Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter XVII

SHOW­ING WHAT HAP­PENED ON THE VOY­AGE FROM SIN­GA­PORE TO HONG KONG

The de­tec­tive and Passep­artout met of­ten on deck af­ter this in­ter­view, though Fix was re­served, and did not at­tempt to in­duce his com­pan­ion to di­vulge any more facts con­cern­ing Mr. Fogg. He caught a glimpse of that mys­te­ri­ous gen­tle­man once or twice; but Mr. Fogg usu­al­ly con­fined him­self to the cab­in, where he kept Aou­da com­pa­ny, or, ac­cord­ing to his in­vet­er­ate habit, took a hand at whist.

Passep­artout be­gan very se­ri­ous­ly to con­jec­ture what strange chance kept Fix still on the route that his mas­ter was pur­su­ing. It was re­al­ly worth con­sid­er­ing why this cer­tain­ly very ami­able and com­pla­cent per­son, whom he had first met at Suez, had then en­coun­tered on board the Mon­go­lia, who dis­em­barked at Bom­bay, which he an­nounced as his des­ti­na­tion, and now turned up so un­ex­pect­ed­ly on the Ran­goon, was fol­low­ing Mr. Fogg's tracks step by step. What was Fix's ob­ject? Passep­artout was ready to wa­ger his In­di­an shoes--which he re­li­gious­ly pre­served--that Fix would al­so leave Hong Kong at the same time with them, and prob­ably on the same steam­er.

Passep­artout might have cud­gelled his brain for a cen­tu­ry with­out hit­ting up­on the re­al ob­ject which the de­tec­tive had in view. He nev­er could have imag­ined that Phileas Fogg was be­ing tracked as a rob­ber around the globe. But, as it is in hu­man na­ture to at­tempt the so­lu­tion of ev­ery mys­tery, Passep­artout sud­den­ly dis­cov­ered an ex­pla­na­tion of Fix's move­ments, which was in truth far from un­rea­son­able. Fix, he thought, could on­ly be an agent of Mr. Fogg's friends at the Re­form Club, sent to fol­low him up, and to as­cer­tain that he re­al­ly went round the world as had been agreed up­on.

“It's clear!” re­peat­ed the wor­thy ser­vant to him­self, proud of his shrewd­ness. “He's a spy sent to keep us in view! That isn't quite the thing, ei­ther, to be spy­ing Mr. Fogg, who is so hon­ourable a man! Ah, gen­tle­men of the Re­form, this shall cost you dear!”

Passep­artout, en­chant­ed with his dis­cov­ery, re­solved to say noth­ing to his mas­ter, lest he should be just­ly of­fend­ed at this mis­trust on the part of his ad­ver­saries. But he de­ter­mined to chaff Fix, when he had the chance, with mys­te­ri­ous al­lu­sions, which, how­ev­er, need not be­tray his re­al sus­pi­cions.

Dur­ing the af­ter­noon of Wednes­day, 30th Oc­to­ber, the Ran­goon en­tered the Strait of Malac­ca, which sep­arates the penin­su­la of that name from Suma­tra. The moun­tain­ous and crag­gy islets in­ter­cept­ed the beau­ties of this no­ble is­land from the view of the trav­ellers. The Ran­goon weighed an­chor at Sin­ga­pore the next day at four a.m., to re­ceive coal, hav­ing gained half a day on the pre­scribed time of her ar­rival. Phileas Fogg not­ed this gain in his jour­nal, and then, ac­com­pa­nied by Aou­da, who be­trayed a de­sire for a walk on shore, dis­em­barked.

Fix, who sus­pect­ed Mr. Fogg's ev­ery move­ment, fol­lowed them cau­tious­ly, with­out be­ing him­self per­ceived; while Passep­artout, laugh­ing in his sleeve at Fix's ma­noeu­vres, went about his usu­al er­rands.

