

Fix watched his interlocutor closely, as the latter showed him the most amiable face in the world, and he made up his mind to laugh along with him. But the other, who was in the vein, asked him whether "it brought in a lot, this trade of his?"

"Yes and no, replied Fix without flinching. There are good and bad pieces of business. But you can well understand that I don't travel at my own expense!

—Oh! as for that, I'm sure of it!" cried Passepartout, laughing all the harder.

The conversation over, Fix went back into his cabin and set himself to thinking. He had evidently been found out. One way or another, the Frenchman had recognized his status as a detective. But had he warned his master? What role was he playing in all this? An accomplice or not? Was the affair blown, and consequently ruined? The agent spent some difficult hours there, now believing all was lost, now hoping that Fogg was unaware of the situation, and finally not knowing what course to take.

Still, calm returned to his brain, and he resolved to deal frankly with Passepartout. If he were not in the required conditions to seize Fogg at Hong Kong, and should Fogg be preparing to quit English territory for good this time, he, Fix, would tell Passepartout everything. Either the servant was his master's accomplice—and the master knew all, and in that case the affair was compromised for good—or the servant had no part in the theft, and then it would be in his interest to abandon the thief.

Such, then, was the respective position of these two men, and above them Phileas Fogg soared in his majestic indifference. He was rationally completing his orbit around the world, without troubling himself over the asteroids gravitating about him.

And yet, in the vicinity, there was—to use the astronomers' expression—a disturbing body that ought to have produced certain perturbations in this gentleman's heart. But no! Mrs. Aouda's charm had no effect, to Passepartout's great surprise, and the perturbations, if they existed, would have been harder to calculate than those of Uranus that brought about the discovery of Neptune.

Yes! it was a daily astonishment for Passepartout, who read so much gratitude toward his master in the young woman's eyes! Decidedly, Phileas Fogg had no more heart than was needed to behave heroically, but amorously, no! As for the anxieties that the hazards of this voyage might rouse in him, there was not a trace of them. But Passepartout, for his part, lived in continual dread. One day, leaning on the rail of the "engine-room," he was watching the powerful machine that sometimes raced away, when in a violent pitch the screw thrashed clear of the waves. The steam then hissed out through the valves, which stirred the worthy fellow to anger.

"They aren't loaded enough, these valves! he cried. We aren't moving! That's the English for you! Ah! if it were an American ship, we might blow up, but at least we'd go faster!"

Chapter 18 — In which Phileas Fogg, Passepartout, and Fix each go about their own business

During the last days of the crossing, the weather was quite bad. The wind grew very strong. Fixed in the northwest, it hindered the steamer's progress. The Rangoon, too unsteady, rolled heavily, and the passengers had every right to bear a grudge against those long, sickening swells the wind raised from the open sea.

During the days of the 3rd and 4th of November, there was a kind of storm. The squall lashed the sea with violence. The Rangoon had to lie to for half a day, holding herself with only ten turns of the screw, so as to take the seas at an angle. All the sails had been furled, and it was still too much of that rigging whistling in the midst of the gusts.

The steamer's speed, as may be imagined, was notably reduced, and it was reckoned that she would make Hong Kong twenty hours behind the scheduled time, and even more, if the storm did not let up.

Phileas Fogg watched this spectacle of a furious sea, which seemed to be striving directly against him, with his customary impassiveness. His brow did not darken for a moment, and yet a delay of twenty hours could jeopardize his voyage by making him miss the departure of the Yokohama steamer. But this man without nerves felt neither impatience nor annoyance. It really seemed that this storm fell within his program, that it had been foreseen. Mrs. Aouda, who talked with her companion about this setback, found him as calm as ever.

Fix, for his part, did not see these things with the same eye. Quite the contrary. This storm pleased him. His satisfaction would even have been boundless had the Rangoon been forced to run before the tempest. All these delays suited him, for they would oblige Mr. Fogg to stay a few days at Hong Kong. At last the sky, with its gusts and squalls, was playing his game. He was rather ill, to be sure, but what did it matter! He did not count his bouts of nausea, and, while his body writhed under seasickness, his mind reveled in an immense satisfaction.

As for Passepartout, one can guess in what ill-concealed anger he passed this time of trial. Until then everything had gone so well! Land and water had seemed devoted to his master. Steamers and railways did his bidding. Wind and steam joined to favor his voyage. Had the hour of setbacks at last struck, then? Passepartout, as if the twenty thousand pounds of the wager were to come out of his own purse, could no longer bear it. This storm exasperated him, this gale drove him into a fury, and he would gladly have whipped that disobedient sea! Poor fellow! Fix carefully hid his personal satisfaction from him, and he did well, for if Passepartout had guessed Fix's secret contentment, Fix would have had a bad quarter of an hour.

Passepartout, throughout the squall, stayed on the Rangoon's deck. He could not have stayed below; he climbed into the rigging; he astonished the crew and lent a hand at everything with the agility of a monkey. A hundred times he questioned the captain, the officers, the sailors, who could not help laughing to see a fellow so put out. Passepartout absolutely wanted to know how long the storm would last. He was then sent back to the barometer, which would not make up its mind to rise. Passepartout shook the barometer, but nothing came of it, neither the shaking nor the abuse he heaped on the irresponsible instrument.

At last the tempest subsided. The state of the sea changed during the day of the 4th of November. The wind shifted two points to the south and became favorable again.

Passepartout brightened along with the weather. The topsails and the lower sails could be set, and the Rangoon resumed its course at a marvelous speed.

But all the lost time could not be made up. There was nothing for it but to accept the fact, and land was not sighted until the 6th, at five in the morning. Phileas Fogg's itinerary put the steamer's arrival on the 5th. Now, it was arriving only on the 6th. That was therefore twenty-four hours' delay, and the departure for Yokohama would necessarily be missed.

At six o'clock, the pilot came aboard the Rangoon and took his place on the bridge, in order to steer the ship through the passes to the port of Hong Kong.

Passepartout was dying to question this man, to ask him whether the Yokohama steamer had left Hong Kong. But he dared not, preferring to keep a little hope until the last instant. He had confided his anxieties to Fix, who—the sly fox—tried to console him, telling him that Mr. Fogg would get off with taking the next steamer. Which put Passepartout into a livid rage.

But if Passepartout did not venture to question the pilot, Mr. Fogg, after consulting his Bradshaw, asked the said pilot in his quiet manner whether he knew when a boat would leave Hong Kong for Yokohama.

"Tomorrow, on the morning tide, replied the pilot.

—Ah!" said Mr. Fogg, without showing any astonishment.

Passepartout, who was present, would gladly have embraced the pilot, whose neck Fix would have liked to wring.

"What is the name of this steamer? asked Mr. Fogg.

—The Carnatic, replied the pilot.

—Wasn't it yesterday that she was to leave?

—Yes, sir, but one of her boilers had to be repaired, and her departure was put off to tomorrow.

—I thank you," replied Mr. Fogg, who with his automatic step went back down into the Rangoon's saloon.

As for Passepartout, he seized the pilot's hand and gripped it vigorously, saying:

"You, pilot, you're a fine fellow!"

The pilot never knew, no doubt, why his answers earned him this friendly outpouring. At a whistle blast, he went back up on the bridge and steered the steamer through that flotilla of junks, tankas, fishing boats, and vessels of every kind, that crowded the narrows of Hong Kong.

At one o'clock, the Rangoon lay alongside the quay, and the passengers began going ashore.

On this occasion, chance had served Phileas Fogg remarkably, it must be granted. Without this need to repair her boilers, the Carnatic would have sailed on the 5th of November, and the travelers for Japan would have had to wait eight days for the departure of the next steamer. Mr. Fogg, it is true, was twenty-four hours behind, but this delay could have no unfortunate consequences for the rest of the voyage.

In fact, the steamer that makes the Pacific crossing from Yokohama to San Francisco was in direct connection with the Hong Kong steamer, and could not leave before the latter had arrived. Obviously there would be twenty-four hours' delay at Yokohama, but, during the twenty-two days that the Pacific crossing lasts, it would be easy to make them up. Phileas Fogg found himself, then, within twenty-four hours, within the conditions of his program, thirty-five days after leaving London.

The Carnatic not being due to leave until five o'clock the next morning, Mr. Fogg was left sixteen hours to attend to his affairs—that is, to those concerning Mrs. Aouda. On leaving the boat, he offered his arm to the young woman and led her toward a palanquin. He asked the bearers to point him to a hotel, and they named the Club Hotel. The palanquin set off, followed by Passepartout, and twenty minutes later it reached its destination.

A suite was engaged for the young woman, and Phileas Fogg saw to it that she lacked for nothing. Then he told Mrs. Aouda that he was going to set out at once in search of this relative in whose care he was to leave her at Hong Kong. At the same time he gave Passepartout the order to stay at the hotel until his return, so that the young woman should not be left there alone.

The gentleman had himself driven to the Exchange. There, they would surely know a figure such as the honorable Jejeeh, who ranked among the richest merchants of the city.

The broker whom Mr. Fogg addressed did indeed know the Parsi merchant. But for two years now, the man had no longer lived in China. His fortune made, he had settled in Europe—in Holland, it was thought—which was explained by the many dealings he had had with that country during his business life.

Phileas Fogg returned to the Club Hotel. At once he had Mrs. Aouda asked for permission to present himself before her, and, without further preamble, informed her that the honorable Jejeeh no longer resided at Hong Kong, and that he probably lived in Holland.

To this, Mrs. Aouda at first made no reply. She passed her hand over her brow and remained a few moments in thought. Then, in her soft voice:

"What am I to do, Mr. Fogg? she said.

—It is very simple, replied the gentleman. Return to Europe.

—But I cannot impose...

—You are not imposing, and your presence hampers my program in no way... Passepartout?

—Sir? replied Passepartout.

—Go to the Carnatic, and book three cabins."

Passepartout, delighted to continue his journey in the company of the young woman, who was most gracious to him, left the Club Hotel at once.

Chapter 19 — In which Passepartout takes far too keen an interest in his master, and what ensues from it

Hong Kong is only an islet, whose possession was secured to England by the Treaty of Nanking, after the war of 1842. In a few years, Great Britain's colonizing genius had founded there an important town and created a port, Port Victoria. This island sits at the mouth of the Canton River; a mere sixty miles separate it from the Portuguese city of Macao, built on the opposite bank. Hong Kong was bound to defeat Macao in a commercial rivalry, and now the greater part of the Chinese transit trade passes through the English town. Docks, hospitals, wharves, warehouses, a Gothic cathedral, a "government house," macadamized streets—everything would make you believe that one of the trading towns of the counties of Kent or Surrey, passing through the terrestrial spheroid, had come out again at this point in China, almost at its antipodes.

Passepartout, his hands in his pockets, made his way, then, toward Port Victoria, looking at the palanquins, the sail-driven wheelbarrows still in favor in the Celestial Empire, and all that crowd of Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans thronging the streets. Give or take a little, it was still Bombay, Calcutta, or Singapore that the worthy fellow found again along his route. There is thus, as it were, a trail of English towns all around the world.

Passepartout reached Port Victoria. There, at the mouth of the Canton River, was a swarm of ships of every nation—English, French, American, Dutch, vessels of war and of commerce, Japanese or Chinese craft, junks, sampans, tankas, and even flower boats that made so many floating flower beds on the waters. As he strolled, Passepartout noticed a certain number of natives dressed in yellow, all very advanced in years. Having gone into a Chinese barber's to be shaved "in the Chinese fashion," he learned from the local Figaro, who spoke fairly good English, that these old men had all reached at least eighty, and that at such an age they held the privilege of wearing the color yellow, which is the imperial color. Passepartout found this very funny, without quite knowing why.

His shave done, he made his way to the Carnatic's boarding quay, and there he caught sight of Fix pacing up and down, at which he was not the least surprised. But the police inspector let his face show the marks of a keen disappointment.

"Good! Passepartout said to himself, things are going badly for the gentlemen of the Reform Club!"

And he accosted Fix with his cheerful smile, choosing not to notice his companion's vexed air.

Now, the agent had good reasons to fume against the infernal luck that dogged him. No warrant! It was clear that the warrant was running after him, and could only catch up with him if he stayed a few days in this city. Now, Hong Kong being the last English soil on the route, Mr. Fogg was going to escape him for good, if he did not manage to keep him there.

"Well, Mr. Fix, have you decided to come with us as far as America? asked Passepartout.

—Yes, replied Fix through clenched teeth.

—Come along, then! cried Passepartout, letting out a ringing burst of laughter. I knew perfectly well you couldn't tear yourself away from us. Come and book your place, come!"

And the two of them went into the maritime transport office and booked cabins for four people. But the clerk pointed out to them that, the Carnatic's repairs being finished, the steamer would leave that very evening at eight o'clock, and not the next morning, as had been announced.

"Very good! replied Passepartout, that will suit my master. I'll go and let him know."

At that moment, Fix took an extreme decision. He resolved to tell Passepartout everything. It was perhaps the only means he had of holding Phileas Fogg for a few days at Hong Kong.

On leaving the office, Fix offered his companion a chance to refresh himself in a tavern. Passepartout had the time. He accepted Fix's invitation.

A tavern opened onto the quay. It had an inviting look. The two of them went in. It was a vast, well-decorated room, at the far end of which stretched a camp bed fitted with cushions. On this bed were laid out a number of sleepers.

Some thirty customers occupied little tables of woven rush in the great room. A few were draining pints of English beer, ale or porter; others, jugs of alcoholic liquors, gin or brandy. Besides this, most of them were smoking long pipes of red clay, stuffed with little pellets of opium mixed with essence of rose. Then, from time to time, some enervated smoker would slide under the table, and the staff of the establishment, taking him by the feet and the head, would carry him onto the camp bed beside a fellow. A score of these drunkards were thus laid out side by side, in the last degree of stupefaction.

Fix and Passepartout understood that they had entered an opium den haunted by these wretches—dulled, wasted, idiotic—to whom mercantile England sells, every year, two hundred and sixty million francs' worth of that fatal drug called opium! Sad millions, those, levied on one of the most fatal vices of human nature.

The Chinese government has indeed tried to remedy such an abuse by severe laws, but in vain. From the rich class, to which the use of opium was at first strictly confined, this use came down to the lower classes, and the ravages could no longer be stopped. Opium is smoked everywhere and always in the Middle Kingdom. Men and women give themselves over to this deplorable passion, and once accustomed to this inhalation, they can no longer do without it, unless they suffer horrible contractions of the stomach. A heavy smoker can smoke up to eight pipes a day, but he dies within five years.

Now, it was into one of the numerous dens of this kind, which swarm even at Hong Kong, that Fix and Passepartout had gone with the intention of refreshing themselves. Passepartout had no money, but he willingly accepted his companion's "courtesy," meaning to return it in due time and place.

Two bottles of port were called for, to which the Frenchman did generous honor, while Fix, more restrained, observed his companion with the closest attention. They chatted of this and that, and above all of the excellent idea Fix had had of taking passage on the Carnatic. And, on the subject of this steamer, whose departure had been brought forward by a few hours, Passepartout, the bottles being empty, rose in order to go and let his master know.

Fix held him back.

"One moment, he said.

—What do you want, Mr. Fix?

—I have to speak to you about serious matters.

—Serious matters! cried Passepartout, draining a few drops of wine left at the bottom of his glass. Well, we'll talk about them tomorrow. I haven't the time today.

—Stay, replied Fix. It concerns your master!"

At that word, Passepartout looked closely at his companion.

The expression on Fix's face struck him as odd. He sat down again.

"What is it, then, that you have to tell me?" he asked.

Fix laid his hand on his companion's arm and, lowering his voice:

"You have guessed who I was? he asked him.

—By Jove! said Passepartout, smiling.

—Then I am going to confess everything to you...

—Now that I know it all, my fine fellow! Ah! that's not much of a thing! Well, go on anyway. But first, allow me to say that those gentlemen have put themselves out to no purpose whatever!

—Needlessly! said Fix. You speak of it lightly! It's plain you don't know the size of the sum!

—Why, yes I do, replied Passepartout. Twenty thousand pounds!

—Fifty-five thousand! rejoined Fix, gripping the Frenchman's hand.

—What! cried Passepartout, Mr. Fogg would have dared!... Fifty-five thousand pounds!... Well then! all the more reason not to lose an instant, he added, rising again.

—Fifty-five thousand pounds! rejoined Fix, who forced Passepartout to sit down again, after having a flask of brandy brought over—and if I succeed, I earn a reward of two thousand pounds. Will you take five hundred (12,500 F) on condition that you help me?

—Help you? cried Passepartout, whose eyes were opened enormously wide.

—Yes, help me hold Mr. Fogg for a few days at Hong Kong!

—Hey! said Passepartout, what are you saying there? What! not content with having my master followed, with suspecting his honesty, these gentlemen want besides to raise obstacles for him! I'm ashamed of them for it!

—Come now! what do you mean? asked Fix.

—I mean that it's pure caddishness. You might as well strip Mr. Fogg and take the money out of his pocket!

—Well! that's precisely what we mean to come to!

—But it's an ambush! cried Passepartout—who was now warming up under the influence of the brandy Fix was serving him, and which he drank without noticing—a real ambush! Gentlemen! colleagues!"

Fix was beginning to be lost.

"Colleagues! cried Passepartout, members of the Reform Club! Let me tell you, Mr. Fix, that my master is a man of honor, and that, when he has laid a wager, he means to win it fairly.

—But who do you think I am, then? asked Fix, fixing his gaze on Passepartout.

—By Jove! an agent working for the members of the Reform Club, whose task is to check my master's itinerary, which is singularly humiliating! And so, although for some time now I've guessed your calling, I've taken good care not to reveal it to Mr. Fogg!

—He knows nothing?... asked Fix eagerly.

—Nothing," replied Passepartout, draining his glass once more.

The police inspector passed his hand over his brow. He hesitated before speaking again. What was he to do? Passepartout's mistake seemed sincere, but it made his plan harder. It was clear that this fellow spoke in absolute good faith, and that he was not his master's accomplice—which is what Fix might have feared.

"Well, he said to himself, since he's not his accomplice, he'll help me."

The detective had made up his mind a second time. Besides, he no longer had time to wait. At all costs, Fogg had to be stopped at Hong Kong.

"Listen, said Fix in a curt voice, listen to me carefully. I am not what you think, that is, an agent working for the members of the Reform Club...

—Bah! said Passepartout, looking at him mockingly.

—I am a police inspector, charged with a mission by the metropolitan administration...

—You... a police inspector!...

—Yes, and I'll prove it, went on Fix. Here is my commission."

And the agent, drawing a paper from his wallet, showed his companion a commission signed by the director of the central police. Passepartout, thunderstruck, looked at Fix, unable to utter a word.

"Mr. Fogg's wager, went on Fix, is nothing but a pretext, of which you are the dupes, you and his colleagues of the Reform Club, for he had an interest in securing your unwitting complicity.

—But why?... cried Passepartout.

—Listen. On the 28th of September last, a theft of fifty-five thousand pounds was carried out at the Bank of England by an individual whose description was obtained. Now, here is that description, and it is, feature for feature, that of Mr. Fogg.

—Come now! cried Passepartout, striking the table with his sturdy fist. My master is the most honest man in the world!

—What do you know about it? replied Fix. You don't even know him! You entered his service the very day of his departure, and he left in a rush on some senseless pretext, without trunks, carrying off a large sum in banknotes! And you dare to maintain that he's an honest man!

—Yes! yes! the poor fellow kept repeating mechanically.

—Do you want to be arrested, then, as his accomplice?"

Passepartout had taken his head in both hands. He was no longer recognizable. He dared not look at the police inspector. Phileas Fogg a thief—he, the rescuer of Aouda, the generous and brave man! And yet, how many presumptions raised against him! Passepartout tried to push away the suspicions creeping into his mind. He would not believe in his master's guilt.

"In short, what do you want of me? he said to the police agent, restraining himself by a supreme effort.

—Here it is, replied Fix. I have shadowed Mr. Fogg this far, but I have not yet received the warrant of arrest that I asked London for. So you must help me keep him at Hong Kong...

—I! that I should...

—And I'll share with you the reward of two thousand pounds promised by the Bank of England!

—Never!" replied Passepartout, who tried to stand and fell back again, feeling his reason and his strength slip from him at once.

"Mr. Fix, he said, stammering, even if everything you've told me were true... even if my master were the thief you're after... which I deny... I have been... I am in his service... I have seen him kind and generous... to betray him... never... no, not for all the gold on earth... I'm from a village where they don't eat that kind of bread!...

—You refuse?

—I refuse.

—Let's say I've said nothing, replied Fix, and let's drink.

—Yes, let's drink!"

Passepartout felt himself more and more overcome by drunkenness. Fix, understanding that he had at all costs to separate him from his master, decided to finish him off. On the table were a few pipes charged with opium. Fix slipped one into Passepartout's hand, who took it, raised it to his lips, lit it, breathed in a few puffs, and fell back, his head heavy under the influence of the narcotic.

"At last, said Fix, seeing Passepartout laid low, Mr. Fogg will not be warned in time of the Carnatic's departure, and if he leaves, at least he'll leave without this accursed Frenchman!"

Then he went out, after paying the bill.

Chapter 20 — In which Fix enters into direct relations with Phileas Fogg

During this scene, which was perhaps going to compromise his future so gravely, Mr. Fogg, accompanying Mrs. Aouda, was strolling through the streets of the English town. Ever since Mrs. Aouda had accepted his offer to take her to Europe, he had had to think of all the details that so long a journey involves. That an Englishman like himself should go round the world with a bag in his hand, well and good; but a woman could not undertake such a crossing under those conditions. Hence the need to buy the clothes and articles necessary for the trip. Mr. Fogg discharged his task with the calm that was characteristic of him, and to all the excuses or objections of the young widow, embarrassed by so much obligingness:

"It's in the interest of my journey, it's in my program," he replied invariably.

The purchases made, Mr. Fogg and the young woman returned to the hotel and dined at the table d'hôte, which was sumptuously served. Then Mrs. Aouda, a little tired, went back up to her suite, after shaking hands "in the English manner" with her imperturbable rescuer.

The honorable gentleman, for his part, absorbed himself the whole evening in the reading of the Times and the Illustrated London News.

Had he been a man to be surprised at anything, it would have been at not seeing his servant appear at bedtime. But, knowing that the Yokohama steamer was not to leave Hong Kong before the next morning, he gave it no further thought. The next day, Passepartout did not come at Mr. Fogg's ring.

What the honorable gentleman thought on learning that his servant had not come back to the hotel, no one could have told. Mr. Fogg merely took his bag, had Mrs. Aouda informed, and sent for a palanquin.

It was then eight o'clock, and high tide, which the Carnatic was to make use of to clear the channels, was set for half past nine.

When the palanquin had reached the door of the hotel, Mr. Fogg and Mrs. Aouda got into that comfortable conveyance, and the luggage followed behind on a wheelbarrow.

Half an hour later, the travelers were getting down at the boarding quay, and there Mr. Fogg learned that the Carnatic had left the day before.

Mr. Fogg, who had counted on finding both the steamer and his servant at once, found himself reduced to doing without both. But no mark of disappointment showed on his face, and as Mrs. Aouda looked at him anxiously, he merely replied:

"It's an incident, madam, nothing more."

At that moment, a person who was watching him attentively came up to him. It was Inspector Fix, who greeted him and said:

"Are you not, like me, sir, one of the passengers of the Rangoon, arrived yesterday?

—Yes, sir, Mr. Fogg replied coldly, but I have not the honor...

—Forgive me, but I thought I would find your servant here.

—Do you know where he is, sir? the young woman asked eagerly.

—What! replied Fix, feigning surprise, isn't he with you?

—No, replied Mrs. Aouda. Since yesterday he has not reappeared. Could he have boarded the Carnatic without us?

—Without you, madam?... replied the agent. But, excuse my question, you meant to leave on that steamer, then?

—Yes, sir.

—So did I, madam, and you see me very much disappointed. The Carnatic, having finished its repairs, left Hong Kong twelve hours early without warning anyone, and now we shall have to wait eight days for the next departure!"

