Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter XVI

IN WHICH FIX DOES NOT SEEM TO UN­DER­STAND IN THE LEAST WHAT IS SAID TO HIM

The Ran­goon--one of the Penin­su­lar and Ori­en­tal Com­pa­ny's boats ply­ing in the Chi­nese and Japanese seas--was a screw steam­er, built of iron, weigh­ing about sev­en­teen hun­dred and sev­en­ty tons, and with en­gines of four hun­dred horse-​pow­er. She was as fast, but not as well fit­ted up, as the Mon­go­lia, and Aou­da was not as com­fort­ably pro­vid­ed for on board of her as Phileas Fogg could have wished. How­ev­er, the trip from Cal­cut­ta to Hong Kong on­ly com­prised some three thou­sand five hun­dred miles, oc­cu­py­ing from ten to twelve days, and the young wom­an was not dif­fi­cult to please.

Dur­ing the first days of the jour­ney Aou­da be­came bet­ter ac­quaint­ed with her pro­tec­tor, and con­stant­ly gave ev­idence of her deep grat­itude for what he had done. The phleg­mat­ic gen­tle­man lis­tened to her, ap­par­ent­ly at least, with cold­ness, nei­ther his voice nor his man­ner be­tray­ing the slight­est emo­tion; but he seemed to be al­ways on the watch that noth­ing should be want­ing to Aou­da's com­fort. He vis­it­ed her reg­ular­ly each day at cer­tain hours, not so much to talk him­self, as to sit and hear her talk. He treat­ed her with the strictest po­lite­ness, but with the pre­ci­sion of an au­toma­ton, the move­ments of which had been ar­ranged for this pur­pose. Aou­da did not quite know what to make of him, though Passep­artout had giv­en her some hints of his mas­ter's ec­cen­tric­ity, and made her smile by telling her of the wa­ger which was send­ing him round the world. Af­ter all, she owed Phileas Fogg her life, and she al­ways re­gard­ed him through the ex­alt­ing medi­um of her grat­itude.

Aou­da con­firmed the Parsee guide's nar­ra­tive of her touch­ing his­to­ry. She did, in­deed, be­long to the high­est of the na­tive races of In­dia. Many of the Parsee mer­chants have made great for­tunes there by deal­ing in cot­ton; and one of them, Sir Jamet­see Jee­jeeb­hoy, was made a baronet by the En­glish gov­ern­ment. Aou­da was a rel­ative of this great man, and it was his cousin, Jee­jeeh, whom she hoped to join at Hong Kong. Whether she would find a pro­tec­tor in him she could not tell; but Mr. Fogg es­sayed to calm her anx­ieties, and to as­sure her that ev­ery­thing would be math­emat­ical­ly--he used the very word--ar­ranged. Aou­da fas­tened her great eyes, “clear as the sa­cred lakes of the Hi­malaya,” up­on him; but the in­tractable Fogg, as re­served as ev­er, did not seem at all in­clined to throw him­self in­to this lake.

The first few days of the voy­age passed pros­per­ous­ly, amid favourable weath­er and pro­pi­tious winds, and they soon came in sight of the great An­daman, the prin­ci­pal of the is­lands in the Bay of Ben­gal, with its pic­turesque Sad­dle Peak, two thou­sand four hun­dred feet high, loom­ing above the wa­ters. The steam­er passed along near the shores, but the sav­age Papuans, who are in the low­est scale of hu­man­ity, but are not, as has been as­sert­ed, can­ni­bals, did not make their ap­pear­ance.

The panora­ma of the is­lands, as they steamed by them, was su­perb. Vast forests of palms, arecs, bam­boo, teak­wood, of the gi­gan­tic mi­mosa, and tree-​like ferns cov­ered the fore­ground, while be­hind, the grace­ful out­lines of the moun­tains were traced against the sky; and along the coasts swarmed by thou­sands the pre­cious swal­lows whose nests fur­nish a lux­uri­ous dish to the ta­bles of the Ce­les­tial Em­pire. The var­ied land­scape af­ford­ed by the An­daman Is­lands was soon passed, how­ev­er, and the Ran­goon rapid­ly ap­proached the Straits of Malac­ca, which gave ac­cess to the Chi­na seas.

What was de­tec­tive Fix, so un­luck­ily drawn on from coun­try to coun­try, do­ing all this while? He had man­aged to em­bark on the Ran­goon at Cal­cut­ta with­out be­ing seen by Passep­artout, af­ter leav­ing or­ders that, if the war­rant should ar­rive, it should be for­ward­ed to him at Hong Kong; and he hoped to con­ceal his pres­ence to the end of the voy­age. It would have been dif­fi­cult to ex­plain why he was on board with­out awak­en­ing Passep­artout's sus­pi­cions, who thought him still at Bom­bay. But ne­ces­si­ty im­pelled him, nev­er­the­less, to re­new his ac­quain­tance with the wor­thy ser­vant, as will be seen.

All the de­tec­tive's hopes and wish­es were now cen­tred on Hong Kong; for the steam­er's stay at Sin­ga­pore would be too brief to en­able him to take any steps there. The ar­rest must be made at Hong Kong, or the rob­ber would prob­ably es­cape him for ev­er. Hong Kong was the last En­glish ground on which he would set foot; be­yond, Chi­na, Japan, Amer­ica of­fered to Fogg an al­most cer­tain refuge. If the war­rant should at last make its ap­pear­ance at Hong Kong, Fix could ar­rest him and give him in­to the hands of the lo­cal po­lice, and there would be no fur­ther trou­ble. But be­yond Hong Kong, a sim­ple war­rant would be of no avail; an ex­tra­di­tion war­rant would be nec­es­sary, and that would re­sult in de­lays and ob­sta­cles, of which the ras­cal would take ad­van­tage to elude jus­tice.