The is­land of Sin­ga­pore is not im­pos­ing in as­pect, for there are no moun­tains; yet its ap­pear­ance is not with­out at­trac­tions. It is a park check­ered by pleas­ant high­ways and av­enues. A hand­some car­riage, drawn by a sleek pair of New Hol­land hors­es, car­ried Phileas Fogg and Aou­da in­to the midst of rows of palms with bril­liant fo­liage, and of clove-​trees, where­of the cloves form the heart of a half-​open flow­er. Pep­per plants re­placed the prick­ly hedges of Eu­ro­pean fields; sa­go-​bush­es, large ferns with gor­geous branch­es, var­ied the as­pect of this trop­ical clime; while nut­meg-​trees in full fo­liage filled the air with a pen­etrat­ing per­fume. Ag­ile and grin­ning bands of mon­keys skipped about in the trees, nor were tigers want­ing in the jun­gles.

Af­ter a drive of two hours through the coun­try, Aou­da and Mr. Fogg re­turned to the town, which is a vast col­lec­tion of heavy-​look­ing, ir­reg­ular hous­es, sur­round­ed by charm­ing gar­dens rich in trop­ical fruits and plants; and at ten o'clock they re-​em­barked, close­ly fol­lowed by the de­tec­tive, who had kept them con­stant­ly in sight.

Passep­artout, who had been pur­chas­ing sev­er­al dozen man­goes--a fruit as large as good-​sized ap­ples, of a dark-​brown colour out­side and a bright red with­in, and whose white pulp, melt­ing in the mouth, af­fords gour­mands a de­li­cious sen­sa­tion--was wait­ing for them on deck. He was on­ly too glad to of­fer some man­goes to Aou­da, who thanked him very grace­ful­ly for them.

At eleven o'clock the Ran­goon rode out of Sin­ga­pore har­bour, and in a few hours the high moun­tains of Malac­ca, with their forests, in­hab­it­ed by the most beau­ti­ful­ly-​furred tigers in the world, were lost to view. Sin­ga­pore is dis­tant some thir­teen hun­dred miles from the is­land of Hong Kong, which is a lit­tle En­glish colony near the Chi­nese coast. Phileas Fogg hoped to ac­com­plish the jour­ney in six days, so as to be in time for the steam­er which would leave on the 6th of Novem­ber for Yoko­hama, the prin­ci­pal Japanese port.

The Ran­goon had a large quo­ta of pas­sen­gers, many of whom dis­em­barked at Sin­ga­pore, among them a num­ber of In­di­ans, Cey­lonese, Chi­na­men, Malays, and Por­tuguese, most­ly sec­ond-​class trav­ellers.

The weath­er, which had hith­er­to been fine, changed with the last quar­ter of the moon. The sea rolled heav­ily, and the wind at in­ter­vals rose al­most to a storm, but hap­pi­ly blew from the south-​west, and thus aid­ed the steam­er's progress. The cap­tain as of­ten as pos­si­ble put up his sails, and un­der the dou­ble ac­tion of steam and sail the ves­sel made rapid progress along the coasts of Anam and Cochin Chi­na. Ow­ing to the de­fec­tive con­struc­tion of the Ran­goon, how­ev­er, un­usu­al pre­cau­tions be­came nec­es­sary in un­favourable weath­er; but the loss of time which re­sult­ed from this cause, while it near­ly drove Passep­artout out of his sens­es, did not seem to af­fect his mas­ter in the least. Passep­artout blamed the cap­tain, the en­gi­neer, and the crew, and con­signed all who were con­nect­ed with the ship to the land where the pep­per grows. Per­haps the thought of the gas, which was re­morse­less­ly burn­ing at his ex­pense in Sav­ille Row, had some­thing to do with his hot im­pa­tience.

“You are in a great hur­ry, then,” said Fix to him one day, “to reach Hong Kong?”

“A very great hur­ry!”

“Mr. Fogg, I sup­pose, is anx­ious to catch the steam­er for Yoko­hama?”

“Ter­ri­bly anx­ious.”

“You be­lieve in this jour­ney around the world, then?”

“Ab­so­lute­ly. Don't you, Mr. Fix?”

“I? I don't be­lieve a word of it.”

“You're a sly dog!” said Passep­artout, wink­ing at him.