In uttering these words, "eight days," Fix felt his heart leap with joy. Eight days! Fogg held eight days at Hong Kong! There would be time to receive the warrant of arrest. At last luck was declaring itself for the representative of the law.

One can judge, then, the sledgehammer blow he received when he heard Phileas Fogg say in his calm voice:

"But there are other vessels than the Carnatic, it seems to me, in Hong Kong harbor."

And Mr. Fogg, offering his arm to Mrs. Aouda, headed toward the docks in search of a ship about to sail.

Fix, thunderstruck, followed. You would have said a thread bound him to this man.

Still, luck really did seem to abandon the man it had served so well until then. Phileas Fogg, for three hours, roamed the port in every direction, resolved, if need be, to hire a vessel to bear him to Yokohama; but he saw only ships loading or unloading, and which, consequently, could not weigh anchor. Fix began to hope again.

However, Mr. Fogg did not lose countenance, and he was about to continue his search, even as far as Macao, when a sailor accosted him on the outer harbor.

"Is Your Honor looking for a boat? the sailor said to him, taking off his hat.

—Have you a boat ready to leave? asked Mr. Fogg.

—Yes, Your Honor, a pilot boat, No. 43, the best of the flotilla.

—Does she sail well?

—Between eight and nine miles, close-hauled. Would you like to see her?

—Yes.

—Your Honor will be satisfied. Is it a trip out to sea you have in mind?

—No. A voyage.

—A voyage?

—Will you undertake to take me to Yokohama?"

At these words, the sailor stood with his arms hanging, his eyes wide open.

"Your Honor is joking? he said.

—No! I've missed the departure of the Carnatic, and I must reach Yokohama on the 14th at the very latest, to catch the San Francisco steamer.

—I'm sorry, replied the pilot, but it's impossible.

—I'll offer you a hundred pounds (2,500 F) a day, and a reward of two hundred pounds if I arrive in time.

—Is this serious? asked the pilot.

—Very serious," replied Mr. Fogg.

The pilot had drawn aside. He looked at the sea, evidently torn between the wish to earn an enormous sum and his dread of venturing so far. Fix was in an agony of suspense.

During this time, Mr. Fogg had turned back toward Mrs. Aouda.

"You won't be afraid, madam? he asked her.

—With you, no, Mr. Fogg," replied the young woman.

The pilot had come forward again toward the gentleman, and was turning his hat in his hands.

"Well, pilot? said Mr. Fogg.

—Well, Your Honor, replied the pilot, I can't risk my men, or myself, or you either, on so long a crossing in a boat of barely twenty tons, and at this time of year. Besides, we wouldn't arrive in time, for it's sixteen hundred and fifty miles from Hong Kong to Yokohama.

—Sixteen hundred only, said Mr. Fogg.

—It's the same thing."

Fix drew a good breath of air.

"But, added the pilot, there might perhaps be a way to manage things differently."

Fix stopped breathing.

"How? asked Phileas Fogg.

—By going to Nagasaki, the southern tip of Japan, eleven hundred miles, or only to Shanghai, eight hundred miles from Hong Kong. On that last crossing, we would keep close to the Chinese coast, a real advantage, all the more so since the currents there set to the north.

—Pilot, replied Phileas Fogg, it's at Yokohama that I must catch the American mail steamer, and not at Shanghai or Nagasaki.

—Why not? replied the pilot. The San Francisco steamer doesn't start from Yokohama. It calls at Yokohama and Nagasaki, but its port of departure is Shanghai.

—You're certain of what you say?

—Certain.

—And when does the steamer leave Shanghai?

—On the 11th, at seven o'clock in the evening. So we have four days before us. Four days, that's ninety-six hours, and with an average of eight miles an hour, if we're well served, if the wind holds from the southeast, if the sea is calm, we can carry off the eight hundred miles that separate us from Shanghai.

—And you could leave?...

—In an hour. Just time to buy provisions and get under way.

—It's settled... Are you the master of the boat?

—Yes, John Bunsby, master of the Tankadère.

—Do you want a deposit?

—If it doesn't inconvenience Your Honor.

—Here is two hundred pounds on account... Sir, Phileas Fogg added, turning to Fix, if you would care to take advantage...

—Sir, replied Fix resolutely, I was about to ask you this favor.

—Good. In half an hour we'll be aboard.

—But that poor fellow... said Mrs. Aouda, whom Passepartout's disappearance troubled extremely.

—I'm going to do for him all that I can do," replied Phileas Fogg.

And, while Fix, nervous, feverish, seething, made his way to the pilot boat, the two of them headed toward the offices of the Hong Kong police. There, Phileas Fogg gave the description of Passepartout, and left a sum sufficient to repatriate him. The same formality was carried out at the office of the French consular agent, and the palanquin, after touching at the hotel, where the luggage was picked up, brought the travelers back to the outer harbor.

Three o'clock was striking. Pilot boat No. 43, its crew aboard, its provisions embarked, was ready to weigh anchor.

She was a charming little schooner of twenty tons, the Tankadère, well nipped forward, very free in her lines, very drawn out in her waterlines. You would have called her a racing yacht. Her shining brasswork, her galvanized ironwork, her deck white as ivory, showed that master John Bunsby knew how to keep her in good order. Her two masts raked a little aft. She carried a spanker, a foresail, a staysail, jibs, topsails, and could rig a studding sail for a following wind. She was bound to sail marvelously, and, in fact, she had already won several prizes in the pilot boats' "matches."

The crew of the Tankadère was made up of master John Bunsby and four men. They were of those bold sailors who, in all weathers, venture out in search of ships, and know these seas admirably. John Bunsby, a man of about forty-five, vigorous, tanned dark, quick of eye, energetic of face, well set up, well up to his work, would have inspired confidence in the most fearful.

Phileas Fogg and Mrs. Aouda came aboard. Fix was already there. Through the after-hatch of the schooner, one went down into a square cabin, whose walls were hollowed out in the shape of frames, above a circular divan. In the middle, a table lit by a swinging lamp. It was small, but clean.

"I regret having nothing better to offer you," Mr. Fogg said to Fix, who bowed without a word.

The police inspector felt a kind of humiliation at thus profiting from Mr. Fogg's obliging ways.

"To be sure, he thought, he's a very polite scoundrel, but a scoundrel all the same!"

At ten minutes past three, the sails were hoisted. The flag of England flew at the schooner's gaff. The passengers were seated on the deck. Mr. Fogg and Mrs. Aouda cast a last look at the quay, to see whether Passepartout would not appear.

Fix was not without apprehension, for chance might have brought to that very spot the unfortunate fellow he had so shamefully treated, and then an explanation would have burst out, from which the detective would not have come off to his advantage. But the Frenchman did not show himself, and, no doubt, the stupefying narcotic still held him under its influence.

At last, master John Bunsby stood out to sea, and the Tankadère, taking the wind under her spanker, her foresail, and her jibs, leapt bounding over the waves.

Chapter 21 — In which the master of the «Tankadère» stands in serious danger of losing a bonus of two hundred pounds

It was an adventurous undertaking, this voyage of eight hundred miles aboard a craft of twenty tons, and above all at this season of the year. They are generally bad, these seas of China, exposed to terrible gales, chiefly during the equinoxes, and it was still only the first days of November.

It would clearly have been to the pilot's advantage to carry his passengers all the way to Yokohama, since he was paid by the day. But it would have been great recklessness on his part to attempt such a crossing under these conditions, and it was already an act of daring, if not of foolhardiness, to push as far as Shanghai. But John Bunsby had confidence in his Tankadère, which rose to the swell like a gull, and perhaps he was not wrong.

During the last hours of that day, the Tankadère sailed through the fickle channels of Hong Kong, and under every point of sailing, close-hauled or before the wind, she behaved admirably.

«I have no need, pilot,» said Phileas Fogg the moment the schooner stood out to sea, «to urge on you all possible dispatch.»

«Your Honour may rely on me,» replied John Bunsby. «As for sails, we carry all the wind allows us to carry. Our topsails would add nothing, and would only serve to press the boat down and hurt her way.»

«That is your trade, pilot, and not mine, and I put my trust in you.»

Phileas Fogg, body erect, legs apart, steady as a sailor, watched the heaving sea without flinching. The young woman, seated aft, felt herself moved as she gazed at that ocean, already darkened by dusk, which she was braving on a fragile little craft. Above her head spread the white sails, carrying her through space like great wings. The schooner, lifted by the wind, seemed to fly through the air.

Night came. The moon was entering its first quarter, and its faint light would soon fade in the mists of the horizon. Clouds were driving up from the east and already invading part of the sky.

The pilot had set his running lights—an indispensable precaution to take in these seas so crowded near the landfalls. Encounters between ships were not rare there, and, at the speed she was making, the schooner would have been shattered at the slightest collision.

Fix was lost in thought at the bow of the boat. He kept apart, knowing Fogg to be of a scarcely talkative nature. Besides, it repelled him to speak to this man whose services he was accepting. He mused as well on what was to come. To his mind it was beyond doubt that Mr. Fogg would not stop at Yokohama, that he would take the San Francisco steamer at once in order to reach America, whose vast expanse would assure him impunity along with safety. Phileas Fogg's plan seemed to him as simple as could be.

Instead of sailing from England for the United States like a common crook, this Fogg had made the grand tour and crossed three-quarters of the globe, in order to reach the American continent more surely, where he would quietly eat up the Bank's million after throwing the police off his trail. But once on Union soil, what would Fix do? Would he desert this fellow? No, a hundred times over, no! And until he had obtained a writ of extradition, he would not budge a step from him. It was his duty, and he would carry it out to the very end. In any case, one happy circumstance had arisen: Passepartout was no longer beside his master, and above all, after Fix's confidences, it was important that master and servant should never see each other again.

Phileas Fogg, for his part, was likewise not without thoughts of his servant, who had vanished so oddly. All things considered, it did not seem impossible to him that, through some misunderstanding, the poor fellow had boarded the Carnatic at the very last moment. That was also the opinion of Mrs. Aouda, who deeply missed that honest servant to whom she owed so much. It might therefore be that he would be found again at Yokohama, and, if the Carnatic had carried him there, it would be easy to learn.

Toward ten o'clock the breeze freshened. Perhaps it would have been wise to take in a reef, but the pilot, after carefully studying the state of the sky, left the canvas as it was set. Moreover, the Tankadère carried sail admirably, having a deep draught, and everything was ready to strike quickly in case of a squall.

At midnight, Phileas Fogg and Mrs. Aouda went down into the cabin. Fix had gone before them and had stretched out on one of the bunks. As for the pilot and his men, they stayed on deck all night.

The next day, November 8, at sunrise, the schooner had made more than a hundred miles. The log, cast often, showed that her average speed was between eight and nine miles. The Tankadère had the wind on her quarter, all her sails drawing, and under this point of sailing she reached her maximum speed. If the wind held in these conditions, the odds were in her favour.

Throughout that day the Tankadère did not draw appreciably away from the coast, whose currents were favourable to her. She held it five miles off at most on her port quarter, and this coast, irregularly outlined, appeared at times through breaks in the haze. The wind coming off the land, the sea was less heavy for that very reason: a happy circumstance for the schooner, for craft of small tonnage suffer above all from the swell that breaks their speed, that «kills them,» to use the seamen's expression.

Toward noon the breeze slackened a little and hauled to the south-east. The pilot had the topsails set; but at the end of two hours they had to be taken in, for the wind was freshening again.

Mr. Fogg and the young woman, most fortunately proof against seasickness, ate the ship's tinned food and biscuit with appetite. Fix was invited to share their meal and had to accept, well knowing that it is as necessary to ballast stomachs as boats, but it vexed him! To travel at this man's expense, to feed on his very provisions, he found in it something rather disloyal. Still, he ate—on the run, it is true—but eat he did.

However, when this meal was over, he thought he ought to take Mr. Fogg aside, and he said to him:

«Sir...»

That «sir» scraped his lips, and he held himself back from laying his hand on the collar of this «sir»!

«Sir, you have been most obliging in offering me passage aboard your vessel. But, although my means do not allow me to act as handsomely as you, I intend to pay my share...

--Let us not speak of it, sir,» replied Mr. Fogg.

«But indeed, I insist...

--No, sir,» Fogg repeated in a tone that brooked no reply. «This goes into the general expenses!»

Fix bowed; he was choking, and, going to stretch out on the fore part of the schooner, he did not say another word all day.

Meanwhile they were running along rapidly. John Bunsby was full of hope. Several times he told Mr. Fogg they would make Shanghai in good time. Mr. Fogg simply replied that he was counting on it. Besides, the whole crew of the little schooner threw itself into the task with zeal. The bonus tempted these good fellows. And so not a sheet that was not conscientiously hauled taut! Not a sail that was not vigorously set up! Not a yaw that could be laid to the helmsman's charge! They could not have manoeuvred more strictly in a Royal Yacht Club regatta.

In the evening the pilot had logged a run of two hundred and twenty miles from Hong Kong, and Phileas Fogg could hope that, on reaching Yokohama, he would have no delay to enter in his schedule. Thus the first serious setback he had met since leaving London would probably cause him no harm at all.

During the night, toward the small hours of the morning, the Tankadère entered squarely into the Strait of Fo-Kien, which separates the great island of Formosa from the Chinese coast, and she cut across the Tropic of Cancer. In this strait the sea ran very high, churned with eddies thrown up by the counter-currents. The schooner laboured greatly. The short seas broke her way. It became very difficult to keep one's feet on deck.

With daybreak the wind freshened still more. There was the look of a gale in the sky. Moreover, the barometer foretold a coming change in the atmosphere; its daily movement was irregular, and the mercury swung capriciously. The sea, too, could be seen heaving toward the south-east in long swells «that smelled of the tempest.» The evening before, the sun had set in a red haze, amid the phosphorescent sparklings of the ocean.

The pilot examined this evil aspect of the sky for a long while and muttered barely intelligible things between his teeth. At one point, finding himself near his passenger:

«May one tell Your Honour everything?» he said in a low voice.

«Everything,» replied Phileas Fogg.

«Well then, we are going to have a gale.

--Will it come from the north or the south?» Mr. Fogg simply asked.

«From the south. Look. It is a typhoon brewing!

--A south typhoon let it be, then, since it will drive us the right way,» replied Mr. Fogg.

«If you take it like that,» retorted the pilot, «I have nothing more to say!»

John Bunsby's forebodings did not deceive him. Earlier in the year, the typhoon, in the words of a famous meteorologist, would have flowed away like a luminous cascade of electric flames; but with the winter equinox at hand, one had to fear that it would break loose with violence.

The pilot took his measures well ahead of time. He had all the schooner's sails furled and the yards brought down on deck. The topmast poles were sent down. The jib-boom was run in. The hatches were carefully battened down. Not a drop of water could henceforth get into the hull of the boat. A single triangular sail, a storm-jib of stout canvas, was hoisted in place of a fore-staysail, so as to hold the schooner before the wind. And they waited.

John Bunsby had urged his passengers to go down into the cabin; but, in a cramped space, nearly without air, and with the jolting of the swell, this imprisonment had nothing pleasant about it. Neither Mr. Fogg, nor Mrs. Aouda, nor Fix himself would consent to leave the deck.

Toward eight o'clock, the squall of rain and gusts struck aboard. With nothing but its little scrap of canvas, the Tankadère was lifted like a feather by that wind of which one can give no exact idea when it blows a tempest. To set its speed at fourfold that of a locomotive at full steam would still fall short of the truth.

All that day the boat ran thus toward the north, carried along by the monstrous waves, happily holding a pace equal to theirs. A score of times she was nearly caught from behind by one of those mountains of water that reared up astern; but a deft turn of the helm, given by the pilot, warded off the disaster. The passengers were sometimes drenched all over by the spray, which they received philosophically. Fix no doubt grumbled, but the intrepid Aouda, her eyes fixed on her companion, whose coolness she could only admire, showed herself worthy of him and braved the storm at his side. As for Phileas Fogg, it seemed as though this typhoon were part of his schedule.

Until then the Tankadère had always steered north; but toward evening, as was to be feared, the wind, veering three quarters round, hauled to the north-west. The schooner, now offering her flank to the sea, was fearfully shaken. The sea struck her with a violence well fitted to frighten, when one does not know how solidly all the parts of a vessel are joined together.

With the night, the storm grew fiercer still. Seeing the darkness come on, and with the darkness the tempest increase, John Bunsby felt sharp anxiety. He wondered whether it might not be time to put in, and he consulted his crew.

His men consulted, John Bunsby went up to Mr. Fogg and said to him:

«I believe, Your Honour, that we would do well to run for one of the ports along the coast.

--I believe so too,» replied Phileas Fogg.

«Ah!» said the pilot, «but which one?

--I know only one,» Mr. Fogg replied calmly.

«And that is?...

--Shanghai.»

For a few moments the pilot at first did not grasp what this answer meant, what it held of obstinacy and tenacity. Then he cried out:

«Well then, yes! Your Honour has it right. To Shanghai!»

And the course of the Tankadère was held imperturbably to the north.

A truly terrible night! It was a miracle the little schooner did not capsize. Twice she shipped seas, and everything aboard would have been swept away had the lashings given. Mrs. Aouda was worn out, but she did not let a single complaint be heard. More than once Mr. Fogg had to rush to her to shield her from the violence of the waves.

Day reappeared. The storm was still raging with extreme fury. Yet the wind fell back into the south-east. This was a favourable change, and the Tankadère again made way over that heaving sea, whose waves now clashed with those raised by the wind's new quarter. Hence a shock of counter-swells that would have crushed a boat less solidly built.

From time to time the coast could be glimpsed through the torn mists, but not a ship in sight. The Tankadère alone kept the sea.

At noon there were some signs of a lull, which, with the sinking of the sun toward the horizon, grew more distinct.

The short duration of the storm was due to its very violence. The passengers, utterly worn out, were able to eat a little and get some rest.

The night was relatively peaceful. The pilot had his sails set again close-reefed. The boat's speed was considerable. The next day, the 11th, at daybreak, having taken his bearings from the coast, John Bunsby could declare they were not a hundred miles from Shanghai.

A hundred miles, and only this one day left to make them in! It was that very evening that Mr. Fogg had to reach Shanghai, if he did not want to miss the departure of the Yokohama steamer. Without this storm, during which he lost several hours, he would at this moment have been within thirty miles of the port.

The breeze was slackening noticeably, but happily the sea was falling with it. The schooner covered herself in canvas. Topsails, staysails, flying jib—all drew, and the sea foamed under her stem.

At noon the Tankadère was no more than forty-five miles from Shanghai. She had six hours left to reach that port before the departure of the Yokohama steamer.

Anxiety ran high aboard. They wanted to arrive at all costs. Everyone—except Phileas Fogg, no doubt—felt his heart beat with impatience. The little schooner had to keep up an average of nine miles in the hour, and yet the wind kept slackening! It was an irregular breeze, capricious puffs coming off the coast. They passed, and the sea smoothed out again as soon as they had gone by.

Yet the boat was so light, her sails so high and of so fine a fabric, and gathered the wild breezes so well, that, with the current helping, at six o'clock John Bunsby reckoned no more than ten miles to the Shanghai river, for the city itself lies at a distance of at least twelve miles above the mouth.

At seven o'clock they were still three miles from Shanghai. A tremendous oath escaped the pilot's lips... The two-hundred-pound bonus was plainly going to slip away from him. His eyes went to Mr. Fogg. Mr. Fogg was impassive, and yet his entire fortune was at play at that moment...

At that moment, too, a long black spindle, crowned with a plume of smoke, appeared level with the water. It was the American steamer, leaving at its scheduled hour.

«Damnation!» cried John Bunsby, thrusting back the helm with a desperate arm.

«Signals!» said Phileas Fogg simply. A little bronze cannon stretched out at the bow of the Tankadère. It served to make signals in foggy weather.

The cannon was charged right to the muzzle, but at the instant the pilot made to set a glowing coal to the touch-hole:

«The flag at half-mast,» said Mr. Fogg.

The flag was lowered to half-mast. It was a distress signal, and one could hope that the American steamer, sighting it, would alter its course for a moment to close with the boat.

«Fire!» said Mr. Fogg.

And the report of the little bronze cannon burst into the air.

Chapter 22 — In which passepartout sees clearly that, even at the antipodes, it is prudent to have some money in one's pocket

The Carnatic, having left Hong Kong on November 7 at half past six in the evening, was steaming at full speed toward the lands of Japan. She carried a full load of goods and passengers. Two cabins aft remained unoccupied. They were the ones that had been reserved on behalf of Mr. Phileas Fogg.

The next morning, the men forward could see, not without some surprise, a passenger, his eye half-dazed, his gait unsteady, his hair tousled, who came out of the second-class hatch and staggered over to sit down on a spare spar.

This passenger was Passepartout in person. Here is what had happened.

A few moments after Fix had left the smoking-house, two attendants had carried off Passepartout, deep asleep, and laid him on the bed set aside for the smokers. But three hours later, Passepartout, pursued even into his nightmares by one fixed idea, woke and struggled against the stupefying action of the narcotic. The thought of his unfulfilled duty shook him from his torpor. He left that bed of drunkards, and, stumbling, propping himself against the walls, falling and getting up again, but always and irresistibly driven by a kind of instinct, he came out of the smoking-house, crying as though in a dream: «The Carnatic! the Carnatic!»

The steamer was there, smoking, ready to leave. Passepartout had only a few steps to take. He sprang up the gangplank, passed through the entry-port, and fell senseless forward, just as the Carnatic was casting off her moorings.

Some sailors, being men accustomed to such scenes, carried the poor fellow down to a second-class cabin, and Passepartout did not wake until the next morning, a hundred and fifty miles from the coasts of China.

That, then, is why, that morning, Passepartout found himself on the deck of the Carnatic, coming to breathe in deep draughts the fresh sea breezes. This pure air sobered him up. He set about collecting his thoughts, and did not manage it without difficulty. But at last he recalled the scenes of the day before, Fix's confidences, the smoking-house, and the rest.

«It is obvious,» he said to himself, «that I got abominably drunk! What will Mr. Fogg say? In any case, I did not miss the boat, and that is the main thing.»

Then, thinking of Fix:

«As for that one,» he said to himself, «I do hope we have seen the last of him, and that he did not dare, after what he proposed to me, to follow us aboard the Carnatic. A police inspector, a detective on the trail of my master, accused of that theft committed at the Bank of England! Come now! Mr. Fogg is a thief the way I am a murderer!»

Ought Passepartout to tell his master these things? Was it fitting to let him know the part Fix had played in this affair? Would he not do better to wait until they reached London, to tell him how a metropolitan police agent had trailed him around the world, and to laugh about it with him? Yes, no doubt. In any case, a question to be examined. The most pressing thing was to rejoin Mr. Fogg and to make him accept his apologies for this unspeakable conduct.

So Passepartout got up. The sea was heavy, and the steamer rolled hard. The worthy fellow, still shaky on his legs, made his way as best he could to the after part of the ship.

On deck, he saw no one resembling either his master or Mrs. Aouda.

«Good,» he said, «Mrs. Aouda is still in bed at this hour. As for Mr. Fogg, he will have found some whist player, and, true to his habit...»

Saying this, Passepartout went down to the saloon. Mr. Fogg was nowhere in it. One thing alone remained for Passepartout to do: to ask the purser which cabin Mr. Fogg occupied. The purser answered that he knew no passenger of that name.

«Excuse me,» said Passepartout, pressing the point. «It is a gentleman, tall, cold, uncommunicative, accompanied by a young lady...

--We have no young lady aboard,» replied the purser. «Besides, here is the list of passengers. You may consult it.»

Passepartout consulted the list... His master's name did not appear on it.

He felt something like a dizzy spell. Then an idea crossed his brain.

«Now then! I really am on the Carnatic?» he cried.

«Yes,» replied the purser.

«Bound for Yokohama?

--Exactly.»

For a moment Passepartout had had that fear of having taken the wrong ship! But if he was on the Carnatic, it was certain his master was not aboard her.

Passepartout let himself drop into an armchair. It was a thunderbolt. And suddenly the light broke upon him. He remembered that the Carnatic's departure time had been moved up, that he was to warn his master, and that he had not done it! So it was his fault if Mr. Fogg and Mrs. Aouda had missed that departure!