Fix thought over these prob­abil­ities dur­ing the long hours which he spent in his cab­in, and kept re­peat­ing to him­self, “Now, ei­ther the war­rant will be at Hong Kong, in which case I shall ar­rest my man, or it will not be there; and this time it is ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary that I should de­lay his de­par­ture. I have failed at Bom­bay, and I have failed at Cal­cut­ta; if I fail at Hong Kong, my rep­uta­tion is lost: Cost what it may, I must suc­ceed! But how shall I pre­vent his de­par­ture, if that should turn out to be my last re­source?”

Fix made up his mind that, if worst came to worst, he would make a con­fi­dant of Passep­artout, and tell him what kind of a fel­low his mas­ter re­al­ly was. That Passep­artout was not Fogg's ac­com­plice, he was very cer­tain. The ser­vant, en­light­ened by his dis­clo­sure, and afraid of be­ing him­self im­pli­cat­ed in the crime, would doubt­less be­come an al­ly of the de­tec­tive. But this method was a dan­ger­ous one, on­ly to be em­ployed when ev­ery­thing else had failed. A word from Passep­artout to his mas­ter would ru­in all. The de­tec­tive was there­fore in a sore strait. But sud­den­ly a new idea struck him. The pres­ence of Aou­da on the Ran­goon, in com­pa­ny with Phileas Fogg, gave him new ma­te­ri­al for re­flec­tion.

Who was this wom­an? What com­bi­na­tion of events had made her Fogg's trav­el­ling com­pan­ion? They had ev­ident­ly met some­where be­tween Bom­bay and Cal­cut­ta; but where? Had they met ac­ci­den­tal­ly, or had Fogg gone in­to the in­te­ri­or pur­pose­ly in quest of this charm­ing damsel? Fix was fair­ly puz­zled. He asked him­self whether there had not been a wicked elope­ment; and this idea so im­pressed it­self up­on his mind that he de­ter­mined to make use of the sup­posed in­trigue. Whether the young wom­an were mar­ried or not, he would be able to cre­ate such dif­fi­cul­ties for Mr. Fogg at Hong Kong that he could not es­cape by pay­ing any amount of mon­ey.

But could he even wait till they reached Hong Kong? Fogg had an abom­inable way of jump­ing from one boat to an­oth­er, and, be­fore any­thing could be ef­fect­ed, might get full un­der way again for Yoko­hama.

Fix de­cid­ed that he must warn the En­glish au­thor­ities, and sig­nal the Ran­goon be­fore her ar­rival. This was easy to do, since the steam­er stopped at Sin­ga­pore, whence there is a tele­graph­ic wire to Hong Kong. He fi­nal­ly re­solved, more­over, be­fore act­ing more pos­itive­ly, to ques­tion Passep­artout. It would not be dif­fi­cult to make him talk; and, as there was no time to lose, Fix pre­pared to make him­self known.

It was now the 30th of Oc­to­ber, and on the fol­low­ing day the Ran­goon was due at Sin­ga­pore.

Fix emerged from his cab­in and went on deck. Passep­artout was prom­enad­ing up and down in the for­ward part of the steam­er. The de­tec­tive rushed for­ward with ev­ery ap­pear­ance of ex­treme sur­prise, and ex­claimed, “You here, on the Ran­goon?”

“What, Mon­sieur Fix, are you on board?” re­turned the re­al­ly as­ton­ished Passep­artout, recog­nis­ing his crony of the Mon­go­lia. “Why, I left you at Bom­bay, and here you are, on the way to Hong Kong! Are you go­ing round the world too?”

“No, no,” replied Fix; “I shall stop at Hong Kong--at least for some days.”

“Hum!” said Passep­artout, who seemed for an in­stant per­plexed. “But how is it I have not seen you on board since we left Cal­cut­ta?”

“Oh, a tri­fle of sea-​sick­ness--I've been stay­ing in my berth. The Gulf of Ben­gal does not agree with me as well as the In­di­an Ocean. And how is Mr. Fogg?”

“As well and as punc­tu­al as ev­er, not a day be­hind time! But, Mon­sieur Fix, you don't know that we have a young la­dy with us.”

“A young la­dy?” replied the de­tec­tive, not seem­ing to com­pre­hend what was said.

Passep­artout there­upon re­count­ed Aou­da's his­to­ry, the af­fair at the Bom­bay pago­da, the pur­chase of the ele­phant for two thou­sand pounds, the res­cue, the ar­rest, and sen­tence of the Cal­cut­ta court, and the restora­tion of Mr. Fogg and him­self to lib­er­ty on bail. Fix, who was fa­mil­iar with the last events, seemed to be equal­ly ig­no­rant of all that Passep­artout re­lat­ed; and the lat­er was charmed to find so in­ter­est­ed a lis­ten­er.

“But does your mas­ter pro­pose to car­ry this young wom­an to Eu­rope?”

“Not at all. We are sim­ply go­ing to place her un­der the pro­tec­tion of one of her rel­atives, a rich mer­chant at Hong Kong.”

“Noth­ing to be done there,” said Fix to him­self, con­ceal­ing his dis­ap­point­ment. “A glass of gin, Mr. Passep­artout?”

“Will­ing­ly, Mon­sieur Fix. We must at least have a friend­ly glass on board the Ran­goon.”