Jules Verne · a new plain-English translation from the original language
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.