His fault, yes, but still more that of the traitor who, to separate him from his master, to hold the latter at Hong Kong, had got him drunk! For he understood at last the police inspector's manoeuvre. And now Mr. Fogg, ruined for certain, his wager lost, arrested, imprisoned perhaps!... At that thought, Passepartout tore at his hair. Ah! should Fix ever fall into his hands, what a reckoning there would be!

At last, after the first moment of dejection, Passepartout regained his composure and studied the situation. It was hardly enviable. The Frenchman was on his way to Japan. Certain of getting there, how would he get back? His pocket was empty. Not a shilling, not a penny! Still, his passage and his food aboard were paid in advance. So he had five or six days ahead of him to make up his mind. Whether he ate and drank during that crossing cannot be described. He ate for his master, for Mrs. Aouda, and for himself. He ate as if Japan, where he was about to land, were a desert country, void of all edible substance.

On the 13th, on the morning tide, the Carnatic entered the port of Yokohama.

This point is an important Pacific port of call, where all the steamers employed in the mail and passenger service between North America, China, Japan, and the islands of Malaysia put in. Yokohama lies in the very bay of Yeddo, a short distance from that immense city, second capital of the Japanese empire, once the residence of the taïkoun, in the days when that civil emperor existed, and rival of Meako, the great city inhabited by the mikado, the ecclesiastical emperor, descended from the gods.

The Carnatic came to lie alongside the quay at Yokohama, near the piers of the port and the customs warehouses, amid numerous ships belonging to all nations.

Passepartout set foot, without any enthusiasm, on this so curious land of the Sons of the Sun. He could do no better than to take chance for his guide and to wander at random through the streets of the city.

Passepartout found himself at first in an absolutely European town, with low-fronted houses adorned with verandas beneath which spread elegant peristyles, and which covered with its streets, its squares, its docks, its warehouses the whole space from the Treaty promontory to the river. There, as at Hong Kong, as at Calcutta, swarmed a jumble of people of every race—Americans, English, Chinese, Dutch—merchants ready to sell anything and buy anything, in whose midst the Frenchman found himself as foreign as if he had been flung into the land of the Hottentots.

Passepartout did have one resource: to present himself to the French or English consular agents established at Yokohama; but it repelled him to tell his story, so intimately bound up with his master's, and before coming to that, he wanted to have exhausted all the other chances.

So, after roaming the European part of the city without chance having served him in any way, he entered the Japanese part, resolved, if need be, to push on as far as Yeddo.

This native portion of Yokohama is called Benten, from the name of a goddess of the sea, worshipped on the neighbouring islands. There were to be seen admirable avenues of firs and cedars, sacred gateways of a strange architecture, bridges buried among bamboos and reeds, temples sheltered under the immense and melancholy cover of centuries-old cedars, monasteries in the depths of which vegetated the priests of Buddhism and the followers of the religion of Confucius, endless streets where one might have gathered a harvest of children with pink complexions and red cheeks, little fellows who might have been cut out of some native screen, and who played among short-legged poodles and yellowish cats, tailless, very lazy and very affectionate.

In the streets it was nothing but swarming, a ceaseless coming and going: bonzes filing past in procession, beating their monotonous tambourines; yakunines, customs or police officers, in pointed hats inlaid with lacquer and wearing two sabres at their belts; soldiers dressed in blue cottons with white stripes and armed with percussion muskets; men-at-arms of the mikado, cased in their silk doublets, with hauberk and coat of mail, and numbers of other soldiers of every condition—for in Japan the soldier's profession is as much esteemed as it is despised in China. Then mendicant friars, pilgrims in long robes, plain civilians with smooth hair black as ebony, big heads, long torsos, spindly legs, short stature, complexion coloured from the dark shades of copper to a dull white, but never yellow like that of the Chinese, from whom the Japanese differ essentially. Finally, among the carriages, the palanquins, the horses, the porters, the sail-driven wheelbarrows, the «norimons» with lacquered sides, the soft «cangos»—true bamboo litters—one saw passing, with the little steps of their little feet shod in cloth shoes, straw sandals, or worked wooden clogs, a few not very pretty women, their eyes narrowed, their chests flattened, their teeth blackened in the fashion of the day, but wearing with elegance the national dress, the «kirimon,» a kind of dressing-gown crossed by a silk scarf, whose broad sash spread out behind in an extravagant knot—which modern Parisian women seem to have borrowed from the Japanese.

Passepartout strolled for several hours amid this motley crowd, looking too at the curious and opulent shops, the bazaars where all the tinsel of Japanese goldsmithery is heaped up, the «eating-houses» decked with streamers and banners, which he was forbidden to enter, and those tea-houses where fragrant hot water is drunk by the cupful, along with «saki,» a liquor drawn from fermenting rice, and those comfortable smoking-houses where a very fine tobacco is smoked, and not opium, the use of which is nearly unknown in Japan.

Then Passepartout found himself in the fields, amid the vast rice paddies. There flourished—along with flowers casting their last colours and their last scents—brilliant camellias, borne no longer on shrubs but on trees, and, in the bamboo enclosures, cherry trees, plum trees, apple trees, which the natives cultivate for their blossoms rather than their fruit, and which grimacing scarecrows and squeaking whirligigs defend against the beaks of sparrows, pigeons, crows, and other voracious birds. Not a majestic cedar but sheltered some great eagle; not a weeping willow but covered with its foliage some heron melancholically perched on one leg; in short, everywhere rooks, ducks, sparrowhawks, wild geese, and great numbers of those cranes that the Japanese address as «Lordships,» and that symbolize for them longevity and happiness.

Wandering thus, Passepartout caught sight of a few violets among the grasses:

«Good!» he said, «there is my supper.»

But having smelled them, he found no scent in them.

«No luck!» he thought.

To be sure, the honest fellow had, by way of foresight, breakfasted as copiously as he could before leaving the Carnatic; but after a day of walking, he felt his stomach very hollow. He had indeed noticed that mutton, goat, and pork were absolutely lacking at the stalls of the native butchers, and, as he knew that it is a sacrilege to kill oxen, reserved solely for the needs of agriculture, he had concluded that meat was scarce in Japan. He was not mistaken; but, for want of butcher's meat, his stomach would have been quite content with haunches of wild boar or deer, with partridges or quails, with poultry or fish, on which the Japanese feed almost exclusively, along with the produce of the rice fields. But he had to make the best of a bad business, and put off till the next day the care of providing for his food.

Night came. Passepartout went back into the native town, and he wandered through the streets amid the many-coloured lanterns, watching the groups of mountebanks perform their marvellous feats, and the open-air astrologers who gathered crowds around their telescopes. Then he saw again the roadstead, spangled with fishermen's fires, which drew the fish by the gleam of blazing resin.

At last the streets emptied. The crowd gave way to the rounds of the yakunines. These officers, in their magnificent costumes and amid their retinue, looked like ambassadors, and Passepartout kept repeating jokingly, each time he met some dazzling patrol:

«Come now! there goes another Japanese embassy setting off for Europe!»

Chapter 23 — In which passepartout's nose grows to an inordinate length

The next day, Passepartout, worn out and famished, told himself that he must eat at all costs, and that the sooner the better. He did have the resource of selling his watch, but he would sooner have died of hunger. Now was the moment, if ever, for this good fellow to use the strong, if not melodious, voice with which nature had endowed him.

He knew a few refrains of France and England, and he resolved to try them. The Japanese must surely be lovers of music, since everything among them is done to the sound of cymbals, of the tam-tam, and of drums, and they could not but appreciate the talents of a European virtuoso.

But perhaps it was a little early to get up a concert, and the music-lovers, roused unexpectedly, might not have paid the singer in coin bearing the mikado's effigy.

So Passepartout decided to wait a few hours; but, as he walked along, he reflected that he would seem too well dressed for a strolling performer, and the idea then came to him of exchanging his clothes for some cast-offs more in keeping with his situation. This exchange ought, moreover, to yield a balance in cash, which he could apply at once to satisfying his appetite.

The resolution once taken, it had still to be carried out. Only after much searching did Passepartout track down a native secondhand dealer, to whom he set out his request. The European suit pleased the dealer, and soon Passepartout came out got up in an old Japanese robe and crowned with a sort of ribbed turban, faded by the action of time. But, in return, a few small silver coins jingled in his pocket.

«Good,» he thought, «I will just imagine we are at carnival time!»

Passepartout's first care, thus «Japanned,» was to enter a modest-looking «tea-house,» and there, on the remains of some poultry and a few handfuls of rice, he breakfasted like a man for whom dinner would still be a problem to solve.

«Now,» he said to himself when he was copiously restored, «the thing is not to lose my head. I no longer have the resource of selling these cast-offs for others still more Japanese. So I must find some way of leaving as quickly as possible this land of the Sun, of which I shall keep only a woeful memory!»

Passepartout then thought of visiting the steamers leaving for America. He counted on offering himself as a cook or a servant, asking for no pay but his passage and his food. Once at San Francisco, he would see about getting himself out of the fix. The important thing was to cross the forty-seven hundred miles of Pacific that stretch between Japan and the New World.

Passepartout, being no man to let an idea languish, made for the port of Yokohama. But as he approached the docks, his plan, which had seemed so simple at the moment the idea came to him, seemed to him more and more unworkable. Why should a cook or a servant be needed aboard an American steamer, and what confidence would he inspire, got up as he was? What recommendations could he offer? What references could he name?

As he was reflecting thus, his eyes fell on a huge poster that a sort of clown was carrying about through the streets of Yokohama. This poster was worded thus in English:

JAPANESE ACROBATIC TROUPE OF THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM BATULCAR --- LAST PERFORMANCES Before their departure for the United States of America OF THE LONG-NOSES-LONG-NOSES, PLACED UNDER THE DIRECT INVOCATION OF THE GOD TINGOU Grand Attraction!

«The United States of America!» cried Passepartout, «that is exactly the thing for me!...»

He followed the poster-man, and, at his heels, he was soon back in the Japanese town. A quarter of an hour later, he halted before a vast shed, crowned with several clusters of streamers, and whose outer walls represented, without perspective but in violent colours, a whole band of jugglers.

It was the establishment of the honourable Batulcar, a sort of American Barnum, director of a troupe of tumblers, jugglers, clowns, acrobats, balancers, gymnasts, who, according to the poster, were giving their last performances before they left the Sun's empire for the states of the Union.

Passepartout went in under a peristyle that fronted the shed, and asked for Mr. Batulcar. Mr. Batulcar appeared in person.

«What do you want?» he said to Passepartout, whom he took at first for a native.

«Do you need a servant?» asked Passepartout.

«A servant,» cried the Barnum, stroking the thick grey tuft that flourished under his chin, «I have two, obedient, faithful, who have never left me, and who serve me for nothing, on condition that I feed them... And there they are,» he added, showing off his two brawny arms, furrowed with veins as thick as double-bass strings.

«Then I am of no use to you at all?

--None.

--The devil! It would have suited me very well, though, to leave with you.

--Now then!» said the honourable Batulcar, «you are a Japanese the way I am a monkey! Why on earth are you dressed like that?

--One dresses as one can!

--True enough. You are a Frenchman, are you?

--Yes, a Parisian of Paris.

--Then you must know how to pull faces?

--My word,» replied Passepartout, vexed to see his nationality provoke this question, «we Frenchmen do know how to pull faces, that is true, but no better than the Americans!

--Right. Well, if I do not take you as a servant, I can take you as a clown. You understand, my good man. In France they show off foreign clowns, and abroad, French ones!

--Ah!

--You are strong, besides?

--Especially when I get up from table.

--And you can sing?

--Yes,» replied Passepartout, who had in former days sung his part in a few street concerts.

«But can you sing upside down, on your head, with a spinning top turning on the sole of your left foot, and a sabre held in balance on the sole of your right?

--By Jove!» replied Passepartout, who remembered the first exercises of his young days.

«You see, that is the whole of it!» replied the honourable Batulcar.

The engagement was concluded hic et nunc.

At last Passepartout had found a place. He was engaged to do anything and everything in the famous Japanese troupe. It was not very flattering, but in under a week he would be bound for San Francisco.

The performance, announced with great fanfare by the honourable Batulcar, was to begin at three o'clock, and soon the formidable instruments of a Japanese orchestra, drums and tam-tams, were thundering at the door. It is easy to understand that Passepartout had not been able to study a part, but he was to lend the support of his sturdy shoulders in the great feat of the «human cluster» performed by the Long-Noses in the service of the god Tingou. This «great attraction» of the show was to close the series of exercises.

Before three o'clock, the spectators had invaded the vast shed. Natives and Europeans, Japanese and Chinese, men and women and children, crowded onto the narrow benches and into the boxes facing the stage. The musicians had gone back inside, and the full orchestra—gongs, tam-tams, clappers, flutes, tambourines, and bass drums—was going at it furiously.

This performance was what all these acrobat exhibitions are. But it must indeed be admitted that the Japanese are the finest balancers in the world. One, armed with his fan and little scraps of paper, performed the so graceful trick of the butterflies and flowers. Another, with the fragrant smoke of his pipe, rapidly traced in the air a series of bluish words that formed a compliment addressed to the assembly. This one juggled with lighted candles, which he put out one after another as they passed before his lips, and relit one from another without interrupting his marvellous juggling for a single instant. That one reproduced, by means of spinning tops, the most improbable combinations; under his hand, those humming machines seemed to take on a life of their own in their endless gyration; they ran along pipe-stems, along sabre-edges, along wires—veritable hairs stretched from one side of the stage to the other; they went round great crystal vases, they climbed bamboo ladders, they scattered into every corner, producing harmonic effects of a strange character by combining their various tones. The jugglers juggled with them, and they spun in the air; they tossed them like shuttlecocks, using wooden battledores, and they kept spinning; they stuffed them into their pockets, and when they drew them out again, they were spinning still—until the moment when a released spring made them burst open in sprays of fireworks!

There is no need to describe here the prodigious feats of the troupe's acrobats and gymnasts. The tricks with the ladder, the pole, the ball, the barrels, and the rest were performed with remarkable precision. But the chief attraction of the performance was the exhibition of those «Long-Noses,» astonishing balancers whom Europe does not yet know.

These Long-Noses form a particular guild placed under the direct invocation of the god Tingou. Dressed like heralds of the Middle Ages, they wore a splendid pair of wings on their shoulders. But what distinguished them more especially was that long nose with which their faces were adorned, and above all the use they made of it. These noses were nothing less than bamboos, five, six, ten feet long, some straight, others curved, these smooth, those warty. Now, it was on these appendages, solidly fixed, that all their balancing feats were performed. A dozen of these followers of the god Tingou lay down on their backs, and their comrades came to frolic on their noses, reared up like lightning-rods, jumping, vaulting from one nose to the next, and performing the most improbable tricks.

To finish, the human pyramid had been specially announced to the public, in which some fifty Long-Noses were to make up the «Car of Juggernaut.» But rather than forming this pyramid by taking their shoulders as a point of support, the honourable Batulcar's performers were to fit themselves together only by their noses. Now, one of those who formed the base of the car had left the troupe, and, as it was enough to be strong and nimble, Passepartout had been chosen to replace him.

Certainly the worthy fellow felt quite crestfallen when—sad memory of his youth—he had put on his medieval costume, adorned with many-coloured wings, and a six-foot nose had been fitted onto his face! But after all, this nose was his bread and butter, and he made up his mind to it.

Passepartout came on stage and took his place with those of his colleagues who were to form the base of the Car of Juggernaut. All stretched out on the ground, noses reared toward the sky. A second section of balancers came to plant themselves on these long appendages, a third tiered itself above, then a fourth, and on these noses that touched only by their tips, a human monument soon rose to the very friezes of the theatre.

Now the applause was redoubling, and the orchestra's instruments were bursting out like so many thunderclaps, when the pyramid tottered, the balance broke, one of the noses of the base gave way, and the monument collapsed like a house of cards...

It was the fault of Passepartout who, abandoning his post, clearing the footlights without the help of his wings, and climbing to the right-hand gallery, fell at the feet of a spectator, crying out:

«Ah! my master! my master!

--You?

--Me!

--Well then! in that case, to the steamer, my boy!...»

Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, who was with him, and Passepartout had rushed through the corridors out of the shed. But there they found the honourable Batulcar, furious, demanding damages for «the breakage.» Phileas Fogg appeased his fury by throwing him a handful of banknotes. And, at half past six, just as it was about to leave, Mr. Fogg and Mrs. Aouda set foot on the American steamer, followed by Passepartout, his wings on his back, and on his face that six-foot nose which he had not yet managed to tear off!

Chapter 24 — During which the crossing of the pacific ocean is accomplished

What had happened in sight of Shanghai is easily understood. The signals made by the Tankadère had been sighted from the Yokohama steamer. The captain, seeing a flag at half-mast, had steered toward the little schooner. A few moments later, Phileas Fogg, settling his passage at the agreed price, put into the pocket of skipper John Bunsby five hundred and fifty pounds (13,750 F). Then the honourable gentleman, Mrs. Aouda, and Fix went aboard the steamer, which at once made way for Nagasaki and Yokohama.

Having arrived that very morning, November 14, at the scheduled hour, Phileas Fogg, leaving Fix to go about his business, went aboard the Carnatic, and there he learned, to the great joy of Mrs. Aouda—and perhaps his own, though at least he let nothing of it show—that the Frenchman Passepartout had indeed arrived the day before at Yokohama.

Phileas Fogg, who was to leave again that same evening for San Francisco, set about at once searching for his servant. He applied, but in vain, to the French and English consular agents, and, after roaming the streets of Yokohama to no purpose, he was despairing of finding Passepartout again when chance, or perhaps a sort of presentiment, led him into the honourable Batulcar's shed. He would certainly never have recognized his servant under that eccentric herald's rig; but the latter, in his upside-down position, caught sight of his master up in the gallery. He could not hold back a movement of his nose. Hence the breaking of the balance, and what followed.

That is what Passepartout learned from the very lips of Mrs. Aouda, who told him then how that crossing from Hong Kong to Yokohama had been made, in the company of a certain Fix, aboard the schooner the Tankadère.

At the name of Fix, Passepartout did not bat an eye. He thought the moment had not come to tell his master what had passed between the police inspector and himself. And so, in the account Passepartout gave of his adventures, he accused himself and excused himself only of having been overcome by opium intoxication in a Yokohama smoking-house.

Mr. Fogg listened coldly to this tale without replying; then he opened his servant a credit sufficient for him to procure more suitable clothes aboard. And indeed, not an hour had passed before the honest fellow, having cut off his nose and trimmed his wings, had nothing left about him to recall the follower of the god Tingou.

The steamer that plied the crossing from Yokohama to San Francisco was owned by the «Pacific Mail steam» Company and bore the name General-Grant. A vast paddle-steamer she was, of two thousand five hundred tons burden, well fitted out and endowed with great speed. An enormous beam rose and fell in turn above the deck; at one of its ends was hinged the rod of a piston, and at the other that of a connecting-rod, which, transforming the rectilinear motion into circular motion, was applied directly to the shaft of the wheels. The General-Grant was rigged as a three-masted schooner and had a great spread of canvas, which powerfully aided the steam. Making her twelve miles an hour, the steamer was to take no more than twenty-one days to cross the Pacific. Phileas Fogg was therefore entitled to believe that, reaching San Francisco on December 2, he would be at New York on the 11th and at London on the 20th—thus gaining by a few hours that fatal date of December 21.

The passengers were fairly numerous aboard the steamer—English, many Americans, a veritable emigration of coolies for America, and a certain number of officers of the Indian army, who were using their leave to make the tour of the world.

During this crossing no nautical incident occurred. The steamer, borne up on her broad wheels, steadied by her strong canvas, rolled little. The Pacific Ocean lived up to its name well enough. Mr. Fogg was as calm, as uncommunicative as ever. His young companion felt herself growing ever more attached to this man by ties other than those of gratitude. This silent nature, so generous on the whole, impressed her more than she believed, and it was almost without her knowing it that she gave way to feelings whose influence the enigmatic Fogg seemed in no way to undergo.

Moreover, Mrs. Aouda took a prodigious interest in the gentleman's plans. She fretted over the mishaps that might compromise the success of the journey. Often she chatted with Passepartout, who was not without reading between the lines in Mrs. Aouda's heart. This good fellow now had, toward his master, the faith of a charcoal-burner; he was inexhaustible in praise of Phileas Fogg's honesty, generosity, and devotion; then he reassured Mrs. Aouda as to the outcome of the journey, repeating that the hardest was done, that they were out of those fantastic lands of China and Japan, that they were returning to civilized regions, and finally that a train running from San Francisco to New York, then a transatlantic liner from New York to London, would no doubt suffice to complete this impossible tour of the world within the agreed time.

Nine days after leaving Yokohama, Phileas Fogg had travelled exactly half of the terrestrial globe.

Indeed, the General-Grant, on November 23, was passing the one hundred and eightieth meridian, the one on which lie, in the southern hemisphere, the antipodes of London. Of the eighty days at his disposal, Mr. Fogg, it is true, had used fifty-two, and had only twenty-eight left to spend. But it must be noted that if the gentleman found himself only halfway «by the difference of the meridians,» he had in reality accomplished more than two-thirds of the total route. What forced detours, indeed, from London to Aden, and Aden to Bombay, from Calcutta to Singapore, then Singapore to Yokohama! Following the fiftieth parallel—the one of London—round in a circle, the distance would have been only about twelve thousand miles, whereas Phileas Fogg was forced, by the caprices of the means of locomotion, to cover twenty-six thousand, of which he had done about seventeen thousand five hundred by this date of November 23. But now the way was straight, and Fix was no longer there to pile up obstacles along it!

It also happened that, on this November 23, Passepartout experienced great joy. It will be recalled that the stubborn fellow had insisted on keeping London time on his famous family watch, holding false all the hours of the countries he passed through. Now, that day, although he had never either put it forward or set it back, his watch found itself in agreement with the ship's chronometers.

That Passepartout was triumphant is easily understood. He would dearly have liked to know what Fix could have said, had he been present.

«That rogue who told me a heap of stories about the meridians, about the sun, about the moon!» Passepartout kept repeating. «Hah! those people! If one listened to them, one would make fine watchmaking! I was quite sure that one day or another the sun would decide to set itself by my watch!...»

Passepartout was unaware of this: that if the dial of his watch were divided into twenty-four hours after the fashion of the Italian clocks, he would have had no cause to triumph, for the hands of his instrument, when it was nine o'clock in the morning aboard, would have shown nine in the evening, that is to say the twenty-first hour after midnight—a difference precisely equal to that which exists between London and the one hundred and eightieth meridian.

But even if Fix had been capable of explaining this purely physical effect, Passepartout, no doubt, would have been incapable, if not of understanding it, at least of admitting it. And in any case, if, by some impossibility, the police inspector had shown himself unexpectedly aboard at that moment, it is probable that Passepartout, resentful with good reason, would have dealt with him on a wholly different subject and in a wholly different manner.

Now, where was Fix at that moment?...

Fix was precisely aboard the General-Grant.

Indeed, on arriving at Yokohama, the agent, leaving Mr. Fogg, whom he counted on finding again during the day, had gone at once to the English consul. There he had at last found the warrant which, chasing after him ever since Bombay, was already forty days old—a warrant that had been sent to him from Hong Kong by that very Carnatic aboard which he was believed to be. Imagine the detective's disappointment! The warrant was becoming useless! Mr. Fogg had left the English possessions! A writ of extradition was now necessary to arrest him!

«So be it!» said Fix to himself, after the first moment of anger. «My warrant is no good here, it will be in England. This rogue has every look of returning to his homeland, thinking he has thrown the police off the scent. Good. I shall follow him there. As for the money, God grant there is some left! But on travel, on premiums, on lawsuits, on fines, on an elephant, on expenses of every kind, my man has already left more than five thousand pounds along his way. After all, the Bank is rich!»

His mind made up, he embarked at once on the General-Grant. He was aboard when Mr. Fogg and Mrs. Aouda arrived. To his extreme surprise, he recognized Passepartout in his herald's costume. He hid himself at once in his cabin, so as to avoid an explanation that might compromise everything—and, thanks to the number of passengers, he fully counted on not being spotted by his enemy, when that very day he found himself face to face with him on the fore part of the ship.