This ex­pres­sion rather dis­turbed Fix, with­out his know­ing why. Had the French­man guessed his re­al pur­pose? He knew not what to think. But how could Passep­artout have dis­cov­ered that he was a de­tec­tive? Yet, in speak­ing as he did, the man ev­ident­ly meant more than he ex­pressed.

Passep­artout went still fur­ther the next day; he could not hold his tongue.

“Mr. Fix,” said he, in a ban­ter­ing tone, “shall we be so un­for­tu­nate as to lose you when we get to Hong Kong?”

“Why,” re­spond­ed Fix, a lit­tle em­bar­rassed, “I don't know; per­haps--”

“Ah, if you would on­ly go on with us! An agent of the Penin­su­lar Com­pa­ny, you know, can't stop on the way! You were on­ly go­ing to Bom­bay, and here you are in Chi­na. Amer­ica is not far off, and from Amer­ica to Eu­rope is on­ly a step.”

Fix looked in­tent­ly at his com­pan­ion, whose coun­te­nance was as serene as pos­si­ble, and laughed with him. But Passep­artout per­sist­ed in chaffing him by ask­ing him if he made much by his present oc­cu­pa­tion.

“Yes, and no,” re­turned Fix; “there is good and bad luck in such things. But you must un­der­stand that I don't trav­el at my own ex­pense.”

“Oh, I am quite sure of that!” cried Passep­artout, laugh­ing hearti­ly.

Fix, fair­ly puz­zled, de­scend­ed to his cab­in and gave him­self up to his re­flec­tions. He was ev­ident­ly sus­pect­ed; some­how or oth­er the French­man had found out that he was a de­tec­tive. But had he told his mas­ter? What part was he play­ing in all this: was he an ac­com­plice or not? Was the game, then, up? Fix spent sev­er­al hours turn­ing these things over in his mind, some­times think­ing that all was lost, then per­suad­ing him­self that Fogg was ig­no­rant of his pres­ence, and then un­de­cid­ed what course it was best to take.

Nev­er­the­less, he pre­served his cool­ness of mind, and at last re­solved to deal plain­ly with Passep­artout. If he did not find it prac­ti­ca­ble to ar­rest Fogg at Hong Kong, and if Fogg made prepa­ra­tions to leave that last foothold of En­glish ter­ri­to­ry, he, Fix, would tell Passep­artout all. Ei­ther the ser­vant was the ac­com­plice of his mas­ter, and in this case the mas­ter knew of his op­er­ations, and he should fail; or else the ser­vant knew noth­ing about the rob­bery, and then his in­ter­est would be to aban­don the rob­ber.

Such was the sit­ua­tion be­tween Fix and Passep­artout. Mean­while Phileas Fogg moved about above them in the most ma­jes­tic and un­con­scious in­dif­fer­ence. He was pass­ing me­thod­ical­ly in his or­bit around the world, re­gard­less of the less­er stars which grav­itat­ed around him. Yet there was near by what the as­tronomers would call a dis­turb­ing star, which might have pro­duced an ag­ita­tion in this gen­tle­man's heart. But no! the charms of Aou­da failed to act, to Passep­artout's great sur­prise; and the dis­tur­bances, if they ex­ist­ed, would have been more dif­fi­cult to cal­cu­late than those of Uranus which led to the dis­cov­ery of Nep­tune.

It was ev­ery day an in­creas­ing won­der to Passep­artout, who read in Aou­da's eyes the depths of her grat­itude to his mas­ter. Phileas Fogg, though brave and gal­lant, must be, he thought, quite heart­less. As to the sen­ti­ment which this jour­ney might have awak­ened in him, there was clear­ly no trace of such a thing; while poor Passep­artout ex­ist­ed in per­pet­ual rever­ies.

One day he was lean­ing on the rail­ing of the en­gine-​room, and was ob­serv­ing the en­gine, when a sud­den pitch of the steam­er threw the screw out of the wa­ter. The steam came hiss­ing out of the valves; and this made Passep­artout in­dig­nant.

“The valves are not suf­fi­cient­ly charged!” he ex­claimed. “We are not go­ing. Oh, these En­glish! If this was an Amer­ican craft, we should blow up, per­haps, but we should at all events go faster!”