Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter XX

IN WHICH FIX COMES FACE TO FACE WITH PHILEAS FOGG

While these events were pass­ing at the opi­um-​house, Mr. Fogg, un­con­scious of the dan­ger he was in of los­ing the steam­er, was qui­et­ly es­cort­ing Aou­da about the streets of the En­glish quar­ter, mak­ing the nec­es­sary pur­chas­es for the long voy­age be­fore them. It was all very well for an En­glish­man like Mr. Fogg to make the tour of the world with a car­pet-​bag; a la­dy could not be ex­pect­ed to trav­el com­fort­ably un­der such con­di­tions. He ac­quit­ted his task with char­ac­ter­is­tic seren­ity, and in­vari­ably replied to the re­mon­strances of his fair com­pan­ion, who was con­fused by his pa­tience and gen­eros­ity:

“It is in the in­ter­est of my jour­ney--a part of my pro­gramme.”

The pur­chas­es made, they re­turned to the ho­tel, where they dined at a sump­tu­ous­ly served ta­ble-​d'hote; af­ter which Aou­da, shak­ing hands with her pro­tec­tor af­ter the En­glish fash­ion, re­tired to her room for rest. Mr. Fogg ab­sorbed him­self through­out the evening in the pe­rusal of The Times and Il­lus­trat­ed Lon­don News.

Had he been ca­pa­ble of be­ing as­ton­ished at any­thing, it would have been not to see his ser­vant re­turn at bed­time. But, know­ing that the steam­er was not to leave for Yoko­hama un­til the next morn­ing, he did not dis­turb him­self about the mat­ter. When Passep­artout did not ap­pear the next morn­ing to an­swer his mas­ter's bell, Mr. Fogg, not be­tray­ing the least vex­ation, con­tent­ed him­self with tak­ing his car­pet-​bag, call­ing Aou­da, and send­ing for a palan­quin.

It was then eight o'clock; at half-​past nine, it be­ing then high tide, the Car­nat­ic would leave the har­bour. Mr. Fogg and Aou­da got in­to the palan­quin, their lug­gage be­ing brought af­ter on a wheel­bar­row, and half an hour lat­er stepped up­on the quay whence they were to em­bark. Mr. Fogg then learned that the Car­nat­ic had sailed the evening be­fore. He had ex­pect­ed to find not on­ly the steam­er, but his do­mes­tic, and was forced to give up both; but no sign of dis­ap­point­ment ap­peared on his face, and he mere­ly re­marked to Aou­da, “It is an ac­ci­dent, madam; noth­ing more.”

At this mo­ment a man who had been ob­serv­ing him at­ten­tive­ly ap­proached. It was Fix, who, bow­ing, ad­dressed Mr. Fogg: “Were you not, like me, sir, a pas­sen­ger by the Ran­goon, which ar­rived yes­ter­day?”

“I was, sir,” replied Mr. Fogg cold­ly. “But I have not the hon­our--”

“Par­don me; I thought I should find your ser­vant here.”

“Do you know where he is, sir?” asked Aou­da anx­ious­ly.

“What!” re­spond­ed Fix, feign­ing sur­prise. “Is he not with you?”

“No,” said Aou­da. “He has not made his ap­pear­ance since yes­ter­day. Could he have gone on board the Car­nat­ic with­out us?”

“With­out you, madam?” an­swered the de­tec­tive. “Ex­cuse me, did you in­tend to sail in the Car­nat­ic?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So did I, madam, and I am ex­ces­sive­ly dis­ap­point­ed. The Car­nat­ic, its re­pairs be­ing com­plet­ed, left Hong Kong twelve hours be­fore the stat­ed time, with­out any no­tice be­ing giv­en; and we must now wait a week for an­oth­er steam­er.”

As he said “a week” Fix felt his heart leap for joy. Fogg de­tained at Hong Kong for a week! There would be time for the war­rant to ar­rive, and for­tune at last favoured the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the law. His hor­ror may be imag­ined when he heard Mr. Fogg say, in his placid voice, “But there are oth­er ves­sels be­sides the Car­nat­ic, it seems to me, in the har­bour of Hong Kong.”