Passepartout sprang at Fix's throat, without further explanation, and, to the great delight of certain Americans who at once bet on him, he administered to the unfortunate inspector a superb thrashing, which demonstrated the high superiority of French boxing over English boxing.

When Passepartout had finished, he found himself calm and, as it were, relieved. Fix got up, in fairly bad shape, and, looking at his adversary, said to him coldly:

«Is it finished?

--Yes, for the moment.

--Then come and speak with me.

--That I...

--In your master's interest.»

Passepartout, as though subdued by this coolness, followed the police inspector, and the two of them sat down at the fore part of the steamer.

«You have thrashed me,» said Fix. «Good. Now listen to me. Until now I have been Mr. Fogg's adversary, but now I am in his game.

--At last!» cried Passepartout, «you believe him an honest man?

--No,» Fix replied coldly, «I believe him a rogue... Hush! do not move, and hear me out. So long as Mr. Fogg remained on the English possessions, I had an interest in holding him back while awaiting a warrant of arrest. I did everything for that. I loosed the priests of Bombay against him, I got you drunk at Hong Kong, I separated you from your master, I made him miss the Yokohama steamer...»

Passepartout listened, his fists clenched.

«Now,» Fix went on, «Mr. Fogg seems to be returning to England? So be it, I shall follow him. But henceforth I shall put as much care and zeal into clearing the obstacles from his path as I have put until now into piling them up. You see, my game is changed, and it is changed because my interest wills it. I add that your own interest runs with mine, for it is in England alone that you will find out whether the man you serve is a criminal or an honest one!»

Passepartout had listened very attentively to Fix, and he was convinced that Fix was speaking with entire good faith.

«Are we friends?» asked Fix.

«Friends, no,» replied Passepartout. «Allies, yes, and with reservations, for at the slightest sign of treachery, I will wring your neck.

--Agreed,» said the police inspector calmly.

Eleven days later, on December 3, the General-Grant steamed into the bay of the Golden Gate and made San Francisco.

Mr. Fogg had as yet neither gained nor lost a single day.

Chapter 25 — In which a brief glimpse is given of san francisco, on a day of a meeting

It was seven o'clock in the morning when Phileas Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and Passepartout set foot on the American continent—if one may give that name to the floating quay on which they landed. These quays, which rise and fall with the tide, make the loading and unloading of ships easier. Here moor clippers of every size, steamers of every nationality, and those several-storied steamboats that run the service of the Sacramento and its tributaries. Here, too, are heaped the products of a trade extending to Mexico, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Europe, Asia, and all the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

Passepartout, in his joy at touching American soil at last, had thought he ought to carry out his landing by performing a somersault of the finest style. But when he came down again on the quay, whose planking was worm-eaten, he nearly went right through it. Quite disconcerted by the way he had «set foot» on the new continent, the honest fellow let out a tremendous cry, which sent flying an innumerable flock of cormorants and pelicans, the habitual denizens of the movable quays.

Mr. Fogg, as soon as he had landed, inquired what time the first train departed for New York. It was at six in the evening. Mr. Fogg had therefore a whole day to spend in the Californian capital. He sent for a carriage for Mrs. Aouda and himself. Passepartout climbed onto the box, and the vehicle, at three dollars the trip, set off for the International Hotel.

From the elevated seat he occupied, Passepartout observed with curiosity the great American city: wide streets, low houses well aligned, churches and temples of an Anglo-Saxon Gothic, immense docks, warehouses like palaces, some of wood, others of brick; in the streets, numerous carriages, omnibuses, tramway «cars,» and on the crowded sidewalks, not only Americans and Europeans, but also Chinese and Indians—in short, enough to make up a population of more than two hundred thousand inhabitants.

Passepartout was rather surprised by what he saw. He still had in mind the legendary city of 1849, the city of the bandits, the arsonists, and the murderers, come flocking to the conquest of the gold nuggets, an immense pandemonium of all the outcasts, where men gambled for gold dust, a revolver in the one hand and a knife in the other. But that «fine old time» was past. San Francisco presented the aspect of a great commercial city. The high tower of the city hall, where the watchmen keep guard, dominated this whole array of streets and avenues cutting each other at right angles, among which flourished green squares, then a Chinese town that seemed brought over from the Celestial Empire inside a toy box. No more sombreros, no more red shirts in the fashion of the placer-diggers, no more feathered Indians, but silk hats and black coats, worn by a great number of gentlemen endowed with a devouring activity. Certain streets, among others Montgomery Street—the Regent Street of London, the Boulevard des Italiens of Paris, the Broadway of New York—were lined with splendid shops that offered on their counters the products of the whole world.

On arriving at the International Hotel, Passepartout could hardly have believed he had left England.

The hotel's ground floor was taken up by an immense «bar,» a kind of buffet open free of charge to every passerby. Dried meat, oyster soup, biscuit, and Cheshire cheese were served there without the customer having to loosen his purse. He paid only for his drink—ale, port, or sherry—if his fancy led him to refresh himself. This struck Passepartout as «very American.»

The hotel restaurant was comfortable. Mr. Fogg and Mrs. Aouda settled themselves at a table and were abundantly served, in Lilliputian dishes, by black waiters of the deepest black.

After breakfast, Phileas Fogg, accompanied by Mrs. Aouda, left the hotel to go to the offices of the English consul in order to have his passport visaed. On the sidewalk he found his servant, who asked him whether, before taking the Pacific railroad, it would not be prudent to buy a few dozen Enfield rifles or Colt revolvers. Passepartout had heard talk of Sioux and Pawnees, who stop trains like so many Spanish robbers. Mr. Fogg replied that this was a useless precaution, but he left him free to act as he saw fit. Then he headed for the offices of the consular agent.

Phileas Fogg had not gone two hundred paces when, «by the greatest of chances,» he met Fix. The inspector showed himself extremely surprised. What! Mr. Fogg and he had made the Pacific crossing together, and they had not met aboard! In any case, Fix could only be honoured to see once more the gentleman he owed so much to, and, his affairs recalling him to Europe, he would be delighted to continue his journey in such agreeable company.

Mr. Fogg answered that the honour would be all his, and Fix—who was anxious not to lose sight of him—asked his leave to visit with him this curious city of San Francisco. Which was granted.

So here are Mrs. Aouda, Phileas Fogg, and Fix strolling through the streets. Before long they came out into Montgomery Street, where the throng of the populace was enormous. On the sidewalks, in the middle of the roadway, on the tramway rails, despite the ceaseless passing of coaches and omnibuses, at the thresholds of the shops, at the windows of all the houses, and even up on the roofs, an innumerable crowd. Sandwich-men circulated among the groups. Banners and streamers floated in the wind. Shouts burst out on all sides.

«Hurrah for Kamerfield!

--Hurrah for Mandiboy!»

It was a meeting. That at least was Fix's thought, and he communicated his idea to Mr. Fogg, adding:

«We would perhaps do well, sir, not to mix in this mob. There is nothing to be got here but hard knocks.

--Indeed,» replied Phileas Fogg, «and blows, for being political, are no less blows for that!»

Fix thought fit to smile on hearing this remark, and, in order to see without being caught in the fray, Mrs. Aouda, Phileas Fogg, and he took their place on the upper landing of a staircase served by a terrace, set above Montgomery Street. Before them, across the street, between the wharf of a coal merchant and the store of a petroleum dealer, spread a large open-air office toward which the various currents of the crowd seemed to converge.

And now, why this meeting? On what occasion was it being held? Phileas Fogg was absolutely ignorant of it. Was it about the appointment of some high military or civil official, a state governor or a member of Congress? One might well conjecture as much, seeing the extraordinary excitement that stirred the city.

At that moment a considerable movement arose in the crowd. Every hand was in the air. Some, tightly clenched, seemed to rise and fall rapidly amid the shouts—an energetic way, no doubt, of formulating a vote. Eddies stirred the mass as it surged back. The banners swayed, vanished for a moment, and reappeared in tatters. The undulations of the swell spread as far as the staircase, while all the heads tossed on the surface like a sea suddenly stirred by a squall. The number of black hats was diminishing before one's eyes, and most seemed to have lost their normal height.

«It is obviously a meeting,» said Fix, «and the question that has provoked it must be a burning one. I would not be surprised if it were still about the affair of the Alabama, though that is settled.

--Perhaps,» replied Mr. Fogg simply.

«In any case,» Fix went on, «two champions are face to face with each other, the honourable Kamerfield and the honourable Mandiboy.»

Mrs. Aouda, on Phileas Fogg's arm, watched with surprise this tumultuous scene, and Fix was about to ask one of his neighbours the reason for this popular ferment, when a more marked movement declared itself. The hurrahs, garnished with insults, redoubled. The banner-poles turned into offensive weapons. No more hands—fists everywhere. From the tops of the halted carriages, and the omnibuses stopped in their course, hearty blows were exchanged. Everything served as a projectile. Boots and shoes described very taut trajectories through the air, and it even seemed that a few revolvers mingled their national detonations with the vociferations of the crowd.

The mob drew nearer the staircase and surged back onto the first steps. One of the parties was evidently being driven back, without the mere spectators being able to tell whether the advantage lay with Mandiboy or with Kamerfield.

«I think it prudent for us to withdraw,» said Fix, who was anxious that «his man» should not get a bad blow or land in a bad business. «If England is in question in all this and we are recognized, we shall be badly compromised in the brawl!

--An English citizen...» replied Phileas Fogg.

But the gentleman could not finish his sentence. Behind him, from that terrace which fronted the staircase, came frightful howls. They were shouting: «Hurrah! Hip! Hip! for Mandiboy!» It was a troop of voters arriving to the rescue, taking the partisans of Kamerfield in the flank.

Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and Fix were caught between two fires. It was too late now to get away. This torrent of men, armed with lead-loaded canes and bludgeons, was irresistible. Phileas Fogg and Fix, shielding the young woman, were horribly jostled. Mr. Fogg, no less phlegmatic than usual, tried to defend himself with those natural weapons that nature has set at the end of every Englishman's arms, but in vain. An enormous fellow with a red tuft of beard, a ruddy complexion, and broad shoulders, who looked to be the leader of the band, raised his formidable fist over Mr. Fogg, and would have badly damaged the gentleman had not Fix, out of devotion, taken the blow in his place. An enormous bump swelled up instantly under the detective's silk hat, turned into a mere flat cap.

«Yankee!» said Mr. Fogg, casting his adversary a look of deep contempt.

«Englishman!» the other retorted.

«We shall meet again!

--Whenever you please.--Your name?

--Phileas Fogg. Yours?

--Colonel Stamp W. Proctor.»

Then, that said, the tide passed on. Fix was knocked over and got up again, his clothes torn, but without serious injury. His travelling overcoat had parted into two unequal halves, and his trousers resembled those breeches which certain Indians—a matter of fashion—do not put on until they have first removed the seat. But, on the whole, Mrs. Aouda had been spared, and Fix alone had suffered for his blow.

«Thank you,» said Mr. Fogg to the inspector, the moment they had cleared the crowd.

«Not at all,» replied Fix, «but come.

--Where?

--To a ready-made clothier's.»

Indeed, this visit was timely. The clothes of Phileas Fogg and Fix were in shreds, as if these two gentlemen had fought on behalf of the honourable Kamerfield and Mandiboy.

An hour later, they were properly dressed and hatted. Then they returned to the International Hotel.

There, Passepartout stood awaiting his master, carrying half a dozen six-shot dagger-revolvers with central-fire ignition. When he caught sight of Fix in Mr. Fogg's company, his brow darkened. But Mrs. Aouda having, in a few words, given the account of what had happened, Passepartout grew calm again. Evidently Fix was no longer an enemy, he was an ally. He was keeping his word.

The dinner over, a coach was brought around, to take the travellers and their luggage to the station. As they were about to get into the carriage, Mr. Fogg said to Fix:

«You have not seen that Colonel Proctor again?

--No,» replied Fix.

«I shall return to America to hunt him down,» said Phileas Fogg coldly. «It would not be fitting for an English citizen to let himself be treated in such a way.»

The inspector smiled and did not reply. But, as we see, Mr. Fogg was of that race of Englishmen who, if they do not tolerate the duel at home, fight abroad when it is a matter of upholding their honour.

At a quarter to six, the travellers arrived at the station, where the train stood ready to leave. Just as Mr. Fogg was about to board, he noticed an employee and, going up to him:

«My friend,» he said to him, «has there not been some disturbance today in San Francisco?

--It was a meeting, sir,» replied the employee.

«And yet I thought I noticed a certain animation in the streets.

--It was simply a meeting got up for an election.

--The election of a commander-in-chief, no doubt?» asked Mr. Fogg.

«No, sir, for a justice of the peace.»

At this reply, Phileas Fogg boarded the car, and the train set off at full steam.

Chapter 26 — In which the express train of the pacific railroad is taken

«Ocean to Ocean»—thus the Americans say—and these three words ought to be the general designation of the «grand trunk» that crosses the United States of America at their greatest breadth. But in reality the «Pacific rail-road» divides into two distinct parts: «Central Pacific» from San Francisco to Ogden, and «Union Pacific» between Ogden and Omaha. There five distinct lines join up, putting Omaha in frequent communication with New York.

New York and San Francisco are thus joined today by an unbroken ribbon of metal that measures fully 3,786 miles. From Omaha to the Pacific, the railroad crosses a country still frequented by Indians and wild beasts—a vast stretch of territory that the Mormons began to colonize around 1845, after they had been driven out of Illinois.

Formerly, in the most favourable circumstances, it took six months to go from New York to San Francisco. Now it takes seven days.

It was in 1862 that, despite the opposition of the deputies from the South, who wanted a more southerly line, the route of the rail-road was fixed between the forty-first and the forty-second parallels. President Lincoln, of such lamented memory, himself set, in the state of Nebraska, at the city of Omaha, the head of the line of the new network. The works were begun at once and pursued with that American energy which is neither red-tape-bound nor bureaucratic. The rapidity of the labour was in no way to harm the good execution of the road. On the prairie they gained a mile and a half of track each day. A locomotive, rolling over the rails of the day before, brought up the rails of the next day, and ran along their surface as fast as they were laid.

The Pacific rail-road throws off several branches along its course, in the states of Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and Oregon. Leaving Omaha, it follows the Platte River's left bank up to the mouth of the north branch, follows the south branch, crosses the lands of Laramie and the Wahsatch Mountains, skirts the Salt Lake, reaches Lake Salt City, the capital of the Mormons, plunges into the valley of the Tuilla, runs along the American desert, the Cedar and Humboldt ranges, the Humboldt River, the Sierra Nevada, and comes back down by Sacramento to the Pacific, without this route ever exceeding a grade of a hundred and twelve feet per mile, even in the crossing of the Rocky Mountains.

Such was that long artery that the trains covered in seven days, and that was going to allow the honourable Phileas Fogg—so he hoped, at least—to take, on the 11th, at New York, the Liverpool steamer.

The car occupied by Phileas Fogg was a kind of long omnibus resting on two trucks of four wheels each, whose mobility allows curves of small radius to be tackled. Inside, no compartments: two rows of seats, arranged on each side, perpendicular to the axis, and between which was left a passage leading to the toilet cabins and others with which each car is provided. Along the whole length of the train, the carriages communicated with one another by footbridges, and the travellers could move from one end of the convoy to the other, which put at their disposal saloon-cars, observation-cars, dining-cars, and coffee-cars. All it lacked was theatre-cars. But one day there will be some.

On the footbridges circulated ceaselessly sellers of books and newspapers, hawking their wares, and vendors of liquor, of eatables, of cigars, who did not lack for customers.

The travellers had left the Oakland station at six in the evening. It was already night—a cold, dark night, with an overcast sky whose clouds threatened to dissolve into snow. The train did not run at great speed. Taking the stops into account, it covered no more than twenty miles an hour, a speed that should, however, allow it to cross the United States within the scheduled times.

Little was said in the car. Besides, sleep would soon overtake the travellers. Passepartout found himself placed beside the police inspector, but he did not speak to him. Since the latest events, their relations had noticeably cooled. No more sympathy, no more intimacy. Fix had changed nothing in his manner, but Passepartout, on the contrary, kept himself on extreme reserve, ready at the slightest suspicion to strangle his former friend.

An hour after the train's departure, the snow fell—fine snow, which could not, most fortunately, delay the convoy's progress. Nothing could be seen any longer through the windows but an immense white sheet, against which, unrolling its coils, the locomotive's steam appeared greyish.

At eight o'clock, a «steward» came into the car and announced to the travellers that the hour for bed had struck. This car was a «sleeping-car,» which, within a few minutes, was turned into a dormitory. The backs of the benches folded down, carefully packed berths unrolled by an ingenious system, cabins were improvised in a few moments, and each traveller soon had at his disposal a comfortable bed, which thick curtains defended against any prying eye. The sheets were white, the pillows soft. There was nothing left to do but lie down and sleep—which everyone did, as if he were in the comfortable cabin of a steamer—while the train sped at full steam across the state of California.

In that portion of the territory that extends between San Francisco and Sacramento, the ground is little broken. This part of the railroad, under the name of «Central Pacific road,» first took Sacramento as its point of departure, and advanced eastward to meet the one that started from Omaha. From San Francisco to the capital of California, the line ran directly to the north-east, skirting the American River, whose waters empty into San Pablo Bay. The hundred and twenty miles between these two important cities were covered in six hours, and toward midnight, while they slept their first sleep, the travellers passed through Sacramento. So they saw nothing of this considerable city, seat of the legislature of the state of California, neither its fine quays, nor its wide streets, nor its splendid hotels, nor its squares, nor its temples.

On leaving Sacramento, the train, after passing the stations of Junction, Roclin, Auburn, and Colfax, entered the massif of the Sierra Nevada. It was seven in the morning when the Cisco station was passed. An hour later, the dormitory had become an ordinary car again, and the travellers could glimpse through the windows the picturesque views of this mountainous country. The train's route obeyed the caprices of the Sierra, here clinging to the mountain's flanks, there hanging above the precipices, avoiding abrupt angles by bold curves, hurling itself into narrow gorges that one had to think were without an exit. The locomotive, sparkling like a reliquary, with its great headlamp casting tawny gleams, its silvered bell, its «cow-catcher» jutting out like a spur, mingled its whistlings and bellowings with those of the torrents and cascades, and twisted its smoke through the black boughs of the firs.

Few or no tunnels, nor any bridge along the route. The rail-road wound around the flank of the mountains, not seeking in the straight line the shortest path from one point to another, and doing no violence to nature.

Toward nine o'clock, by way of the Carson valley, the train penetrated into the state of Nevada, still following the north-east direction. At noon it left Reno, where the travellers had twenty minutes to breakfast.

From this point, the railway, skirting the Humboldt River, rose for a few miles toward the north, following its course. Then it bent eastward, and was not to leave the watercourse again before reaching the Humboldt Ranges, which give it birth, almost at the eastern extremity of the state of Nevada.

Having breakfasted, Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and their companions took their places again in the car. Phileas Fogg, the young woman, Fix, and Passepartout, comfortably seated, watched the varied landscape passing before their eyes—vast prairies, mountains outlined on the horizon, «creeks» rolling their foaming waters. Sometimes a great herd of bison, massing in the distance, appeared like a moving dyke. These innumerable armies of ruminants often set up an insurmountable obstacle to the passage of trains. Thousands of these animals have been seen filing past for several hours, in close ranks, across the rail-road. The locomotive is then obliged to halt and wait until the way has become clear again.

That is even what happened on this occasion. Toward three in the afternoon, a herd of ten to twelve thousand head barred the rail-road. The engine, after slowing its speed, tried to drive its spur into the flank of the immense column, but had to stop before the impenetrable mass.

One saw these ruminants—these buffaloes, as the Americans improperly call them—march thus at their tranquil pace, sometimes uttering formidable bellowings. They were of a size greater than that of the bulls of Europe, with short legs and tail, a jutting withers that formed a muscular hump, horns spread apart at the base, the head, neck, and shoulders covered with a mane of long hair. There was no thinking of stopping this migration. When the bison have adopted a direction, nothing could either check or alter their march. It is a torrent of living flesh that no dyke could hold back.

The travellers, scattered on the footbridges, watched this curious spectacle. But the one who ought to have been the most hurried of all, Phileas Fogg, had stayed in his seat and waited philosophically for the buffaloes to be pleased to give him passage. Passepartout was furious at the delay this gathering of animals was causing. He would have liked to discharge his arsenal of revolvers at them.

«What a country!» he cried. «Mere oxen that stop trains and go filing along there in procession, no more hurried than if they were not hindering the traffic! By Jove! I would dearly like to know whether Mr. Fogg had foreseen this setback in his schedule! And that engineer who does not dare drive his machine through this cumbersome cattle!»

The engineer had not tried to knock the obstacle over, and he had acted prudently. He would no doubt have crushed the first buffaloes struck by the locomotive's spur; but, however powerful it was, the engine would soon have been stopped, a derailment would inevitably have occurred, and the train would have been left stranded.

The best course, then, was to wait patiently, ready afterward to make up the lost time by an acceleration of the train's progress. The filing-past of the bison lasted three good hours, and the way became clear again only at nightfall. At that moment, the last ranks of the herd were crossing the rails, while the first were disappearing below the southern horizon.

It was therefore eight o'clock when the train threaded the defiles of the Humboldt Ranges, and half past nine when it entered the territory of Utah, home to the great Salt Lake, that curious country of the Mormons.

Chapter 27 — In which passepartout follows a course in mormon history at twenty miles an hour

During the night of December 5 to 6, the train ran to the south-east over a space of about fifty miles; then it climbed back as far to the north-east, approaching the great Salt Lake.

Passepartout, toward nine in the morning, came out to take the air on the footbridges. The weather was cold, the sky grey, but it was snowing no longer. The sun's disc, enlarged by the mists, appeared like an enormous gold coin, and Passepartout was busy reckoning its worth in pounds sterling, when he was distracted from this useful task by the appearance of a rather strange personage.

This personage, who had boarded the train at the Elko station, was a man of tall stature, very dark, with black moustaches, black stockings, a black silk hat, black waistcoat and black trousers, a white cravat, and gloves of dogskin. One would have said a reverend. He worked his way along the train from end to end, and, on the door of each car, he stuck with wafers a notice written by hand.

Passepartout drew near and read on one of these notices that the honourable «elder» William Hitch, a Mormon missionary, making the most of his presence on train no. 48, would give, from eleven o'clock to noon, in car no. 117, a lecture on Mormonism—inviting all the gentlemen anxious to instruct themselves in the mysteries of the «Latter-day Saints» religion to come and hear it.

«Certainly I will go,» said Passepartout, who knew hardly anything of Mormonism but its polygamous customs, the basis of Mormon society.

The news spread rapidly through the train, which was carrying a hundred or so travellers. Of that number, thirty at most, lured by the bait of the lecture, occupied at eleven o'clock the benches of car no. 117. Passepartout figured in the front rank of the faithful. Neither his master nor Fix had thought fit to put themselves out.

At the appointed hour, the elder William Hitch rose, and in a rather irritated voice, as if he had been contradicted in advance, he cried out:

«I tell you, I do, that Joe Smyth is a martyr, that his brother Hyram is a martyr, and that the Union government's persecution of the prophets is going to make a martyr of Brigham Young as well! Who would dare maintain the contrary?»

No one ventured to contradict the missionary, whose exaltation contrasted with his naturally calm features. But no doubt his anger was explained by the fact that Mormonism was at that time subjected to harsh trials. And indeed, the government of the United States had just, not without difficulty, brought these independent fanatics to heel. It had made itself the master of Utah and had brought it under the laws of the Union, once it had imprisoned Brigham Young, accused of rebellion and polygamy. Since that time, the prophet's disciples had redoubled their efforts, and, while awaiting deeds, they resisted by word the pretensions of Congress.

As we see, the elder William Hitch was making proselytes even on the railway.

And then he recounted, making his tale impassioned by the bursts of his voice and the violence of his gestures, the history of Mormonism from biblical times: «how, in the land of Israel, a Mormon prophet descended from the tribe of Joseph set down the annals of the new faith and left them to his son Morom; how, whole centuries afterward, a rendering of this precious volume, written in Egyptian characters, was made by Joseph Smyth junior, a farmer of the state of Vermont, who revealed himself as a mystic prophet in 1825; how, finally, a heavenly messenger appeared to him in a luminous forest and handed him the annals of the Lord.»

