Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter XIX

IN WHICH PASSEP­ARTOUT TAKES A TOO GREAT IN­TER­EST IN HIS MAS­TER, AND WHAT COMES OF IT

Hong Kong is an is­land which came in­to the pos­ses­sion of the En­glish by the Treaty of Nankin, af­ter the war of 1842; and the colonis­ing ge­nius of the En­glish has cre­at­ed up­on it an im­por­tant city and an ex­cel­lent port. The is­land is sit­uat­ed at the mouth of the Can­ton Riv­er, and is sep­arat­ed by about six­ty miles from the Por­tuguese town of Macao, on the op­po­site coast. Hong Kong has beat­en Macao in the strug­gle for the Chi­nese trade, and now the greater part of the trans­porta­tion of Chi­nese goods finds its de­pot at the for­mer place. Docks, hos­pi­tals, wharves, a Goth­ic cathe­dral, a gov­ern­ment house, macadamised streets, give to Hong Kong the ap­pear­ance of a town in Kent or Sur­rey trans­ferred by some strange mag­ic to the an­tipodes.

Passep­artout wan­dered, with his hands in his pock­ets, to­wards the Vic­to­ria port, gaz­ing as he went at the cu­ri­ous palan­quins and oth­er modes of con­veyance, and the groups of Chi­nese, Japanese, and Eu­ro­peans who passed to and fro in the streets. Hong Kong seemed to him not un­like Bom­bay, Cal­cut­ta, and Sin­ga­pore, since, like them, it be­trayed ev­ery­where the ev­idence of En­glish suprema­cy. At the Vic­to­ria port he found a con­fused mass of ships of all na­tions: En­glish, French, Amer­ican, and Dutch, men-​of-​war and trad­ing ves­sels, Japanese and Chi­nese junks, sem­pas, tankas, and flow­er-​boats, which formed so many float­ing parter­res. Passep­artout no­ticed in the crowd a num­ber of the na­tives who seemed very old and were dressed in yel­low. On go­ing in­to a bar­ber's to get shaved he learned that these an­cient men were all at least eighty years old, at which age they are per­mit­ted to wear yel­low, which is the Im­pe­ri­al colour. Passep­artout, with­out ex­act­ly know­ing why, thought this very fun­ny.

On reach­ing the quay where they were to em­bark on the Car­nat­ic, he was not as­ton­ished to find Fix walk­ing up and down. The de­tec­tive seemed very much dis­turbed and dis­ap­point­ed.

“This is bad,” mut­tered Passep­artout, “for the gen­tle­men of the Re­form Club!” He ac­cost­ed Fix with a mer­ry smile, as if he had not per­ceived that gen­tle­man's cha­grin. The de­tec­tive had, in­deed, good rea­sons to in­veigh against the bad luck which pur­sued him. The war­rant had not come! It was cer­tain­ly on the way, but as cer­tain­ly it could not now reach Hong Kong for sev­er­al days; and, this be­ing the last En­glish ter­ri­to­ry on Mr. Fogg's route, the rob­ber would es­cape, un­less he could man­age to de­tain him.

“Well, Mon­sieur Fix,” said Passep­artout, “have you de­cid­ed to go with us so far as Amer­ica?”

“Yes,” re­turned Fix, through his set teeth.

“Good!” ex­claimed Passep­artout, laugh­ing hearti­ly. “I knew you could not per­suade your­self to sep­arate from us. Come and en­gage your berth.”

They en­tered the steam­er of­fice and se­cured cab­ins for four per­sons. The clerk, as he gave them the tick­ets, in­formed them that, the re­pairs on the Car­nat­ic hav­ing been com­plet­ed, the steam­er would leave that very evening, and not next morn­ing, as had been an­nounced.

“That will suit my mas­ter all the bet­ter,” said Passep­artout. “I will go and let him know.”

Fix now de­cid­ed to make a bold move; he re­solved to tell Passep­artout all. It seemed to be the on­ly pos­si­ble means of keep­ing Phileas Fogg sev­er­al days longer at Hong Kong. He ac­cord­ing­ly in­vit­ed his com­pan­ion in­to a tav­ern which caught his eye on the quay. On en­ter­ing, they found them­selves in a large room hand­some­ly dec­orat­ed, at the end of which was a large camp-​bed fur­nished with cush­ions. Sev­er­al per­sons lay up­on this bed in a deep sleep. At the small ta­bles which were ar­ranged about the room some thir­ty cus­tomers were drink­ing En­glish beer, porter, gin, and brandy; smok­ing, the while, long red clay pipes stuffed with lit­tle balls of opi­um min­gled with essence of rose. From time to time one of the smok­ers, over­come with the nar­cot­ic, would slip un­der the ta­ble, where­upon the wait­ers, tak­ing him by the head and feet, car­ried and laid him up­on the bed. The bed al­ready sup­port­ed twen­ty of these stu­pe­fied sots.