At this moment, a few listeners, little interested by the missionary's retrospective narrative, left the car; but William Hitch, going on, recounted «how Smyth junior, bringing together his father, his two brothers, and a handful of disciples, founded the religion of the Latter-day Saints—a religion which, taken up not only in America but also in England, in Scandinavia, in Germany, counts among its faithful artisans and also numbers of people practising the liberal professions; how a colony was founded in Ohio; how a temple was raised at the cost of two hundred thousand dollars, with a city built at Kirkland; how Smyth became a bold banker and received from a mere exhibitor of mummies a papyrus containing a narrative written by the hand of Abraham and other famous Egyptians.»

This narration becoming a little long, the ranks of the listeners thinned still further, and the audience now consisted of no more than a score of persons.

But the elder, without troubling himself over this desertion, recounted in detail «how Joe Smyth went bankrupt in 1837; how his ruined shareholders coated him with tar and rolled him in feathers; how he was found again, more honourable and more honoured than ever, a few years later, at Independence, in Missouri, and head of a flourishing community that numbered no fewer than three thousand disciples, and how, then, pursued by the hatred of the Gentiles, he had to flee into the American Far West.»

Ten listeners were still there, honest Passepartout among them, drinking in every word. It was thus that he learned «how, after long persecutions, Smyth reappeared in Illinois and founded in 1839, on the banks of the Mississippi, Nauvoo-the-Beautiful, whose population rose as high as twenty-five thousand souls; how Smyth became its mayor, its supreme judge, and its commander-in-chief; how, in 1843, he put his name forward for the United States presidency; and how, finally, lured into an ambush at Carthage, he was cast into prison and murdered by a band of masked men.»

At this moment, Passepartout was absolutely alone in the car, and the elder, gazing straight into his face and spellbinding him with his words, reminded him that, two years after Smyth's assassination, his successor, the inspired prophet Brigham Young, abandoning Nauvoo, came to settle on the shores of the Salt Lake, and that there, on that admirable territory, in the midst of that fertile region, on the road of the emigrants who crossed Utah to reach California, the new colony, thanks to the polygamous principles of Mormonism, took on an enormous expansion.

«And there,» added William Hitch, «that is why the jealousy of Congress has come down upon us! why the soldiers of the Union have trodden the soil of Utah! why our chief, the prophet Brigham Young, has been imprisoned in defiance of all justice! Shall we bow to force? Never! Driven out of Vermont, out of Illinois, out of Ohio, out of Missouri, out of Utah, we shall yet come upon some independent territory where we shall pitch our tent... And you, my faithful one,» added the elder, fixing wrathful looks upon his sole listener, «will you plant yours in the shadow of our flag?

--No,» Passepartout replied bravely, fleeing in his turn, and leaving the fanatic to preach in the desert.

But during this lecture, the train had run rapidly, and, toward half past noon, it touched at its north-west tip the great Salt Lake. From there one could take in, over a vast perimeter, the aspect of this inland sea, which also bears the name of Dead Sea and into which an American Jordan empties. An admirable lake, framed by beautiful wild rocks in broad strata crusted over with white salt—a magnificent sheet of water that once covered a wider space; but with time its shores, rising little by little, have reduced its surface while increasing its depth.

The Salt Lake, about seventy miles long, thirty-five wide, is situated three thousand eight hundred feet above sea level. Very different from Lake Asphaltite, whose depression registers twelve hundred feet below, its salinity is considerable, and its waters hold in dissolution a quarter of their weight in solid matter. Their specific gravity is 1,170, that of distilled water being 1,000. And so fish cannot live in it. Those that the Jordan, the Weber, and other creeks throw into it soon perish there; but it is not true that the density of its waters is such that a man cannot dive into it.

Around the lake the countryside was admirably cultivated, for the Mormons are skilled at the labours of the soil: ranchos and corrals for the domestic animals, fields of wheat, maize, sorghum, luxuriant meadows, everywhere hedges of wild roses, clumps of acacias and euphorbias—such would have been the aspect of this region six months later; but at this moment the ground was disappearing under a thin layer of snow, which lightly powdered it.

At two o'clock, the travellers got out at the Ogden station. The train not being due to leave again until six, Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and their two companions had time to go to the City of the Saints by the little branch line that leaves the Ogden station. Two hours were enough to visit this absolutely American city and, as such, built on the pattern of all the cities of the Union—vast chessboards with long cold lines, with the «lugubrious sadness of right angles,» in Victor Hugo's expression. The man who founded the City of the Saints was unable to escape that craving for symmetry which marks the Anglo-Saxons. In this singular country, where the men are surely not equal to their institutions, everything is done «four-square»—the cities, the houses, and the follies.

At three o'clock, the travellers were therefore strolling through the streets of the city, built between the bank of the Jordan and the first undulations of the Wahsatch mountains. They noticed there few or no churches, but, by way of monuments, the prophet's house, the Court-house, and the arsenal; then houses of bluish brick with verandas and galleries, ringed by gardens and edged with acacias, palms, and carob trees. A wall of clay and pebbles, built in 1853, girded the city. In the main street, where the market is held, rose a few hotels adorned with pavilions, and among others the Lake-Salt-house.

Mr. Fogg and his companions did not find the city very populous. The streets were almost deserted—except, however, the part around the Temple, which they reached only after crossing several quarters surrounded by palisades. The women were fairly numerous, which is explained by the singular composition of Mormon households. One must not believe, however, that all the Mormons are polygamous. One is free, but it is well to note that it is the female citizens of Utah who are especially keen on being married, for, according to the religion of the country, the Mormon heaven does not admit unmarried women to the possession of its beatitudes. These poor creatures seemed neither well-off nor happy. Some, the richest no doubt, wore a jacket of black silk open at the waist, under a hood or a very modest shawl. The others were dressed only in printed calico.

Passepartout, for his part, in his capacity as a confirmed bachelor, did not look without a certain dread at these Mormon women charged with jointly making the happiness of a single Mormon. In his good sense, it was the husband he pitied above all. It seemed terrible to him to have to guide so many ladies at once through the vicissitudes of life, to lead them thus in a flock all the way to the Mormon paradise, and there to expect to find them again for eternity in the company of the glorious Smyth, who was to be the ornament of that place of delights. Decidedly, he did not feel the vocation, and he found—perhaps he deceived himself in this—that the female citizens of Great-Lake-City were casting rather disquieting looks upon his person.

Very fortunately, his stay in the City of the Saints was not to be prolonged. At a few minutes to four, the travellers were back at the station and taking their places again in their cars.

The whistle sounded; but just as the driving wheels of the locomotive, slipping on the rails, were beginning to give the train some speed, these cries—«Stop! stop!»—rang out.

One does not stop a moving train. The gentleman raising these cries was plainly a Mormon who had fallen behind. He was running fit to burst. Fortunately for him, the station had neither doors nor barriers. So he dashed onto the track, sprang onto the step of the last carriage, and fell, out of breath, onto one of the benches of the car.

Passepartout, who had followed the incidents of this gymnastics with emotion, came to contemplate this latecomer, in whom he took a lively interest when he learned that this citizen of Utah had thus taken flight only as the result of a domestic scene.

When the Mormon had got his breath back, Passepartout made bold to ask him politely just how many wives he had, all to himself—and, from the way he had just decamped, he supposed him to have a good twenty at least.

«One, sir!» the Mormon answered, lifting his arms to heaven, «one, and that was quite enough!»

Chapter 28 — In which Passepartout fails to make the voice of reason heard

On leaving Great Salt Lake and the Ogden station, the train climbed northward for an hour, up to the Weber River, having covered about nine hundred miles since San Francisco. From that point on, it turned east again through the rugged mass of the Wahsatch Mountains. It is in this stretch of country, lying between these mountains and the Rocky Mountains proper, that the American engineers ran up against their most serious difficulties. And so, along this section, the Union government's subsidy rose to forty-eight thousand dollars a mile, whereas on the plains it came to only sixteen thousand; but the engineers, as has been said, did not do violence to nature—they outwitted it, working around the obstacles, and to reach the great basin, a single tunnel, fourteen thousand feet long, was bored along the whole run of the railroad.

It was at Salt Lake itself that the line had so far reached its highest point of altitude. From there its profile traced a very long curve, dropping toward the valley of the Bitter Creek before rising again to the watershed divide between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The rivers were numerous in this mountainous region. The Muddy, the Green, and others had to be crossed on small bridges. Passepartout had grown more impatient as he drew nearer the goal. But Fix, for his part, would have liked to be out of this difficult country already. He feared the delays, he dreaded the accidents, and he was in more of a hurry than Phileas Fogg himself to set foot on English soil!

At ten o'clock at night, the train stopped at the Fort Bridger station, which it left almost at once, and, twenty miles farther on, it entered the state of Wyoming—the former Dakota—following the whole valley of the Bitter Creek, from which flow part of the waters that form the hydrographic system of the Colorado.

The next day, December 7, there was a fifteen-minute stop at the Green River station. Snow had fallen fairly heavily during the night, but, mixed with rain and half melted, it could not hinder the train's progress. Still, this bad weather did not fail to worry Passepartout, for the piling up of snow, by bogging down the carriage wheels, would surely have compromised the journey.

"What an idea," he said to himself, "for my master to have taken it into his head to travel in winter! Couldn't he have waited for the fine season to improve his chances?"

But at that very moment, when the honest fellow was concerned only with the state of the sky and the dropping temperature, Mrs. Aouda was feeling sharper fears, which sprang from a wholly different cause.

Indeed, a few travelers had stepped down from their car and were strolling on the platform of the Green River station, waiting for the train to depart. Now, through the window, the young woman recognized among them Colonel Stamp W. Proctor, that American who had behaved so coarsely toward Phileas Fogg during the San Francisco meeting. Mrs. Aouda, not wanting to be seen, drew back.

This circumstance made a keen impression on the young woman. She had become attached to the man who, coldly though it might be, gave her every day the marks of the most complete devotion. She did not, no doubt, grasp the full depth of the feeling her rescuer inspired in her, and to that feeling she still gave only the name of gratitude, but, unknown to herself, there was more than that in it. And so her heart clenched when she recognized the coarse fellow of whom Mr. Fogg meant sooner or later to demand satisfaction for his conduct. Clearly it was chance alone that had brought Colonel Proctor onto this train, but there he was, all the same, and Phileas Fogg had to be prevented at all costs from catching sight of his adversary.

Mrs. Aouda, once the train had started off again, seized on a moment when Mr. Fogg was dozing to bring Fix and Passepartout up to speed on the situation.

"That Proctor is on the train!" cried Fix. "Well, rest easy, madam—before he has anything to settle with Mr.— with Mr. Fogg, he'll have to settle with me! It seems to me that in all this, I'm still the one who received the gravest insults!

"And what's more," added Passepartout, "I'll take charge of him myself, colonel or no colonel."

"Monsieur Fix," Mrs. Aouda went on, "Mr. Fogg will leave to no one the task of avenging him. He is the kind of man, as he has said, to come back to America to hunt down this insulter. So if he catches sight of Colonel Proctor, we won't be able to prevent an encounter that could lead to deplorable results. He must therefore not see him."

"You are right, madam," replied Fix, "an encounter could ruin everything. Winner or loser, Mr. Fogg would be delayed, and..."

"And," added Passepartout, "that would play into the hands of the Reform Club's gentlemen. Within four days we'll be in New York! Well, if for four days my master doesn't leave his car, we can hope that chance won't bring him face to face with this cursed American, God confound him! So we'll manage well enough to keep it from happening..."

The conversation was cut short. Mr. Fogg had woken up and was looking out at the countryside through the snow-flecked window. But later, without being overheard by his master or by Mrs. Aouda, Passepartout said to the police inspector:

"Would you really fight for him?

"I'll do anything to bring him back alive to Europe!" replied Fix simply, in a tone that marked an implacable resolve.

Passepartout felt something like a shiver run through his body, but his convictions concerning his master did not waver.

And now, was there any way at all to keep Mr. Fogg in this compartment so as to prevent any encounter between the colonel and himself? It could not be difficult, the gentleman being by nature little given to moving about or to curiosity. In any case, the police inspector thought he had found the way, for a few moments later he was saying to Phileas Fogg:

"They're long, slow hours, sir, that one spends this way on the railway.

"Indeed," replied the gentleman, "but they pass.

"Aboard the steamers," the inspector went on, "you were in the habit of playing your whist?

"Yes," replied Phileas Fogg, "but here it would be difficult. I have neither cards nor partners.

"Oh! the cards, we'll easily find some to buy. They sell everything in the American cars. As for partners, if, by chance, madam...

"Certainly, sir," the young woman replied at once, "I know whist. It's part of an English upbringing.

"And I," Fix went on, "have some pretensions to playing this game well. Now, the three of us and a dummy...

"As you please, sir," replied Phileas Fogg, delighted to take up his favorite game again—even on the railway.

Passepartout was sent off to find the steward, and he soon came back with two full decks, counters, chips, and a cloth-covered board. Nothing was missing. The game began. Mrs. Aouda knew whist quite well enough, and she even received a few compliments from the stern Phileas Fogg. As for the inspector, he was quite simply first-rate, and a worthy match for the gentleman.

"Now," Passepartout said to himself, "we've got him. He won't budge again!"

At eleven o'clock in the morning, the train had gained the divide between the waters of the two oceans. This was at Bridger Pass, at a height of seven thousand five hundred twenty-four English feet above sea level, one of the highest points touched by the line's profile in this passage through the Rocky Mountains. After about two hundred miles, the travelers would at last find themselves on those long plains that stretch to the Atlantic, and that nature had made so favorable to the laying of a railway.

On the slope of the Atlantic basin the first rivers were already spreading out, tributaries or sub-tributaries of the North Platte River. The whole northern and eastern horizon was covered by that immense semicircular curtain that forms the northern portion of the Rocky Mountains, dominated by Laramie Peak. Between this curve and the rail line stretched vast, well-watered plains. To the right of the railroad rose in tiers the first slopes of the mountain mass that rounds off southward as far as the headwaters of the Arkansas River, one of the Missouri's great tributaries.

At half past noon, the travelers caught a glimpse for a moment of Fort Halleck, which commands this country. A few hours more, and the crossing of the Rocky Mountains would be accomplished. So one could hope that no accident would mark the train's passage through this difficult region. The snow had stopped falling. The weather was turning to a dry cold. Great birds, frightened by the locomotive, fled off into the distance. No wild beast, bear or wolf, showed itself on the plain. It was the desert in its immense bareness.

After a fairly comfortable lunch, served in the car itself, Mr. Fogg and his partners had just taken up their interminable whist again, when violent whistle blasts made themselves heard. The train stopped.

Passepartout put his head out the door and saw nothing to account for this halt. No station was in sight.

Mrs. Aouda and Fix could fear for a moment that Mr. Fogg might think of getting down onto the track. But the gentleman merely said to his servant:

"Go and see what it is."

Passepartout sprang out of the car. Some forty travelers had already left their seats, and among them Colonel Stamp W. Proctor.

The train had stopped in front of a signal turned to red that closed the line. The engineer and the conductor, having climbed down, were arguing rather heatedly with a trackman whom the stationmaster of Medicine Bow, the next station, had sent out to meet the train. Some travelers had come up and were taking part in the discussion—among them the aforesaid Colonel Proctor, with his loud voice and his imperious gestures.

Passepartout, having joined the group, heard the trackman saying:

"No! there's no way through! The Medicine Bow bridge is weakened and wouldn't bear the weight of the train."

This bridge in question was a suspension bridge, thrown across a rapid a mile from the spot where the train had stopped. According to the trackman, it was on the verge of collapse, several of the cables were broken, and it was impossible to risk crossing it. The trackman was in no way exaggerating, then, in stating that they could not get through. And besides, given the careless habits of the Americans, one may say that when they do take to being cautious, it would be madness not to be.

Passepartout, not daring to go warn his master, listened, teeth clenched, motionless as a statue.

"Well now!" cried Colonel Proctor, "we're not going to sit here, I suppose, taking root in the snow!

"Colonel," replied the conductor, "we've telegraphed the Omaha station to ask for a train, but it isn't likely to reach Medicine Bow before six o'clock.

"Six hours!" cried Passepartout.

"No doubt," replied the conductor. "Besides, that time will be needed for us to reach the station on foot.

"On foot!" cried all the travelers.

"But how far away is this station, then?" one of them asked the conductor.

"Twelve miles, on the other side of the river.

"Twelve miles in the snow!" cried Stamp W. Proctor.

The colonel let fly a broadside of curses, blaming the company, blaming the conductor, and Passepartout, furious, was not far from joining the chorus with him. Here was a material obstacle against which, this time, all his master's bank notes would fail.

What was more, the disappointment was general among the travelers, who, quite apart from the delay, saw themselves obliged to make some fifteen miles across the snow-covered plain. So there was an uproar, exclamations, shouting, that would certainly have drawn the attention of Phileas Fogg, had that gentleman not been absorbed in his game.

Meanwhile Passepartout found himself under the necessity of warning him, and, head down, he was heading toward the car when the train's engineer—a true Yankee named Forster—raising his voice, said:

"Gentlemen, there might perhaps be a way to get through.

"Over the bridge?" replied a traveler.

"Over the bridge.

"With our train?" asked the colonel.

"With our train."

Passepartout had stopped, and was drinking in the engineer's words.

"But the bridge is on the verge of collapse!" the conductor objected.

"No matter," replied Forster. "I believe that by launching the train at its top speed, we'd have some chance of getting across.

"The devil!" said Passepartout.

But a fair number of travelers had been immediately won over by the proposal. It pleased Colonel Proctor in particular. This hothead found the thing quite feasible. He even recalled that engineers had once had the idea of crossing rivers "without a bridge" using rigid trains launched at full speed, and so on. And in the end, all those with a stake in the matter came round to the engineer's opinion.

"We have fifty chances of getting across," said one.

"Sixty," said another.

"Eighty!... ninety out of a hundred!"

Passepartout was dumbfounded, though he was ready to try anything to bring off the crossing of the Medicine Creek, but the attempt struck him as a little too "American."

"Besides," he thought, "there's a much simpler thing to do, and these people don't even give it a thought!..."

"Sir," he said to one of the travelers, "the method the engineer proposes strikes me as a bit rash, but...

"Eighty chances!" replied the traveler, who turned his back on him.

"I know that," replied Passepartout, addressing another gentleman, "but a simple thought...

"No thought, it's pointless!" replied the American thus buttonholed, shrugging his shoulders, "since the engineer assures us we'll get across!

"No doubt," Passepartout went on, "we'll get across, but it might perhaps be more prudent...

"What! prudent!" cried Colonel Proctor, whom that word, caught by chance, made leap. "At full speed, you're being told! Do you understand? At full speed!

"I know... I understand...," Passepartout kept repeating, though no one would let him finish his sentence, "but it would prove—if not more prudent, seeing as the word offends you—at least more natural...

"Who? what? eh? What's the matter with this one and his natural?..." came the cries from all sides.

The poor fellow no longer knew whom to make himself heard by.

"Are you afraid, then?" Colonel Proctor asked him.

"Me, afraid!" cried Passepartout. "Well, so be it! I'll show this crowd that a Frenchman can be every bit as American as they are!

"All aboard! all aboard!" the conductor was shouting.

"Yes! all aboard," Passepartout repeated, "all aboard! And right away! But no one will stop me from thinking that it would have been more natural to send us across this bridge on foot first, we travelers, and the train afterward!..."

But no one heard this wise reflection, and no one would have cared to acknowledge that it was right.

The travelers were back inside their car. Passepartout took his seat again, saying nothing of what had happened. The players were wholly given over to their whist.

The locomotive gave a vigorous whistle. The engineer, throwing the steam into reverse, drew his train back for nearly a mile—pulling away like a jumper who wants to take a running start.

Then, at a second whistle blast, the forward march began again: it picked up speed; soon the pace became fearful; nothing could be heard but a single neighing coming from the locomotive; the pistons beat twenty strokes to the second; the axles of the wheels smoked in their grease boxes. One felt, so to speak, that the whole train, moving at a hundred miles an hour, no longer bore down on the rails. Speed was devouring weight.

And they got across! And it was like a flash of lightning. Nothing was seen of the bridge. The train leaped, one might say, clear across from bank to bank, and the engineer only managed to halt his runaway machine five miles beyond the station.

But scarcely had the train cleared the river when the bridge, ruined for good, crashed down with a great din into the rapid of the Medicine Bow.

Chapter 29 — In which an account is given of various incidents to be met with only on the railroads of the Union

That same evening, the train pursued its route without obstacles, passed Fort Sanders, cleared the Cheyenne Pass, and reached the Evans Pass. At this spot, the railroad reached the highest point of the run, namely eight thousand ninety-one feet above the level of the ocean. The travelers had now only to go on down to the Atlantic across those limitless plains, leveled by nature.

There, on the "grand trunk," lay the branch line to Denver City, the chief town of Colorado. This territory is rich in gold and silver mines, and more than fifty thousand inhabitants have already made their home there.

By this point, thirteen hundred eighty-two miles had been covered since San Francisco, over three days and three nights. Four nights and four days, by every forecast, should be enough to reach New York. Phileas Fogg was thus keeping within the regulation limits.

During the night, Camp Walbah was left on the left. The Lodge Pole Creek ran parallel to the line, following the straight-line boundary common to the states of Wyoming and Colorado. At eleven o'clock, they entered Nebraska, passed near the Sedgwick, and touched Julesburg, set on the south branch of the Platte River.

It is at this point that the inauguration of the Union Pacific Road took place, on October 23, 1867, its chief engineer being General J. M. Dodge. There the two powerful locomotives halted, hauling the nine cars of guests, among whom figured the vice-president, Mr. Thomas C. Durant; there the cheers rang out; there the Sioux and the Pawnees put on the spectacle of a little Indian war; there the fireworks burst; there, at last, by means of a portable press, the first issue of the newspaper Railway Pioneer was published. In this fashion the inauguration of this great railway was celebrated, an instrument of progress and civilization, flung across the desert and meant to link together towns and cities that did not yet exist. The locomotive's whistle, mightier than Amphion's lyre, was soon to make them spring up from American soil.

At eight o'clock in the morning, Fort McPherson was left behind. Three hundred fifty-seven miles separate this point from Omaha. The railway followed, on its left bank, the capricious windings of the south branch of the Platte River. At nine o'clock, they reached the sizable town of North Platte, set between the two arms of the great watercourse, which rejoin around it to form only a single artery—a considerable tributary whose waters mingle with those of the Missouri, a little above Omaha.

The hundred-and-first meridian had been crossed.

Mr. Fogg and his partners had taken up their game again. None of them complained of the length of the journey—not even the dummy. Fix had begun by winning a few guineas, which he was in the course of losing back, but he showed himself no less impassioned than Mr. Fogg. During that morning, luck singularly favored this gentleman. Trumps and honors rained into his hands. At a certain moment, having worked out a bold play, he was getting ready to lead spades, when, behind the seat, a voice made itself heard, saying:

"Myself, I'd play diamonds..."

Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and Fix looked up. Colonel Proctor was beside them.

Stamp W. Proctor and Phileas Fogg recognized each other at once.

"Ah! it's you, Mr. Englishman," cried the colonel, "it's you who want to play spades!

"And who am playing it," replied Phileas Fogg coldly, laying down a ten of that suit.

"Well, it suits me that it be diamonds," retorted Colonel Proctor in an irritated voice.

And he made a move to seize the card that had been played, adding:

"You understand nothing about this game.

"Perhaps I'll be more skillful at another," said Phileas Fogg, who rose.

"It's up to you to try, son of John Bull!" retorted the coarse fellow.

Mrs. Aouda had turned pale. All her blood flowed back to her heart. She had seized the arm of Phileas Fogg, who gently pushed her away. Passepartout was ready to throw himself on the American, who was eyeing his adversary with the most insulting air. But Fix had risen and, going up to Colonel Proctor, he said to him:

"You forget that it's I you have to deal with, sir—I, the man you not only insulted but actually struck!

"Monsieur Fix," said Mr. Fogg, "I beg your pardon, but this concerns me alone. By claiming that I was wrong to play spades, the colonel has done me a fresh injury, and he shall answer to me for it.

"Whenever you like, and wherever you like," retorted the American, "and with any weapon you please!"

Mrs. Aouda tried in vain to hold back Mr. Fogg. The inspector attempted, uselessly, to take up the quarrel on his own account. Passepartout wanted to throw the colonel out the door, but a sign from his master stopped him. Phileas Fogg walked out of the car, and the American came after him onto the gangway.

"Sir," Mr. Fogg said to his opponent, "I'm in a great hurry to return to Europe, and the slightest delay would do serious harm to my interests.

"Well! what's that to me?" replied Colonel Proctor.

"Sir," Mr. Fogg went on very politely, "after our encounter at San Francisco, I had formed the plan of coming to find you again in America, as soon as I had finished the business that calls me to the old continent.

"Really!

"Will you give me a meeting in six months?

"Why not in six years?

"I say six months," replied Mr. Fogg, "and I'll be punctual at the appointment.

"Excuses, all that!" cried Stamp W. Proctor. "Right now or not at all.

"So be it," replied Mr. Fogg. "You're going to New York?

"No.

"To Chicago?

"No.

"To Omaha?

"No matter to you! Do you know Plum Creek?

"No," replied Mr. Fogg.

"It's the next stop. The train reaches it in an hour. It will halt there ten minutes. In ten minutes, one can exchange a few revolver shots.

"So be it," replied Mr. Fogg. "I'll stop at Plum Creek.

"And I even think you'll stay there!" added the American with unequaled insolence.

"Who knows, sir?" replied Mr. Fogg, and he went back into his car, as cold as ever.

There the gentleman began by reassuring Mrs. Aouda, telling her that braggarts were never to be feared. Then he asked Fix to serve as his second in the encounter that was about to take place. Fix could not refuse, and Phileas Fogg calmly took up his interrupted game, playing spades with perfect composure.

At eleven o'clock, the whistle of the locomotive announced the approach of the Plum Creek station. Mr. Fogg got up and, with Fix behind him, made his way to the gangway. Passepartout went with him, carrying a pair of revolvers. Mrs. Aouda had stayed in the car, pale as a dead woman.

At that moment, the door of the other car opened, and Colonel Proctor likewise appeared on the gangway, followed by his second, a Yankee of his own stamp. But just as the two adversaries were about to step down onto the track, the conductor came running and shouted to them:

"You don't get down, gentlemen.

"And why not?" asked the colonel.

"We're twenty minutes behind, and the train isn't stopping.

"But I'm supposed to fight with this gentleman.

"I'm sorry about it," replied the employee, "but we're leaving again at once. There's the bell ringing!"

The bell was indeed ringing, and the train started off again.

"I'm truly sorry, gentlemen," the conductor then said. "In any other circumstance, I could have obliged you. But after all, since you haven't had the time to fight here, who's to stop you from fighting on the way?

"That may not suit this gentleman!" said Colonel Proctor with a mocking air.

"It suits me perfectly," replied Phileas Fogg.

"Well, there's no doubt about it, we really are in America!" thought Passepartout, "and the train conductor is a gentleman of the finest sort!"

And so saying, he followed his master.

The two adversaries and their seconds, led by the conductor, made their way, passing from one car to the next, to the back of the train. This final car held only about ten travelers. The conductor asked them whether they would be so good as to leave the space free for a few moments to two gentlemen who had an affair of honor to settle.

Why, of course! The travelers were only too happy to be able to oblige the two gentlemen, and they withdrew onto the gangways.

This car, some fifty feet long, lent itself very suitably to the occasion. The two adversaries could walk toward each other between the benches and blaze away at their leisure. Never was a duel easier to arrange. Mr. Fogg and Colonel Proctor, each armed with two six-shot revolvers, entered the car. Their seconds, staying outside, locked them in. At the first whistle of the locomotive, they were to open fire... Then, after a lapse of two minutes, whatever was left of the two gentlemen would be removed from the car.

Nothing simpler, in truth. So simple, indeed, that Fix and Passepartout could feel their hearts pounding fit to burst.

So they were waiting for the agreed whistle, when suddenly savage cries rang out. Detonations accompanied them, but these did not come from the car set aside for the duelists. These detonations went on, on the contrary, all the way to the front, running the entire length of the train. Shouts of terror were heard inside the convoy.

Colonel Proctor and Mr. Fogg, revolver in hand, at once came out of the car and rushed toward the front, where the detonations and cries were sounding more loudly.

They had understood that the train was being attacked by a band of Sioux.

These bold Indians were not making their first attempt, and more than once already they had stopped the trains. Following their habit, without waiting for the train to stop, springing onto the running boards to the number of a hundred, they had scaled the cars the way a clown does a galloping horse.

These Sioux were armed with rifles. Hence the detonations, to which the travelers, nearly all armed, answered back with revolver shots. First of all, the Indians had rushed the engine. The engineer and the fireman had been half stunned by blows of a war club. A Sioux chief, meaning to halt the train but with no idea how to work the regulator lever, had opened the steam intake wide instead of closing it, and the locomotive, running away, was racing along at a fearful speed.

At the same time, the Sioux had overrun the cars, they ran like enraged monkeys over the car roofs, they smashed in the doors and fought hand to hand with the travelers. Out of the baggage car, broken into and plundered, the packages were thrown onto the track. Cries and gunfire did not let up.

Meanwhile the travelers defended themselves with courage. Certain cars, barricaded, withstood a siege, like real rolling forts, swept along at a hundred miles an hour.

From the very start of the attack, Mrs. Aouda had behaved courageously. Revolver in hand, she defended herself heroically, firing through the shattered windows whenever some savage presented himself to her. A score of Sioux, struck dead, had fallen onto the track, and the wheels of the cars crushed like worms those among them who slipped onto the rails from the top of the gangways.

Several travelers, gravely hit by bullets or war clubs, lay stretched on the benches.

Meanwhile it had to be brought to an end. This struggle had already been going on for ten minutes, and could only end to the advantage of the Sioux if the train did not stop. In fact, the Fort Kearney station was not two miles off. There stood an American post; but once that post was passed, between Fort Kearney and the next station the Sioux would be masters of the convoy.

The conductor was fighting at Mr. Fogg's side when a bullet knocked him down. As he fell, this man cried out:

"We're lost, if the train doesn't stop within five minutes!

"It will stop!" said Phileas Fogg, who made to spring out of the car.

"Stay, sir," Passepartout shouted to him. "This is my business!"

Phileas Fogg had no time to stop the courageous fellow, who, opening a door without being seen by the Indians, managed to slip under the car. And then, while the struggle went on, while the bullets crossed above his head, recovering his agility, his clown's suppleness, threading his way under the cars, clinging to the chains, helping himself with the brake lever and the frame rails, crawling from one carriage to the next with marvelous skill, he thus reached the front of the train. He had not been seen, he could not have been.

There, hanging by one hand between the luggage van and the tender, he used the other to unhook the safety chains; yet with the traction being applied, he would never have managed to unscrew the coupling bar, had a jolt that the engine underwent not made this bar spring loose, so that the train, detached, gradually fell behind, while the locomotive fled off at renewed speed.

Carried along by acquired momentum, the train rolled on for a few minutes more, but the brakes were worked from inside the cars, and the train stopped at last, less than a hundred paces from the Kearney station.

There, the fort's soldiers, drawn by the gunfire, came running in haste. The Sioux had not waited for them, and, before the train had fully stopped, the whole band had made off.

But when the travelers took a count of themselves on the station platform, they realized that several were missing from the roll call, and among others the courageous Frenchman to whose devotion they had just owed their rescue.

Chapter 30 — In which Phileas Fogg quite simply does his duty

Three travelers, Passepartout included, had vanished. Had they died in the fighting? Were they now prisoners of the Sioux? There was no way yet to know.

The wounded were fairly numerous, but it was found that none was hurt mortally. One of the most gravely struck was Colonel Proctor, who had fought bravely, and whom a bullet to the groin had brought down. He was carried to the station with other travelers whose condition called for immediate care.

Mrs. Aouda was safe. Phileas Fogg, who had not spared himself, had not a scratch. Fix was wounded in the arm, an injury of no importance. But Passepartout was missing, and tears flowed from the young woman's eyes.

Meanwhile all the travelers had left the train. The wheels of the cars were stained with blood. From the hubs and spokes hung shapeless scraps of flesh. As far as one could see, long red streaks marked the white plain. The last of the Indians were disappearing then to the south, toward the Republican River.

Mr. Fogg, arms folded, remained motionless. He had a grave decision to make. Mrs. Aouda, near him, looked at him without uttering a word... He understood that look. If his servant was a prisoner, was it not his duty to risk everything to snatch him from the Indians?...

"I'll find him again, dead or alive," he said simply to Mrs. Aouda.

"Ah! sir... Mr. Fogg!" cried the young woman, seizing the hands of her companion, which she covered with tears.

"Alive!" added Mr. Fogg, "if we don't lose a single minute!"

By this resolve, Phileas Fogg was sacrificing himself entirely. He had just pronounced his own ruin. A single day's delay made him miss the steamer at New York. His wager was irretrievably lost. But faced with this thought—"It's my duty!"—he had not hesitated.

The captain in command of Fort Kearney was there. His soldiers—about a hundred men—had put themselves on the defensive in case the Sioux should launch a direct attack on the station.

"Captain," Mr. Fogg said to him, "three travelers have vanished.

"Dead?" asked the captain.

"Dead or prisoners," replied Phileas Fogg. "There's an uncertainty there that must be cleared up. Is it your intention to pursue the Sioux?

"That's a serious matter, sir," said the captain. "These Indians may flee beyond the Arkansas! I cannot abandon the fort entrusted to me.

"Sir," Phileas Fogg went on, "it's a question of the lives of three men.

"No doubt... but can I gamble fifty lives to save three?

"I don't know whether you can, sir, but you must.

"Sir," replied the captain, "no one here has anything to teach me about what my duty is.

"So be it," said Phileas Fogg coldly. "I'll go alone!

"You, sir!" cried Fix, who had come up, "go alone in pursuit of the Indians!

"Would you have me let this poor wretch perish, then—the man to whom everything living here owes its life? I'm going.

"Well, no, you won't go alone!" cried the captain, moved despite himself. "No! You have a brave heart!... Thirty men of good will!" he added, turning toward his soldiers.

The whole company stepped forward in a body. The captain had only to choose among these brave fellows. Thirty soldiers were named, and an old sergeant put himself at their head.

"Thank you, captain!" said Mr. Fogg.

"Will you permit me to accompany you?" Fix asked the gentleman.

"You'll do as you please, sir," Phileas Fogg answered him. "But if you want to do me a service, you'll stay near Mrs. Aouda. In case any harm should come to me..."

A sudden pallor swept over the face of the police inspector. To part from the man he had followed step by step and with such persistence! To let him venture off like this into that desert! Fix looked attentively at the gentleman, and, whatever he might feel, despite his prejudices, in spite of the struggle raging inside him, he dropped his eyes before that calm, frank gaze.

"I'll stay," he said.

A few moments later, Mr. Fogg had gripped the young woman's hand; then, after handing her his precious traveling bag, he set off with the sergeant and his little troop.

But before leaving, he had said to the soldiers:

"My friends, there are a thousand pounds for you if we save the prisoners!"

It was then a few minutes past noon.

Mrs. Aouda had withdrawn into a room of the station, and there, alone, she waited, thinking of Phileas Fogg, of that simple and great generosity, of that quiet courage. Mr. Fogg had sacrificed his fortune, and now he was staking his life, all of it without hesitation, out of duty, without fine words. Phileas Fogg was a hero in her eyes.

Inspector Fix, for his part, did not think so, and he could not contain his agitation. He paced feverishly on the station platform. Subdued for a moment, he became himself again. With Fogg gone, he grasped the folly he had committed in letting him go. What! this man he had just followed around the world—he had consented to part from him! His nature was getting the upper hand again; he blamed himself, he accused himself, he treated himself as if he had been the head of the metropolitan police, dressing down an agent caught red-handed in an act of naïveté.

"I've been an idiot!" he thought. "The other one will have told him who I was! He's gone, he won't come back! Where am I to lay hold of him now? But how could I have let myself be so mesmerized—I, Fix, I, who have his arrest warrant in my pocket! Decidedly, I'm nothing but a fool!"

So reasoned the police inspector, while the hours slipped by so slowly for his liking. He was at a loss what to do. At times he had a mind to tell Mrs. Aouda everything. But he grasped how he would be received by the young woman. What course to take? He was tempted to set off across the long white plains, in pursuit of this Fogg! It did not seem impossible to him to find him again. The detachment's footprints were still imprinted on the snow!... But soon, under a fresh layer, every trace was wiped out.

Then discouragement took hold of Fix. He felt something like an insurmountable urge to give up the game. Now, precisely, this chance to leave the Kearney station and to pursue this journey, so rich in setbacks, was offered to him.

Indeed, toward two o'clock in the afternoon, while the snow was falling in thick flakes, long whistles were heard coming from the east. An enormous shadow, preceded by a tawny glow, was advancing slowly, considerably enlarged by the mists, which gave it a fantastic look.

And yet no train coming from the east was expected as yet. The help called for by telegraph could not arrive so soon, and the Omaha-to-San Francisco train was not due to pass until the next day.—They were soon set straight.

This locomotive advancing at low steam, throwing out great whistle blasts, was the one that, after being detached from the train, had continued on its way at such a frightful speed, carrying off the unconscious fireman and engineer. It had run along the rails for several miles; then the fire had died down for want of fuel; the steam had eased off, and an hour later, gradually slowing its pace, the engine had at last stopped twenty miles beyond the Kearney station.

Neither the engineer nor the fireman had perished, and, after a rather prolonged faint, they had come to.

The engine was then at a standstill. When he saw himself in the desert, the locomotive alone, with no more cars behind it, the engineer understood what had happened. How the locomotive had been detached from the train, he could not guess, but there was no doubt in his mind that the train, stranded behind him, was in distress.

The engineer did not hesitate over what he had to do. To keep on toward Omaha was prudent; to go back toward the train, which the Indians were perhaps still plundering, was dangerous... No matter! Shovelfuls of coal and wood were engulfed in the firebox of his boiler, the fire revived, the pressure rose again, and, toward two o'clock in the afternoon, the engine was coming back toward the Kearney station. It was the one whistling in the mist.

It was a great satisfaction to the travelers when they saw the locomotive place itself at the head of the train. They were going to be able to continue this journey so unhappily interrupted.

At the engine's arrival, Mrs. Aouda had left the station, and, addressing the conductor:

"You're going to leave?" she asked him.

"This instant, madam.

"But those prisoners... our unfortunate companions...

"I can't interrupt the service," replied the conductor. "We're already three hours behind.

"And when will the other train coming from San Francisco pass through?

"Tomorrow evening, madam.

"Tomorrow evening! but that will be too late. We have to wait...

"It's impossible," replied the conductor. "If you want to leave, get aboard.

"I won't leave," replied the young woman. Fix had heard this conversation. A few moments earlier, when he had no means of transport at all, he had been resolved to leave Kearney, and now, with the train standing there, ready to dash off, when he had only to take his place again in the car, an irresistible force bound him to the ground. The station platform scorched his feet, and he could not tear himself away from it. The struggle began again in him. The fury of failure choked him. He wanted to fight on to the very end.

Meanwhile the travelers and some of the wounded—among others Colonel Proctor, whose condition was grave—had taken their places in the cars. The hummings of the overheated boiler could be heard, and the steam was escaping through the valves. The engineer whistled, the train got under way, and soon vanished, its white smoke merging with the swirling snow.

Inspector Fix had stayed behind.

A few hours went by. The weather was very bad, the cold very sharp. Fix, seated on a bench in the station, remained motionless. One might have thought he was sleeping. Mrs. Aouda, despite the squall, left at every moment the room that had been placed at her disposal. She would come to the end of the platform, trying to see through the snowstorm, wanting to pierce that mist that shrank the horizon around her, listening for whether some sound might make itself heard. But nothing. She would go back in, then, chilled through, only to return a few moments later, and always to no purpose.

Evening came. The little detachment was not back. Where was it at this moment? Had it been able to catch up with the Indians? Had there been a fight, or were these soldiers, lost in the mist, wandering at random? The captain of Fort Kearney was very anxious, though he wanted to let nothing of his anxiety show.

Night fell, the snow came down less heavily, but the intensity of the cold increased. The most intrepid gaze could not have looked without dread on that dark immensity. An absolute silence reigned over the plain. Neither the flight of a bird, nor the passing of a wild beast disturbed its infinite calm.

All through that night, Mrs. Aouda, her mind full of sinister forebodings, her heart filled with anguish, wandered along the edge of the prairie. Her imagination swept her off into the distance and conjured a thousand dangers. What she suffered during those long hours cannot be expressed.

Fix was still motionless in the same place, but he too was not sleeping. At a certain moment, a man had come up, had even spoken to him, but the agent had sent him away, after answering his words with a shake of the head.

The night passed thus. At dawn, the half-quenched disk of the sun rose over a mist-shrouded horizon. Still, the range of sight could extend to a distance of two miles. It was toward the south that Phileas Fogg and the detachment had headed... The south was utterly deserted. It was then seven o'clock in the morning.

The captain, deeply worried, could not decide what to do. Ought he send a second detachment to rescue the first? Ought he sacrifice fresh men with so little hope of saving those already given up at the start? But his hesitation did not last, and with a gesture, calling one of his lieutenants, he was giving him the order to push a reconnaissance to the south—when shots rang out. A signal, perhaps? The soldiers poured out of the fort, and a half mile off they spotted a little troop returning in good order.

Mr. Fogg was marching at the head, and near him Passepartout and the two other travelers, wrenched from the hands of the Sioux.

There had been a fight ten miles south of Kearney. A few moments before the detachment arrived, Passepartout and his two companions were already struggling against their guards, and the Frenchman had already floored three of them with his bare fists when his master and the troops rushed to the rescue.

All of them, rescuers and rescued, were greeted with cries of joy, and Phileas Fogg handed out to the soldiers the reward he had promised them, while Passepartout repeated to himself, not without some reason:

"Decidedly, I have to admit I cost my master dear!"

Fix, without saying a word, watched Mr. Fogg, and it would have been no easy thing to analyze the impressions that were at war within him just then. As for Mrs. Aouda, she had taken the gentleman's hand and was pressing it in her own, without being able to utter a word!

Meanwhile Passepartout, the moment he arrived, had looked for the train in the station. He believed he'd find it there, ready to dash off toward Omaha, and he hoped they might still make up the lost time.

"The train, the train!" he cried.

"Gone," replied Fix.

"And the next train, when will it pass?" asked Phileas Fogg.

"Not until this evening.

"Ah!" replied the impassive gentleman simply.

Chapter 31 — In which Inspector Fix takes Phileas Fogg's interests very seriously

Phileas Fogg was twenty hours behind. Passepartout, the unwitting cause of the delay, was in despair. He had ruined his master, no question about it!

At that moment, the inspector came up to Mr. Fogg and, looking him squarely in the face:

"Very seriously, sir," he asked him, "are you in a hurry?

"Very seriously," replied Phileas Fogg.

"I insist," Fix went on. "You do have an interest in reaching New York by the 11th, before nine o'clock that evening, the departure time of the Liverpool steamer?

"A major interest.

"And had your journey not been broken off by this Indian attack, you'd have reached New York on the 11th, first thing in the morning?

"Yes, with twelve hours to spare over the steamer.

"Good. So you're twenty hours behind. Between twenty and twelve, the gap is eight. That's eight hours to make up. Do you want to try to do it?

"On foot?" asked Mr. Fogg.

"No, by sledge," replied Fix, "by sail-sledge. A man has offered me this means of transport."

This was the man who had approached the police inspector during the night, and whose offer Fix had refused.

Phileas Fogg did not answer Fix; but Fix having pointed out to him the man in question, who was strolling in front of the station, the gentleman went over to him. A moment later, Phileas Fogg and this American, named Mudge, were entering a hut built at the foot of Fort Kearney.

There, Mr. Fogg examined a rather singular vehicle, a sort of frame, set on two long beams a little raised at the front like the runners of a sledge, on which five or six persons could take their places. A third of the way along the frame, toward the front, rose a very tall mast, on which an immense brigantine sail was bent. This mast, solidly held by metal shrouds, stretched an iron stay that served to hoist a large jib. At the rear, a kind of sculling rudder made it possible to steer the contraption.

It was, as one can see, a sledge rigged as a sloop. In winter, on the frozen plain, when the trains are held up by the snows, these vehicles make extremely rapid crossings from one station to the next. They carry, moreover, a prodigious amount of sail—more even than a racing cutter can, at risk of capsizing—and, running before the wind, they glide over the surface of the prairies at a speed equal to, if not greater than, that of the express trains.

In a few moments, a deal was struck between Mr. Fogg and the master of this land-going craft. The wind was good. It was blowing from the west in a stiff breeze. The snow had hardened, and Mudge felt confident he could take Mr. Fogg in a few hours to the Omaha station. There the trains are frequent and the lines numerous, leading toward Chicago and New York. It was not out of the question that the lost time might be recovered. There was thus no reason to hesitate in attempting the adventure.

Mr. Fogg, not wanting to expose Mrs. Aouda to the tortures of a crossing in the open air, in a cold that the speed would make still more unbearable, proposed to her that she stay under Passepartout's guard at the Kearney station. The honest fellow would take it upon himself to bring the young woman back to Europe by a better route and in more acceptable conditions.

Mrs. Aouda refused to part from Mr. Fogg, and Passepartout felt very glad of this decision. Indeed, for nothing in the world would he have wanted to leave his master, since Fix was to go along with him.

As for what the police inspector was thinking just then, it would be hard to say. Had his conviction been shaken by Phileas Fogg's return, or did he hold him to be an extremely clever rascal who, his tour of the world accomplished, must believe he would be absolutely safe in England? Perhaps Fix's opinion regarding Phileas Fogg had indeed been altered. But he was no less resolved for that to do his duty and, more impatient than anyone, to hurry the return to England with all his power.

At eight o'clock, the sledge was ready to leave. The travelers—one would be tempted to say the passengers—took their places in it and wrapped themselves tightly in their traveling blankets. The two immense sails were hoisted, and, under the wind's impulse, the vehicle sped over the hardened snow at a speed of forty miles an hour.

The distance separating Fort Kearney from Omaha is, in a straight line—as the bee flies, as the Americans say—two hundred miles at most. If the wind held, in five hours this distance could be covered. If no incident occurred, by one o'clock in the afternoon the sledge should have reached Omaha.

What a crossing! The travelers, pressed one against another, could not speak to each other. The cold, heightened by the speed, would have cut off their words. The sledge glided as lightly over the surface of the plain as a boat over the surface of the water—minus the swell. When the breeze came skimming the ground, it seemed as though the sledge were lifted off the ground by its sails, vast wings of an immense spread. Mudge, at the rudder, held to the straight line, and with a stroke of the scull he corrected the swerves the contraption tended to make. All the canvas was drawing. The jib had been hauled out and was no longer sheltered by the brigantine. A topmast was hoisted, and a topsail, spread to the wind, added its driving power to that of the other sails. One could not gauge it, mathematically, but certainly the sledge's speed could not have been less than forty miles an hour.

"If nothing breaks," said Mudge, "we'll get there!"

And Mudge had an interest in getting there within the agreed time, for Mr. Fogg, true to his system, had baited him with a hefty bonus.

The prairie, which the sledge cut across in a straight line, was flat as a sea. It was like an immense frozen pond. The railroad serving this part of the territory climbed, from the southwest to the northwest, by way of Grand Island, Columbus—an important town of Nebraska—Schuyler, Fremont, then Omaha. Along its entire course it hugged the Platte River's right bank. The sledge, cutting the route short, followed the chord of the arc traced by the railway. Mudge had no fear of being stopped by the Platte River, at that little bend it makes in front of Fremont, since its waters were frozen. The way was thus entirely clear of obstacles, and Phileas Fogg had therefore only two circumstances to dread: a breakdown of the contraption, a shift or a dropping of the wind.