Fix and Passep­artout saw that they were in a smok­ing-​house haunt­ed by those wretched, ca­dav­er­ous, id­iot­ic crea­tures to whom the En­glish mer­chants sell ev­ery year the mis­er­able drug called opi­um, to the amount of one mil­lion four hun­dred thou­sand pounds--thou­sands de­vot­ed to one of the most de­spi­ca­ble vices which af­flict hu­man­ity! The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has in vain at­tempt­ed to deal with the evil by strin­gent laws. It passed grad­ual­ly from the rich, to whom it was at first ex­clu­sive­ly re­served, to the low­er class­es, and then its rav­ages could not be ar­rest­ed. Opi­um is smoked ev­ery­where, at all times, by men and wom­en, in the Ce­les­tial Em­pire; and, once ac­cus­tomed to it, the vic­tims can­not dis­pense with it, ex­cept by suf­fer­ing hor­ri­ble bod­ily con­tor­tions and ag­onies. A great smok­er can smoke as many as eight pipes a day; but he dies in five years. It was in one of these dens that Fix and Passep­artout, in search of a friend­ly glass, found them­selves. Passep­artout had no mon­ey, but will­ing­ly ac­cept­ed Fix's in­vi­ta­tion in the hope of re­turn­ing the obli­ga­tion at some fu­ture time.

They or­dered two bot­tles of port, to which the French­man did am­ple jus­tice, whilst Fix ob­served him with close at­ten­tion. They chat­ted about the jour­ney, and Passep­artout was es­pe­cial­ly mer­ry at the idea that Fix was go­ing to con­tin­ue it with them. When the bot­tles were emp­ty, how­ev­er, he rose to go and tell his mas­ter of the change in the time of the sail­ing of the Car­nat­ic.

Fix caught him by the arm, and said, “Wait a mo­ment.”

“What for, Mr. Fix?”

“I want to have a se­ri­ous talk with you.”

“A se­ri­ous talk!” cried Passep­artout, drink­ing up the lit­tle wine that was left in the bot­tom of his glass. “Well, we'll talk about it to-​mor­row; I haven't time now.”

“Stay! What I have to say con­cerns your mas­ter.”

Passep­artout, at this, looked at­ten­tive­ly at his com­pan­ion. Fix's face seemed to have a sin­gu­lar ex­pres­sion. He re­sumed his seat.

“What is it that you have to say?”

Fix placed his hand up­on Passep­artout's arm, and, low­er­ing his voice, said, “You have guessed who I am?”

“Par­bleu!” said Passep­artout, smil­ing.

“Then I'm go­ing to tell you ev­ery­thing--”

“Now that I know ev­ery­thing, my friend! Ah! that's very good. But go on, go on. First, though, let me tell you that those gen­tle­men have put them­selves to a use­less ex­pense.”

“Use­less!” said Fix. “You speak con­fi­dent­ly. It's clear that you don't know how large the sum is.”

“Of course I do,” re­turned Passep­artout. “Twen­ty thou­sand pounds.”

“Fifty-​five thou­sand!” an­swered Fix, press­ing his com­pan­ion's hand.

“What!” cried the French­man. “Has Mon­sieur Fogg dared--fifty-​five thou­sand pounds! Well, there's all the more rea­son for not los­ing an in­stant,” he con­tin­ued, get­ting up hasti­ly.

Fix pushed Passep­artout back in his chair, and re­sumed: “Fifty-​five thou­sand pounds; and if I suc­ceed, I get two thou­sand pounds. If you'll help me, I'll let you have five hun­dred of them.”

“Help you?” cried Passep­artout, whose eyes were stand­ing wide open.

“Yes; help me keep Mr. Fogg here for two or three days.”

“Why, what are you say­ing? Those gen­tle­men are not sat­is­fied with fol­low­ing my mas­ter and sus­pect­ing his hon­our, but they must try to put ob­sta­cles in his way! I blush for them!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that it is a piece of shame­ful trick­ery. They might as well way­lay Mr. Fogg and put his mon­ey in their pock­ets!”

“That's just what we count on do­ing.”

“It's a con­spir­acy, then,” cried Passep­artout, who be­came more and more ex­cit­ed as the liquor mount­ed in his head, for he drank with­out per­ceiv­ing it. “A re­al con­spir­acy! And gen­tle­men, too. Bah!”

Fix be­gan to be puz­zled.

“Mem­bers of the Re­form Club!” con­tin­ued Passep­artout. “You must know, Mon­sieur Fix, that my mas­ter is an hon­est man, and that, when he makes a wa­ger, he tries to win it fair­ly!”

“But who do you think I am?” asked Fix, look­ing at him in­tent­ly.