But the breeze did not slacken. On the contrary. It blew hard enough to bend the mast, which the iron shrouds held solidly. These metal cables, like the strings of an instrument, resonated as if a bow had set off their vibrations. The sledge swept along amid a plaintive harmony of a quite particular intensity.

"These strings sound the fifth and the octave," Mr. Fogg said.

And those were the only words he spoke throughout the crossing. Mrs. Aouda, carefully bundled up in the furs and the traveling blankets, was, as far as possible, protected from the assaults of the cold.

As for Passepartout, his face red as the sun's disk when it sets in the mists, he drank in that biting air. With the fund of imperturbable confidence he possessed, he had taken to hoping again. Instead of reaching New York in the morning, they would get there in the evening, but there were still some chances that it might be before the departure of the Liverpool steamer.

Passepartout had even felt a strong urge to shake the hand of his ally Fix. He did not forget that it was the inspector himself who had procured the sail-sledge, and consequently the only means there was of reaching Omaha in good time. But, from some presentiment or other, he kept to his accustomed reserve.

In any case, one thing Passepartout would never forget was the sacrifice Mr. Fogg had made, without hesitating, to snatch him from the hands of the Sioux. For that, Mr. Fogg had risked fortune and life alike... No! never would his servant forget it!

While each of the travelers was giving himself over to reflections so varied, the sledge flew over the immense carpet of snow. If it crossed a few creeks, tributaries or sub-tributaries of the Little Blue River, one did not notice it. The fields and the watercourses vanished under a uniform whiteness. The plain was utterly deserted. Hemmed in between the Union Pacific Road and the spur line meant to join Kearney to Saint Joseph, it formed a kind of great uninhabited island. Not a village, not a station, not even a fort. From time to time, one saw flash past like lightning some grimacing tree, whose white skeleton writhed under the breeze. Sometimes bands of wild birds rose in a single flight. Sometimes too, some prairie wolves, in numerous packs, lean, famished, driven by a ferocious need, raced the sledge for speed. Then Passepartout, revolver in hand, stood ready to fire on the nearest ones. Had some accident stopped the sledge just then, the travelers, attacked by these ferocious carnivores, would have run the greatest risks. But the sledge held firm; it was not long in taking a lead, and soon the whole howling pack was left behind.

At noon, Mudge recognized by a few signs that he was crossing the frozen course of the Platte River. He kept silent, but he was already certain that, twenty miles farther on, he would have reached the Omaha station.

And, in fact, it was not yet one o'clock when this skillful guide, leaving the tiller, rushed to the halyards of the sails and hauled them down in a bunch, while the sledge, carried by its irresistible momentum, covered another half mile under bare poles. At last it stopped, and Mudge, pointing to a mass of snow-white roofs, said:

"We've arrived."

Arrived! Arrived indeed at that station which, by numerous trains, is daily in communication with the east of the United States!

Passepartout and Fix had jumped to the ground and were shaking their numbed limbs. They helped Mr. Fogg and the young woman down from the sledge. Phileas Fogg settled generously with Mudge, whose hand Passepartout shook as with a friend, and all of them rushed toward the Omaha station.

It is at this important city of Nebraska that the Pacific railway proper comes to an end—the one that puts the Mississippi basin in communication with the great ocean. To go from Omaha to Chicago, the railroad, under the name of "Chicago-Rock Island Road," runs straight east, serving fifty stations.

A direct train was ready to leave. Phileas Fogg and his companions had only the time to rush into a car. They had glimpsed nothing of Omaha, though Passepartout admitted to himself that there was no cause to regret it, and that sightseeing was not what it was about.

With extreme speed, this train passed through the state of Iowa, by way of Council Bluffs, Des Moines, Iowa City. In the night it forded the Mississippi at Davenport, and by way of Rock Island passed into Illinois. The next day, the 10th, at four in the afternoon, it drew into Chicago, already raised up from its ruins, and enthroned more proudly than ever on the shores of its beautiful Lake Michigan.

Nine hundred miles separate Chicago from New York. Trains were plentiful at Chicago. Mr. Fogg stepped straight from one into the next. The dashing locomotive of the "Pittsburgh-Fort Wayne-Chicago Railroad" set off at full speed, as if it had understood that the honorable gentleman had no time to lose. It crossed like lightning Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, passing through towns with ancient names, some of which had streets and streetcars, but no houses yet. At last the Hudson appeared, and, on December 11, at a quarter past eleven at night, the train halted in the station, on the river's right bank, opposite the very pier used by the Cunard line's steamers, otherwise called the "British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Co."

The China, bound for Liverpool, had left forty-five minutes before!

Chapter 32 — In which Phileas Fogg takes up a direct fight against bad luck

In leaving, the China seemed to have carried off with it the last hope of Phileas Fogg.

Indeed, none of the other steamers that run the direct service between America and Europe—neither the French transatlantic liners, nor the ships of the "White Star Line," nor the steamers of the Inman Company, nor those of the Hamburg line, nor any others—could serve the gentleman's plans.

In fact, the Pereire, belonging to the French Transatlantic Company—whose admirable vessels equal in speed and surpass in comfort all those of the other lines, without exception—did not leave until the day after next, December 14. And besides, like those of the Hamburg Company, it did not go directly to Liverpool or to London, but to Le Havre, and this additional crossing from Le Havre to Southampton, by delaying Phileas Fogg, would have canceled out his last efforts.

As for the Inman steamers, one of which, the City of Paris, was putting to sea the next day, they were not to be thought of. These ships are chiefly given over to the transport of emigrants, their engines are weak, they sail as much under canvas as under steam, and their speed is mediocre. They took, for this crossing from New York to England, more time than Mr. Fogg had left to win his wager.

Of all this the gentleman took perfectly good stock in consulting his Bradshaw, which gave him, day by day, the movements of transoceanic shipping.

Passepartout was crushed. To have missed the steamer by forty-five minutes—that was killing him. It was his own fault, his, who, instead of helping his master, had never stopped strewing obstacles along his path! And when he ran back over in his mind all the incidents of the journey, when he reckoned up the sums spent to pure loss and in his interest alone, when he thought that this enormous wager, added to the considerable expenses of this journey now become useless, was completely ruining Mr. Fogg, he heaped abuse on himself.

Mr. Fogg, however, made him no reproach, and, on leaving the pier of the transatlantic steamers, he said only these words:

"We'll see about it tomorrow. Come."

Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, Fix, and Passepartout crossed the Hudson aboard the Jersey City ferryboat and climbed into a cab, which took them to the Saint Nicholas hotel, on Broadway. Rooms were placed at their disposal, and the night passed—short for Phileas Fogg, who slept a perfect sleep, but very long for Mrs. Aouda and her companions, whose agitation did not allow them to rest.

The next day was December 12. From the 12th, seven in the morning, to the 21st, eight forty-five in the evening, there remained nine days, thirteen hours, forty-five minutes in all. So if Phileas Fogg had left the day before by the China, one of the best runners of the Cunard line, he would have reached Liverpool, then London, within the required time!

Mr. Fogg left the hotel, alone, after instructing his servant to wait for him and to warn Mrs. Aouda to hold herself ready at any moment.

Mr. Fogg made his way to the banks of the Hudson, and among the ships moored at the quay or anchored in the river, he sought out carefully those that were about to depart. Several vessels had their departure pennant up and were preparing to put to sea on the morning tide, for in that vast and magnificent port of New York, there is not a day when a hundred ships do not set out for all the points of the world; but most were sailing vessels, and they could not suit Phileas Fogg.

This gentleman seemed bound to fail in his last attempt, when he caught sight, moored off the Battery, at a cable's length at most, of a screw-driven merchant ship, of fine lines, whose funnel, belching thick puffs of smoke, showed that she was preparing to weigh anchor.

Phileas Fogg hailed a boat, got in, and, with a few strokes of the oar, found himself at the gangway ladder of the Henrietta, a steamer with an iron hull whose upperworks were all of wood.

The captain of the Henrietta was on board. Phileas Fogg climbed onto the deck and asked for the captain. The latter presented himself at once.

He was a fellow of fifty or so, a kind of sea dog, a grumbler who could not have been easy to deal with. Bulging eyes, a complexion of oxidized copper, red hair, a thick neck—nothing of the look of a man of the world.

"The captain?" asked Mr. Fogg.

"That's me.

"I am Phileas Fogg, of London.

"And I'm Andrew Speedy, of Cardiff.

"You're about to leave?...

"In an hour.

"You're loaded for...?

"Bordeaux.

"And your cargo?

"Stones in the belly. No freight. I'm sailing in ballast.

"You have passengers?

"No passengers. Never any passengers. Cumbersome, argumentative goods.

"Your ship sails well?

"Eleven to twelve knots. The Henrietta—everyone knows her.

"Will you carry me to Liverpool, myself and three others?

"To Liverpool? Why not to China?

"I say Liverpool.

"No!

"No?

"No. I'm bound for Bordeaux, and I'm going to Bordeaux.

"No matter the price?

"No matter the price."

The captain had spoken in a tone that admitted no reply.

"But the owners of the Henrietta..." Phileas Fogg went on.

"The owners, that's me," replied the captain. "The ship belongs to me.

"I'll charter it from you.

"No.

"I'll buy it from you.

"No."

Phileas Fogg did not bat an eye. Still, the situation was serious. New York was not Hong Kong, nor was the captain of the Henrietta anything like the skipper of the Tankadère. Up to now the gentleman's money had always got the better of the obstacles. This time, the money was failing.

Still, a way had to be found to cross the Atlantic by boat—short of crossing it by balloon—which would have been very risky, and which, besides, was not feasible.

It appears, all the same, that Phileas Fogg had hit on something, for he said to the captain:

"Well, will you take me to Bordeaux?

"No, not even if you paid me two hundred dollars!

"I'm offering you two thousand (10,000 F).

"Per person?

"Per person.

"And there are four of you?

"Four."

Captain Speedy began to scratch his forehead, as if he meant to tear the skin off it. Eight thousand dollars to earn, without altering his voyage, that was well worth setting aside his pronounced dislike for any kind of passenger. Passengers at two thousand dollars, moreover, are no longer passengers, they're precious merchandise.

"I leave at nine o'clock," said Captain Speedy simply, "and if you and yours are here?...

"At nine o'clock, we'll be on board!" replied Mr. Fogg no less simply.

It was now half past eight. To get off the Henrietta, climb into a carriage, drive to the Saint Nicholas hotel, bring back Mrs. Aouda, Passepartout, and even the inseparable Fix, to whom he graciously offered the passage—all this was done by the gentleman with that composure that never abandoned him in any circumstance.

At the moment when the Henrietta was setting sail, all four were on board.

When Passepartout learned what this last crossing would cost, he let out one of those drawn-out "Oh!"s that run through every interval of the descending chromatic scale!

As for Inspector Fix, he told himself that decidedly the Bank of England would not come out of this affair unscathed. Indeed, on arriving, and supposing that Mr. Fogg did not fling a few more fistfuls of it overboard, upward of seven thousand pounds (175,000 F) would be missing from the bank-note bag!

Chapter 33 — In which Phileas Fogg proves equal to the circumstances

An hour later, the steamer Henrietta passed the Light-boat that marks the entrance to the Hudson, rounded the point of Sandy Hook, and put out to sea. During the day it ran along Long Island, off the Fire Island light, and headed rapidly eastward.

The next day, December 13, at noon, a man went up onto the bridge to take the ship's position. Surely one must suppose this man was Captain Speedy! Not in the least. It was Phileas Fogg, esq.

As for Captain Speedy, he was quite simply locked up in his cabin, letting out howls that betrayed an anger—quite pardonable—driven to the point of frenzy.

What had taken place was very simple. Phileas Fogg wanted to go to Liverpool; the captain would not take him there. So Phileas Fogg had agreed to take passage for Bordeaux, and, in the thirty hours he had been aboard, he had maneuvered so well with banknotes that the crew—sailors and stokers, a somewhat shady crew that was on rather bad terms with the captain—belonged to him. And that is why Phileas Fogg was in command in place of Captain Speedy, why the captain sat locked in his cabin, and why, in a word, the Henrietta was steering for Liverpool. Only, from watching Mr. Fogg handle her, it was very clear that Mr. Fogg had once been a sailor.

Now, how the adventure would end, one would learn later. Even so, Mrs. Aouda could not help being uneasy, though she said nothing of it. Fix, for his part, had been dumbfounded at first. As for Passepartout, he found the whole thing simply delightful.

"Between eleven and twelve knots," Captain Speedy had said, and indeed the Henrietta held to that average speed.

If then—so many "ifs" still!—if then the sea did not turn too rough, if the wind did not shift into the east, if no damage befell the vessel, no accident the engine, the Henrietta, in the nine days counted from December 12 to the 21st, could cover the three thousand miles that separate New York from Liverpool. True, once he arrived, the affair of the Henrietta coming on top of the affair of the Bank might carry the gentleman a little farther than he would wish.

During the first few days, the passage went on in excellent conditions. The sea was not too hard; the wind seemed settled in the northeast; the sails were set, and, under her fore-and-aft canvas, the Henrietta ran like a true transatlantic liner.

Passepartout was enchanted. His master's latest exploit, whose consequences he refused to see, filled him with enthusiasm. Never had the crew seen a merrier, nimbler fellow. He showered a thousand friendly attentions on the sailors and astonished them with his acrobatic tricks. He lavished the finest names on them and the most tempting drinks. To his mind, they handled the ship like gentlemen, and the stokers stoked like heroes. His good humor, very catching, spread to everyone. He had forgotten the past, the troubles, the perils. He thought only of that goal, so near being reached, and sometimes he seethed with impatience, as though he were being fired by the Henrietta's furnaces. Often, too, the worthy fellow circled around Fix; he watched him with an eye "that said a great deal"! yet he never spoke to him, for no intimacy any longer existed between the two former friends.

Besides, Fix, it must be said, no longer understood a thing of it! The conquest of the Henrietta, the buying of her crew, this Fogg handling her like a consummate seaman, the whole combination of things bewildered him. He no longer knew what to think! But, after all, a gentleman who started out stealing fifty-five thousand pounds might well finish by stealing a ship. And Fix was naturally led to believe that the Henrietta, steered by Fogg, was not bound for Liverpool at all, but for some point of the globe where the thief, turned pirate, would quietly put himself out of reach! This hypothesis, it must be admitted, was as plausible as could be, and the detective began to regret very seriously having embarked on this business.

As for Captain Speedy, he went on howling in his cabin, and Passepartout, charged with supplying his food, did so only with the greatest precautions, vigorous though he was. Mr. Fogg, for his part, no longer even seemed to suspect there was a captain aboard.

On the 13th, they passed the tail of the Newfoundland bank. These are bad waters. In winter especially, fogs are frequent there, gusts of wind formidable. Since the day before, the barometer, dropping abruptly, had given warning of a coming change in the atmosphere. And indeed, during the night the temperature altered, the cold grew sharper, and at the same time the wind shifted into the southeast.

It was a setback. Mr. Fogg, so as not to stray from his course, had to take in his sails and force the steam. Even so, the ship's progress was slowed, given the state of the sea, whose long waves broke against her stem. She pitched very violently, and that to the detriment of her speed. The breeze was turning little by little into a hurricane, and one already foresaw the case in which the Henrietta might no longer be able to hold her head to the sea. Now, if she had to run before it, that meant the unknown with all its evil chances.

Passepartout's face darkened along with the sky, and, for two days, the honest fellow went through mortal agonies. But Phileas Fogg was a bold seaman, who knew how to stand up to the sea, and he held his course, even without reducing steam. The Henrietta, whenever she could not rise to the wave, drove through it, and her deck was swept clean from end to end, but she got through. Sometimes, too, the propeller emerged, thrashing the air with its frantic blades, when a mountain of water lifted the stern out of the seas, but the ship kept forging ahead.

However, the wind did not freshen as much as one might have feared. It was not one of those hurricanes that tear past at ninety miles an hour. It held at a strong gale, but unfortunately it blew stubbornly out of the southeast and did not allow any canvas to be carried. And yet, as we shall see, it would have been very useful to come to the aid of the steam!

On December 16, it was the seventy-fifth day elapsed since the departure from London. All in all, the Henrietta was not yet behind by any alarming amount. Half the crossing was roughly done, and the worst waters were behind them. In summer, one could have answered for success. In winter, they lay at the mercy of the foul season. Passepartout did not commit himself. At bottom, he had hope, and, if the wind failed, at least he counted on the steam.

Now, that day, the engineer, having come up on deck, met Mr. Fogg and talked with him rather heatedly.

Without knowing why—by a presentiment, no doubt—Passepartout felt a kind of vague unease. He would gladly have given an ear to catch with the other what was being said there. Still, he managed to catch a few words, these among others, spoken by his master:

"You are certain of what you assert?

—Certain, sir, replied the engineer. Don't forget that, since our departure, we have been stoking with all our furnaces lit, and if we had enough coal to run under low steam from New York to Bordeaux, we have not got enough to run under full steam from New York to Liverpool!

—I shall see to it," replied Mr. Fogg.

Passepartout had understood. He was seized with a mortal dread.

The coal was going to run out!

"Ah! if my master gets past this one," he said to himself, "he'll be a famous man indeed!"

And, having run into Fix, he could not help letting him in on the situation.

"So," the agent answered him through clenched teeth, "you believe we're going to Liverpool!

—Of course!

—Idiot!" replied the inspector, who walked off, shrugging his shoulders.

Passepartout was on the point of sharply flinging back the epithet, whose real meaning he could not, however, grasp; but he told himself that the unfortunate Fix must be very disappointed, very humiliated in his self-esteem, after so clumsily following a false trail around the world, and he let it pass.

And now what course was Phileas Fogg going to take? It was hard to imagine. Yet it appears the phlegmatic gentleman took one, for that very evening he summoned the engineer and told him:

"Stoke the fires and hold the course until the fuel is completely used up."

A few moments later, the Henrietta's funnel was vomiting torrents of smoke.

So the ship went on running at full steam; but, just as he had announced, two days later, on the 18th, the engineer let it be known that the coal would give out within the day.

"Don't let the fires die down," replied Mr. Fogg. "On the contrary. Load the valves."

That day, toward noon, after taking the altitude and calculating the ship's position, Phileas Fogg sent for Passepartout and gave him the order to go and fetch Captain Speedy. It was as if this brave fellow had been ordered to go and unchain a tiger, and he went down into the poop, saying to himself:

"He'll be positively rabid!"

And indeed, a few minutes later, amid shouts and oaths, a bombshell arrived on the poop. This bombshell was Captain Speedy. It was plain that it was about to burst.

"Where are we?" were the first words he uttered amid the chokings of his rage, and truly, had the worthy man been the least bit apoplectic, he would never have recovered from it.

"Where are we? he repeated, his face congested.

—Seven hundred and seventy miles from Liverpool (300 leagues), replied Mr. Fogg with imperturbable calm.

—Pirate! cried Andrew Speedy.

—I sent for you, sir...

—Sea-rover!

—...sir, resumed Phileas Fogg, to beg you to sell me your ship.

—No! by all the devils, no!

—The thing is, I am going to be obliged to burn her.

—Burn my ship!

—Yes, at least her upper works, for we are short of fuel.

—Burn my ship! cried Captain Speedy, who could no longer even get the syllables out. A ship worth fifty thousand dollars (250,000 F)!

—Here are sixty thousand (300,000 F)! replied Phileas Fogg, holding out to the captain a bundle of banknotes.

The effect on Andrew Speedy was prodigious. One is not an American without the sight of sixty thousand dollars stirring a certain emotion. In an instant the captain forgot his anger, his imprisonment, all his grievances against his passenger. His ship was twenty years old. This might turn into a golden bargain!... The bombshell could burst no longer. Mr. Fogg had torn out its fuse.

"And the iron hull stays mine, he said in a singularly softened tone.

—The iron hull and the engine, sir. Is it agreed?

—Agreed."

And Andrew Speedy, seizing the bundle of banknotes, counted them and made them vanish into his pocket.

During this scene, Passepartout was white. As for Fix, he nearly had a fit. Nearly twenty thousand pounds spent, and this Fogg on top of it leaving his seller the hull and the engine, that is to say almost the whole value of the ship! True, the sum stolen from the bank came to fifty-five thousand pounds!

When Andrew Speedy had pocketed the money:

"Sir, said Mr. Fogg to him, don't let all this astonish you. Understand that I lose twenty thousand pounds if I am not back in London on December 21, at eight forty-five in the evening. Now, I had missed the New York steamer, and since you refused to take me to Liverpool...

—And I did well, by the fifty thousand devils of hell, cried Andrew Speedy, since I gain at least forty thousand dollars by it."

Then, more composedly:

"Do you know something, he added, captain?...

—Fogg.

—Captain Fogg, well now, there's a bit of the Yankee in you."

And after paying his passenger what he took to be a compliment, he was walking off, when Phileas Fogg said to him:

"Now this ship belongs to me?

—Certainly, from the keel to the mastheads, for everything that is 'wood,' that is!

—Good. Have the interior fittings torn out and stoke with the wreckage."

One can judge how much of this dry wood had to be consumed to keep the steam at sufficient pressure. That day, the poop, the deckhouses, the cabins, the quarters, the false deck, all of it went.

The next day, December 19, they burned the masting, the spare spars, the booms. They brought down the masts, they chopped them up with axes. The crew put an incredible zeal into it. Passepartout, hewing, cutting, sawing, did the work of ten men. It was a fury of demolition.

The next day, the 20th, the bulwarks, the rails, the topsides, the greater part of the deck, were devoured. The Henrietta was now no more than a vessel razed like a hulk.

But, that day, they had sighted the coast of Ireland and the Fastnet light.

Even so, at ten in the evening, the ship was still only abreast of Queenstown. Phileas Fogg now had but twenty-four hours left to reach London! Now, that was the time the Henrietta needed to make Liverpool—even running at full steam. And the steam was going to fail the audacious gentleman at last!

"Sir, said Captain Speedy to him then, having ended by taking an interest in his plans, I really pity you. Everything is against you! We are still only off Queenstown.

—Ah! said Mr. Fogg, so it is Queenstown, that town whose lights we can see?

—Yes.

—Can we enter the port?

—Not for three hours yet. Only at high tide.

—Let us wait!" replied Phileas Fogg calmly, without letting his face betray that, by a stroke of supreme inspiration, he was about to try once more to conquer the contrary luck!

For Queenstown is a port on the Irish coast where the transatlantic liners coming from the United States drop their mailbags in passing. These letters are carried to Dublin by expresses always ready to leave. From Dublin they reach Liverpool by high-speed steamers—thus outstripping by twelve hours the fastest runners of the shipping companies.

Those twelve hours that the American mail gained in this way, Phileas Fogg meant to gain as well. Instead of arriving on the Henrietta the next evening at Liverpool, he would be there at noon, and consequently he would have time to be in London before eight forty-five in the evening.

Toward one in the morning, the Henrietta entered the port of Queenstown at high tide, and Phileas Fogg, after receiving a vigorous handshake from Captain Speedy, left him on the razed carcass of his ship, which was still worth half of what he had sold it for!

The passengers landed at once. Fix, at that moment, had a fierce urge to arrest the man Fogg. Yet he did not do it! Why? What battle was being fought within him? Had his opinion of Mr. Fogg changed? Did he understand at last that he had been mistaken? All the same, Fix did not abandon Mr. Fogg. With him, with Mrs. Aouda, with Passepartout, who no longer took the time to breathe, he boarded the train from Queenstown at half past one in the morning, reached Dublin at daybreak, and immediately embarked on one of those steamers—true spindles of steel, all engine—which, disdaining to rise to the wave, invariably drive straight through it.

At twenty to noon, on December 21, Phileas Fogg landed at last on the quay of Liverpool. He was now only six hours from London.

But at that moment, Fix came up, laid his hand on his shoulder, and, producing his warrant:

"You are the man Phileas Fogg? he said.

—Yes, sir.

—In the name of the Queen, I arrest you!"