“Par­bleu! An agent of the mem­bers of the Re­form Club, sent out here to in­ter­rupt my mas­ter's jour­ney. But, though I found you out some time ago, I've tak­en good care to say noth­ing about it to Mr. Fogg.”

“He knows noth­ing, then?”

“Noth­ing,” replied Passep­artout, again emp­ty­ing his glass.

The de­tec­tive passed his hand across his fore­head, hes­itat­ing be­fore he spoke again. What should he do? Passep­artout's mis­take seemed sin­cere, but it made his de­sign more dif­fi­cult. It was ev­ident that the ser­vant was not the mas­ter's ac­com­plice, as Fix had been in­clined to sus­pect.

“Well,” said the de­tec­tive to him­self, “as he is not an ac­com­plice, he will help me.”

He had no time to lose: Fogg must be de­tained at Hong Kong, so he re­solved to make a clean breast of it.

“Lis­ten to me,” said Fix abrupt­ly. “I am not, as you think, an agent of the mem­bers of the Re­form Club--”

“Bah!” re­tort­ed Passep­artout, with an air of raillery.

“I am a po­lice de­tec­tive, sent out here by the Lon­don of­fice.”

“You, a de­tec­tive?”

“I will prove it. Here is my com­mis­sion.”

Passep­artout was speech­less with as­ton­ish­ment when Fix dis­played this doc­ument, the gen­uine­ness of which could not be doubt­ed.

“Mr. Fogg's wa­ger,” re­sumed Fix, “is on­ly a pre­text, of which you and the gen­tle­men of the Re­form are dupes. He had a mo­tive for se­cur­ing your in­no­cent com­plic­ity.”

“But why?”

“Lis­ten. On the 28th of last Septem­ber a rob­bery of fifty-​five thou­sand pounds was com­mit­ted at the Bank of Eng­land by a per­son whose de­scrip­tion was for­tu­nate­ly se­cured. Here is his de­scrip­tion; it an­swers ex­act­ly to that of Mr. Phileas Fogg.”

“What non­sense!” cried Passep­artout, strik­ing the ta­ble with his fist. “My mas­ter is the most hon­ourable of men!”

“How can you tell? You know scarce­ly any­thing about him. You went in­to his ser­vice the day he came away; and he came away on a fool­ish pre­text, with­out trunks, and car­ry­ing a large amount in ban­knotes. And yet you are bold enough to as­sert that he is an hon­est man!”

“Yes, yes,” re­peat­ed the poor fel­low, me­chan­ical­ly.

“Would you like to be ar­rest­ed as his ac­com­plice?”

Passep­artout, over­come by what he had heard, held his head be­tween his hands, and did not dare to look at the de­tec­tive. Phileas Fogg, the saviour of Aou­da, that brave and gen­er­ous man, a rob­ber! And yet how many pre­sump­tions there were against him! Passep­artout es­sayed to re­ject the sus­pi­cions which forced them­selves up­on his mind; he did not wish to be­lieve that his mas­ter was guilty.

“Well, what do you want of me?” said he, at last, with an ef­fort.

“See here,” replied Fix; “I have tracked Mr. Fogg to this place, but as yet I have failed to re­ceive the war­rant of ar­rest for which I sent to Lon­don. You must help me to keep him here in Hong Kong--”

“I! But I--”

“I will share with you the two thou­sand pounds re­ward of­fered by the Bank of Eng­land.”

“Nev­er!” replied Passep­artout, who tried to rise, but fell back, ex­haust­ed in mind and body.

“Mr. Fix,” he stam­mered, “even should what you say be true--if my mas­ter is re­al­ly the rob­ber you are seek­ing for--which I de­ny--I have been, am, in his ser­vice; I have seen his gen­eros­ity and good­ness; and I will nev­er be­tray him--not for all the gold in the world. I come from a vil­lage where they don't eat that kind of bread!”

“You refuse?”

“I refuse.”

“Con­sid­er that I've said noth­ing,” said Fix; “and let us drink.”

“Yes; let us drink!”

Passep­artout felt him­self yield­ing more and more to the ef­fects of the liquor. Fix, see­ing that he must, at all haz­ards, be sep­arat­ed from his mas­ter, wished to en­tire­ly over­come him. Some pipes full of opi­um lay up­on the ta­ble. Fix slipped one in­to Passep­artout's hand. He took it, put it be­tween his lips, lit it, drew sev­er­al puffs, and his head, be­com­ing heavy un­der the in­flu­ence of the nar­cot­ic, fell up­on the ta­ble.

“At last!” said Fix, see­ing Passep­artout un­con­scious. “Mr. Fogg will not be in­formed of the Car­nat­ic's de­par­ture; and, if he is, he will have to go with­out this cursed French­man!”

And, af­ter pay­ing his bill, Fix left the tav­ern.