Chapter 34 — Which affords Passepartout the occasion for a pun that is atrocious, but perhaps unheard of

Phileas Fogg was in prison. They had shut him up in the Custom-house station, the Liverpool customs, and he was to spend the night there awaiting his transfer to London.

At the moment of the arrest, Passepartout had tried to hurl himself at the detective. Policemen held him back. Mrs. Aouda, appalled by the brutality of the act, knowing nothing, could make nothing of it. Passepartout explained the situation to her. Mr. Fogg, that honest and courageous gentleman to whom she owed her life, was arrested as a thief. The young woman protested against such an allegation, her heart rose in indignation, and tears flowed from her eyes when she saw that she could do nothing, attempt nothing, to save her savior.

As for Fix, he had arrested the gentleman because his duty commanded him to arrest him, guilty or not. Justice would decide.

But then a thought came to Passepartout, that terrible thought that he was decidedly the cause of all this misfortune! For why had he hidden this adventure from Mr. Fogg? When Fix had revealed both his standing as a police inspector and the mission he was charged with, why had he taken it upon himself not to warn his master? The latter, forewarned, would no doubt have given Fix proofs of his innocence; he would have shown him his error; in any case, he would not have carried at his own expense and on his own heels this ill-fated agent, whose first care had been to arrest him the very moment he stepped onto the soil of the United Kingdom. As he thought of his faults, his rash acts, the poor fellow was seized with irresistible remorse. He wept, he was painful to see. He wanted to smash his own head!

Mrs. Aouda and he had stayed on, despite the cold, beneath the portico of the customs house. Neither one nor the other would leave the spot. They wanted to see Mr. Fogg one more time.

As for that gentleman, he was well and truly ruined, and that just as he was on the point of reaching his goal. This arrest ruined him past recovery. Having arrived at twenty to noon at Liverpool, on December 21, he had until eight forty-five to present himself at the Reform Club—that made nine hours and fifteen minutes—and he needed only six to reach London.

At this moment, anyone who had entered the customs station would have found Mr. Fogg motionless, seated on a wooden bench, without anger, imperturbable. Resigned, one could not have called him, but this last blow had been unable to move him, at least in appearance. Had there formed in him one of those secret rages, terrible because they are held in, and which burst out only at the last moment with an irresistible force? No one knows. But Phileas Fogg was there, calm, waiting... for what? Did he still keep some hope? Did he still believe in success, now that this prison door had shut upon him?

Be that as it may, Mr. Fogg had carefully laid his watch on a table and was watching its hands move. Not a single word escaped his lips, yet his gaze had a singular fixity.

In any case, the situation was terrible, and, for anyone who could not read within that conscience, it came down to this:

An honest man, Phileas Fogg was ruined.

A dishonest man, he was caught.

Did he then have the thought of saving himself? Did he consider looking to see whether this station offered a practicable way out? Did he think of fleeing? One would be tempted to believe so, for, at a certain moment, he made the round of the room. But the door was solidly shut and the window fitted with iron bars. So he came and sat down again, and drew from his wallet the itinerary of the journey. On the line that bore these words:

"December 21, Saturday, Liverpool," he added:

"80th day, 11:40 in the morning," and he waited.

One o'clock struck on the Custom-house clock. Mr. Fogg noted that his watch was two minutes fast on that clock.

Two o'clock! Supposing he boarded an express at this moment, he could still reach London and the Reform Club before eight forty-five in the evening. His brow creased slightly...

At two thirty-three, a noise rang out from outside, a din of doors being flung open. Passepartout's voice could be heard, Fix's voice could be heard.

Phileas Fogg's gaze gleamed for an instant.

The door of the station opened, and he saw Mrs. Aouda, Passepartout, Fix, who rushed toward him.

Fix was out of breath, his hair in disorder... He could not speak!

"Sir, he stammered, sir... forgive me... a deplorable resemblance... The thief arrested three days ago... you... free!..."

Phileas Fogg was free! He went up to the detective. He looked him full in the face, and, making the only quick movement he had ever made or should ever make in his life, he swung both his arms back, then, with the precision of an automaton, struck the wretched inspector with both fists.

"Well hit!" cried Passepartout, who, allowing himself an atrocious pun, well worthy of a Frenchman, added: "Good heavens, there is what one may call a fine application of English fists!"

Fix, knocked flat, did not say a word. He had only what he deserved. But at once Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and Passepartout left the customs house. They flung themselves into a carriage, and, in a few minutes, they reached the Liverpool station.

Phileas Fogg asked whether there was an express ready to leave for London...

It was two forty... The express had left thirty-five minutes before.

Phileas Fogg then ordered a special train.

There were several high-speed locomotives under steam; but, given the demands of the service, the special train could not leave the station before three o'clock.

At three o'clock, Phileas Fogg, after saying a few words to the engineer about a certain bonus to be earned, sped off in the direction of London, in the company of the young woman and his faithful servant.

The distance separating Liverpool from London had to be covered in five and a half hours—a very feasible thing, when the line is clear along the whole route. But there were forced delays, and, when the gentleman reached the station, all the clocks of London were striking ten minutes to nine.

Phileas Fogg, after accomplishing this journey around the world, arrived five minutes late!...

He had lost.

Chapter 35 — In which Passepartout does not need to be told twice the order his master gives him

The next day, the inhabitants of Saville Row would have been quite surprised to be assured that Mr. Fogg had moved back into his home. Doors and windows, all was shut. No change had occurred on the outside.

Indeed, after leaving the station, Phileas Fogg had given Passepartout the order to buy some provisions, and he had gone back into his house.

This gentleman had received with his customary composure the blow that struck him. Ruined! and through the fault of that clumsy police inspector! After marching with a sure step throughout this long course, after overturning a thousand obstacles, braving a thousand dangers, having even found the time to do some good along his way, to founder within sight of port before a brutal fact, which he could not foresee, and against which he was defenseless: that was terrible! Of the considerable sum he had taken away at his departure, there remained to him only an insignificant remnant. His fortune now consisted only of the twenty thousand pounds deposited with Baring Brothers, and these twenty thousand pounds he owed to his colleagues at the Reform Club. After so much expense laid out, this wager, won, would surely not have made him a richer man, and in all likelihood he had never sought to grow rich—being one of those men who bet for honor's sake—but this wager, lost, ruined him totally. In any case, the gentleman's mind was made up. He knew now what he had to do.

A room in the Saville Row house had been set aside for Mrs. Aouda. The young woman was in despair. From certain words spoken by Mr. Fogg, she had understood that he was brooding over some fatal plan.

One knows, indeed, to what deplorable extremes these monomaniac Englishmen sometimes carry themselves under the pressure of a fixed idea. And so Passepartout, without appearing to, kept watch on his master.

But, first of all, the honest fellow had climbed to his room and put out the gas-jet that had been burning for eighty days. In the letter-box he had found a Gas Company bill, and judged it was more than time to stop these charges for which he was responsible.

The night passed. Mr. Fogg had gone to bed, but had he slept? As for Mrs. Aouda, she could not take a single instant's rest. Passepartout, for his part, had kept watch like a dog at his master's door.

The next day, Mr. Fogg sent for him and instructed him, in very brief terms, to see to Mrs. Aouda's breakfast. For himself, he would content himself with a cup of tea and a piece of toast. Would Mrs. Aouda kindly excuse him for lunch and dinner, for all his time was given over to putting his affairs in order. He would not come down. Only in the evening would he ask Mrs. Aouda's leave to talk with her for a few moments.

Passepartout, having been given the day's program, had only to conform to it. He looked at his master, ever impassive, and could not bring himself to leave the room. His heart was heavy, his conscience racked with remorse, for he blamed himself more than ever for this irreparable disaster. Yes! had he warned Mr. Fogg, had he disclosed to him the schemes of the agent Fix, Mr. Fogg would certainly not have dragged the agent Fix all the way to Liverpool, and then...

Passepartout could hold out no longer.

"My master! Mr. Fogg! he cried, curse me. It is through my fault that...

—I accuse no one, replied Phileas Fogg in the calmest tone. Go."

Passepartout left the room and went off to find the young woman, to whom he made known his master's intentions.

"Madame, he added, I can do nothing by myself, nothing! I have no sway over my master's mind. You, perhaps...

—What influence would I have, replied Mrs. Aouda. Mr. Fogg is subject to none! Has he ever understood that my gratitude toward him was ready to overflow! Has he ever read within my heart!... My friend, we must not leave him, not for a single instant. You say he has shown the intention of speaking to me this evening?

—Yes, madame. It is no doubt a matter of safeguarding your position in England.

—Let us wait," replied the young woman, who remained deep in thought.

Thus, throughout that Sunday, the Saville Row house was as though uninhabited, and, for the first time since taking up residence in that house, Phileas Fogg did not go to his club when half past eleven struck at the Parliament tower.

And why should this gentleman have presented himself at the Reform Club? His colleagues no longer expected him there. Since, the evening before, on that fatal date of Saturday, December 21, at eight forty-five, Phileas Fogg had not appeared in the drawing-room of the Reform Club, his wager was lost. It was not even necessary for him to go to his banker to draw out that sum of twenty thousand pounds. His adversaries held in their hands a check signed by him, and a simple entry to be passed at Baring Brothers would be enough for the twenty thousand pounds to be carried to their credit.

Mr. Fogg therefore had no need to go out, and he did not go out. He remained in his room and put his affairs in order. Passepartout never stopped going up and down the stairs of the Saville Row house. The hours did not move for this poor fellow. He listened at the door of his master's room, and, in doing so, did not think he was committing the slightest indiscretion! He looked through the keyhole, and imagined he had that right! Passepartout dreaded at every instant some catastrophe. Sometimes he thought of Fix, but a change had come over his mind. He no longer bore the police inspector any grudge. Fix had been mistaken like everyone else regarding Phileas Fogg, and, in shadowing him, in arresting him, he had only done his duty, whereas he... This thought overwhelmed him, and he held himself for the lowest of wretches.

When, at last, Passepartout found himself too unhappy to be alone, he knocked at Mrs. Aouda's door, entered her room, sat down in a corner without a word, and looked at the young woman, ever pensive.

Toward seven-thirty in the evening, Mr. Fogg had it asked of Mrs. Aouda whether she could receive him, and a few moments later the young woman and he were alone in that room.

Phileas Fogg drew up a chair by the fireplace and sat down, facing Mrs. Aouda. His face reflected no emotion. The Fogg of the return was exactly the Fogg of the departure. The same calm, the same impassivity.

He remained without speaking for five minutes. Then, raising his eyes to Mrs. Aouda:

"Madame, he said, will you forgive me for having brought you to England?

—I, Mr. Fogg!... replied Mrs. Aouda, holding down the beating of her heart.

—Allow me to finish, resumed Mr. Fogg. When the thought came to me of taking you away from that country, grown so dangerous for you, I was rich, and I counted on placing part of my fortune at your disposal. Your life would have been happy and free. Now, I am ruined.

—I know it, Mr. Fogg, replied the young woman, and now I must ask you in return: Will you pardon me for having come after you, and—who knows?—for perhaps, by delaying you, having had a share in your ruin?

—Madame, you could not stay in India, and your safety was assured only if you went far enough away that these fanatics could not seize you again.

—So, Mr. Fogg, resumed Mrs. Aouda, not content with tearing me from a horrible death, you believed yourself still bound to secure my position abroad?

—Yes, madame, replied Fogg, but events have turned against me. Nevertheless, of the little that remains to me, I ask your leave to dispose in your favor.

—But you, Mr. Fogg, what will become of you? asked Mrs. Aouda.

—I, madame, the gentleman replied coldly, I need nothing at all.

—But how, sir, do you then look upon the fate that awaits you?

—As it befits one to do, replied Mr. Fogg.

—In any case, resumed Mrs. Aouda, want could not reach a man such as you. Your friends...

—I have no friends, madame.

—Your relatives...

—I have no relatives left.

—Then I pity you, Mr. Fogg, for to be alone is a sad thing. What! not one heart to pour your sorrows into. Yet they say that even misery itself, shared between two, is still bearable!

—So they say, madame.

—Mr. Fogg, said Mrs. Aouda then, rising and holding out her hand to the gentleman, do you want both a kinswoman and a friend? Will you take me for your wife?"

Mr. Fogg, at these words, had risen in his turn. There was a kind of unwonted gleam in his eyes, a kind of trembling on his lips. Mrs. Aouda looked at him. The sincerity, the uprightness, the firmness and gentleness of that lovely gaze of a noble woman who dares everything to save the one to whom she owes everything, first astonished him, then went to his heart. He shut his eyes a moment, as if to keep that gaze from sinking any deeper... When he reopened them:

"I love you! he said simply. Yes, in truth, by all that is most sacred in the world, I love you, and I am wholly yours!

—Ah!..." cried Mrs. Aouda, putting her hand to her heart.

Passepartout was rung for. He came at once. Mr. Fogg still held Mrs. Aouda's hand in his. Passepartout understood, and his broad face beamed like the sun at the zenith of the tropical regions.

Mr. Fogg asked him whether it would not be too late to go and notify the Reverend Samuel Wilson, of the parish of Mary-le-Bone.

Passepartout smiled his very best smile.

"Never too late," he said.

It was only five past eight.

"It would be for tomorrow, Monday! he said.

—For tomorrow, Monday? asked Mr. Fogg, looking at the young woman.

—For tomorrow, Monday!" replied Mrs. Aouda.

Passepartout went out at a run.

Chapter 36 — In which Phileas Fogg once again commands a premium on the market

It is time to tell here what turnaround of opinion had come about in the United Kingdom when the arrest of the true thief of the Bank—a certain James Strand—became known, which had taken place on December 17, at Edinburgh.

Three days before, Phileas Fogg was a criminal whom the police were hunting to the utmost, and now he was the most honest of gentlemen, carrying out mathematically his eccentric journey around the world.

What an effect, what a stir in the newspapers! All the bettors for or against, who had already forgotten this affair, came back to life as if by magic. All the transactions became valid once more. All the engagements revived, and, it must be said, the betting resumed with fresh energy. The name of Phileas Fogg once again commanded a premium on the market.

The gentleman's five colleagues, at the Reform Club, spent these three days in a certain anxiety. This Phileas Fogg whom they had forgotten rose again before their eyes! Where could he be at this moment? On December 17—the day James Strand was arrested—it had been seventy-six days since Phileas Fogg's departure, and not a word from him! Had he succumbed? Had he given up the struggle, or was he continuing his march along the agreed itinerary? And on Saturday, December 21, at eight forty-five in the evening, was he going to appear, like the god of exactitude, on the threshold of the Reform Club drawing-room?

One must give up trying to paint the anxiety in which, for three days, all this world of English society lived. Dispatches were fired off to America, to Asia, to get news of Phileas Fogg! Morning and evening someone was sent to watch the Saville Row house... Nothing. The police themselves no longer knew what had become of Detective Fix, who had so unluckily flung himself onto a false trail. Which did not stop the bets from being laid again on a vaster scale. Phileas Fogg, like a racehorse, was coming into the last turn. He was no longer quoted at a hundred, but at twenty, but at ten, but at five, and old Lord Albermale, paralytic as he was, took him at even odds.

And so, on the Saturday evening, there was a crowd in Pall Mall and the neighboring streets. It was like an immense throng of brokers, permanently posted near the Reform Club. Traffic was blocked. People argued, disputed, shouted the quotations of "Phileas Fogg," as they would those of the English funds. The policemen had great trouble holding back the crowd, and as the hour approached at which Phileas Fogg was due to arrive, the excitement swelled to unbelievable proportions.

That evening, the gentleman's five colleagues had been gathered since nine o'clock in the great drawing-room of the Reform Club. The two bankers, John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, the engineer Andrew Stuart, Gauthier Ralph, administrator of the Bank of England, the brewer Thomas Flanagan, all waited anxiously.

At the moment when the clock of the great drawing-room marked eight twenty-five, Andrew Stuart, rising, said:

"Gentlemen, in twenty minutes, the deadline agreed between Mr. Phileas Fogg and ourselves will have expired.

—At what time did the last train from Liverpool arrive? asked Thomas Flanagan.

—At seven twenty-three, replied Gauthier Ralph, and the next train does not arrive until ten past midnight.

—Well then, gentlemen, Andrew Stuart went on, if Phileas Fogg had come in by the seven twenty-three train, he would already be here. We may therefore consider the wager as won.

—Let us wait, let us not pronounce, replied Samuel Fallentin. You see that our colleague is an eccentric of the first order. His punctuality in everything is well known. He never arrives either too late or too early, and were he to appear here at the last minute, I should not be otherwise surprised.

—And I, said Andrew Stuart, who was, as always, very nervous, were I to see him I would not believe it.

—Indeed, resumed Thomas Flanagan, Phileas Fogg's plan was madness. Whatever his punctuality, he could not keep inevitable delays from occurring, and a lag of just two or three days was enough to wreck his journey.

—You will note, besides, added John Sullivan, that we have had no news from our colleague, and yet the telegraph wires were not lacking along his route.

—He has lost, gentlemen, resumed Andrew Stuart, he has lost a hundred times over! You know, moreover, that the China—the only New York steamer he could have taken to reach Liverpool in good time—arrived yesterday. Now, here is the passenger list, published by the Shipping Gazette, and the name of Phileas Fogg does not appear on it. Granting the most favorable chances, our colleague is barely in America! I reckon at twenty days, at the least, the delay he will run behind the agreed date, and old Lord Albermale will be out his five thousand pounds too!

—That is obvious, replied Gauthier Ralph, and tomorrow we shall have only to present Mr. Fogg's check at Baring Brothers."

At this moment the drawing-room clock struck eight forty.

"Five minutes more," said Andrew Stuart.

The five colleagues looked at one another. One may believe that the beating of their hearts had undergone a slight quickening, for after all, even for fine players, the stakes were high! But they wished to let nothing of it show, and so, on Samuel Fallentin's suggestion, they took their places at a card table.

"I would not give up my share of four thousand pounds in the wager, said Andrew Stuart as he sat down, even were I offered three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine!"

The hand marked, at this moment, eight forty-two.

The players had taken up the cards, but, at every instant, their eyes fixed on the clock. One may assert that, whatever their sense of security, never had minutes seemed so long to them!

"Eight forty-three," said Thomas Flanagan, cutting the deck that Gauthier Ralph held out to him.

Then a moment of silence fell. The vast drawing-room of the club was still. But, outside, one could hear the hubbub of the crowd, dominated at times by shrill cries. The pendulum of the clock beat the seconds with mathematical regularity. Each player could count the sexagesimal divisions that struck his ear.

"Eight forty-four!" said John Sullivan in a voice in which an involuntary emotion could be felt.

One minute more, and the wager was won. Andrew Stuart and his colleagues were no longer playing. They had put down the cards! They were counting the seconds!

The fortieth second came, nothing. The fiftieth, nothing still!

At the fifty-fifth, there was heard from outside something like thunder, applause, hurrahs, and even curses, which spread in a continuous roll.

The players rose.

On the fifty-seventh second, the salon door swung open, and the pendulum had not struck the sixtieth second when Phileas Fogg came into view, followed by a delirious crowd that had forced the entrance of the club, and in his calm voice:

"Here I am, gentlemen," he said.

Chapter 37 — In which it is proved that Phileas Fogg gained nothing by making this tour of the world, unless it be happiness

Yes! Phileas Fogg in person.

It will be recalled that at five past eight in the evening—about twenty-five hours after the travelers' arrival in London—Passepartout had been charged by his master with notifying the Reverend Samuel Wilson about a certain marriage that was to be concluded the very next day.

Passepartout had therefore set off, delighted. He went at a rapid pace to the dwelling of the Reverend Samuel Wilson, who had not yet come home. Naturally, Passepartout waited, but he waited a good twenty minutes at least.

In short, it was eight thirty-five when he came out of the reverend's house. But in what a state! His hair in disorder, hatless, running, running as no one had ever been seen to run in the memory of man, knocking over passersby, hurtling like a waterspout along the sidewalks!

In three minutes, he was back at the Saville Row house, and he fell, breathless, into Mr. Fogg's room.

He could not speak.

"What is it? asked Mr. Fogg.

—My master... stammered Passepartout... marriage... impossible.

—Impossible?

—Impossible... for tomorrow.

—Why?

—Because tomorrow... is Sunday!

—Monday, replied Mr. Fogg.

—No... today... Saturday.

—Saturday? impossible!

—Yes, yes, yes, yes! cried Passepartout. You are wrong by a whole day! We got here twenty-four hours early... but there are only ten minutes left!..."

Passepartout had grabbed his master by the collar and was hauling him off with irresistible force!

Phileas Fogg, swept off in this way, without time to reflect, left his room, left his house, sprang into a cab, promised the driver a hundred pounds, and, after running over two dogs and clipping five carriages, reached the Reform Club.

The clock marked eight forty-five when he appeared in the great drawing-room...

Phileas Fogg had accomplished this tour of the world in eighty days!...

Phileas Fogg had won his bet of twenty thousand pounds!

And now, how could a man so exact, so meticulous, have committed this error of a day? How did he come to believe himself at Saturday evening, December 21, when he landed in London, whereas it was only Friday, December 20, seventy-nine days only after his departure?

Here is the reason for this error. It is quite simple.

Phileas Fogg had, "without suspecting it," gained a day on his itinerary—and that solely because he had made his tour of the world going toward the east, whereas he would, on the contrary, have lost this day going in the opposite direction, that is toward the west.

Indeed, in traveling toward the east, Phileas Fogg was going to meet the sun, and consequently the days shortened for him by four minutes for each degree he crossed in that direction. Now, one counts three hundred and sixty degrees on the earth's circumference, and those three hundred and sixty degrees, taken at four minutes each, give exactly twenty-four hours—that is to say this day unwittingly gained. In other words, while Phileas Fogg, traveling toward the east, saw the sun pass eighty times across the meridian, his colleagues remaining in London saw it pass only seventy-nine times. That is why, on that very day, which was Saturday and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg believed, they were waiting for him in the drawing-room of the Reform Club.

And this is what Passepartout's famous watch—which had all along kept London time—would have shown, if, along with the minutes and the hours, it had marked the days!

Phileas Fogg had thus won the twenty thousand pounds. But since he had spent about nineteen thousand of them along the way, the pecuniary result was slim. However, as has been said, the eccentric gentleman had sought in this wager only the contest, not the fortune. And even the thousand pounds remaining, he divided between the honest Passepartout and the unfortunate Fix, whom he was incapable of holding anything against. Only, and for regularity's sake, he deducted from his servant the cost of the nineteen hundred and twenty hours of gas consumed through his fault.

That very evening, Mr. Fogg, as impassive, as phlegmatic as ever, said to Mrs. Aouda:

"Does this marriage still suit you, madame?

—Mr. Fogg, replied Mrs. Aouda, it is for me to put that question to you. You were ruined, and here you are rich...

—Forgive me, madame, this fortune is yours. Had you not conceived the thought of this marriage, my manservant would never have gone to the Reverend Samuel Wilson's, I would not have been warned of my error, and...

—Dear Mr. Fogg..., said the young woman.

—Dear Aouda...," replied Phileas Fogg.

It is easily understood that the wedding took place forty-eight hours later, and Passepartout, superb, resplendent, dazzling, stood in it as the young woman's witness. Had he not saved her, and was this honor not his due?

Only, the next day, at the very break of dawn, Passepartout knocked with a clatter at his master's door.

The door opened, and the impassive gentleman appeared.

"What is it, Passepartout?

—What is it, sir! It is that I have just this instant learned...

—Learned what?

—That we might have made our tour of the world in seventy-eight days only.

—No doubt, replied Mr. Fogg, by leaving India out. But had I not crossed India, I would never have saved Mrs. Aouda, she would not be my wife, and..."

And Mr. Fogg quietly closed the door.

And so Phileas Fogg had won his wager. He had accomplished in eighty days this journey around the world! He had made use, to do it, of every means of transport—steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, merchant vessels, sledges, an elephant. The eccentric gentleman had displayed throughout this affair his marvelous qualities of coolness and exactitude. But afterward? What had he gained by this upheaval? What had he brought back from this journey?

Nothing, one will say? Nothing, granted, unless it be a charming woman, who—however improbable it may seem—made him the happiest of men!

In truth, would one not, for less than this, make the Tour of the World?