And, of­fer­ing his arm to Aou­da, he di­rect­ed his steps to­ward the docks in search of some craft about to start. Fix, stu­pe­fied, fol­lowed; it seemed as if he were at­tached to Mr. Fogg by an in­vis­ible thread. Chance, how­ev­er, ap­peared re­al­ly to have aban­doned the man it had hith­er­to served so well. For three hours Phileas Fogg wan­dered about the docks, with the de­ter­mi­na­tion, if nec­es­sary, to char­ter a ves­sel to car­ry him to Yoko­hama; but he could on­ly find ves­sels which were load­ing or un­load­ing, and which could not there­fore set sail. Fix be­gan to hope again.

But Mr. Fogg, far from be­ing dis­cour­aged, was con­tin­uing his search, re­solved not to stop if he had to re­sort to Macao, when he was ac­cost­ed by a sailor on one of the wharves.

“Is your hon­our look­ing for a boat?”

“Have you a boat ready to sail?”

“Yes, your hon­our; a pi­lot-​boat--No. 43--the best in the har­bour.”

“Does she go fast?”

“Be­tween eight and nine knots the hour. Will you look at her?”

“Yes.”

“Your hon­our will be sat­is­fied with her. Is it for a sea ex­cur­sion?”

“No; for a voy­age.”

“A voy­age?”

“Yes, will you agree to take me to Yoko­hama?”

The sailor leaned on the rail­ing, opened his eyes wide, and said, “Is your hon­our jok­ing?”

“No. I have missed the Car­nat­ic, and I must get to Yoko­hama by the 14th at the lat­est, to take the boat for San Fran­cis­co.”

“I am sor­ry,” said the sailor; “but it is im­pos­si­ble.”

“I of­fer you a hun­dred pounds per day, and an ad­di­tion­al re­ward of two hun­dred pounds if I reach Yoko­hama in time.”

“Are you in earnest?”

“Very much so.”

The pi­lot walked away a lit­tle dis­tance, and gazed out to sea, ev­ident­ly strug­gling be­tween the anx­iety to gain a large sum and the fear of ven­tur­ing so far. Fix was in mor­tal sus­pense.

Mr. Fogg turned to Aou­da and asked her, “You would not be afraid, would you, madam?”

“Not with you, Mr. Fogg,” was her an­swer.

The pi­lot now re­turned, shuf­fling his hat in his hands.

“Well, pi­lot?” said Mr. Fogg.

“Well, your hon­our,” replied he, “I could not risk my­self, my men, or my lit­tle boat of scarce­ly twen­ty tons on so long a voy­age at this time of year. Be­sides, we could not reach Yoko­hama in time, for it is six­teen hun­dred and six­ty miles from Hong Kong.”

“On­ly six­teen hun­dred,” said Mr. Fogg.

“It's the same thing.”

Fix breathed more freely.

“But,” added the pi­lot, “it might be ar­ranged an­oth­er way.”

Fix ceased to breathe at all.

“How?” asked Mr. Fogg.

“By go­ing to Na­gasa­ki, at the ex­treme south of Japan, or even to Shang­hai, which is on­ly eight hun­dred miles from here. In go­ing to Shang­hai we should not be forced to sail wide of the Chi­nese coast, which would be a great ad­van­tage, as the cur­rents run north­ward, and would aid us.”

“Pi­lot,” said Mr. Fogg, “I must take the Amer­ican steam­er at Yoko­hama, and not at Shang­hai or Na­gasa­ki.”

“Why not?” re­turned the pi­lot. “The San Fran­cis­co steam­er does not start from Yoko­hama. It puts in at Yoko­hama and Na­gasa­ki, but it starts from Shang­hai.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Per­fect­ly.”

“And when does the boat leave Shang­hai?”

“On the 11th, at sev­en in the evening. We have, there­fore, four days be­fore us, that is nine­ty-​six hours; and in that time, if we had good luck and a south-​west wind, and the sea was calm, we could make those eight hun­dred miles to Shang­hai.”

“And you could go--”

“In an hour; as soon as pro­vi­sions could be got aboard and the sails put up.”

“It is a bar­gain. Are you the mas­ter of the boat?”

“Yes; John Buns­by, mas­ter of the Tankadere.”

“Would you like some earnest-​mon­ey?”

“If it would not put your hon­our out--”

“Here are two hun­dred pounds on ac­count sir,” added Phileas Fogg, turn­ing to Fix, “if you would like to take ad­van­tage--”

“Thanks, sir; I was about to ask the favour.”

“Very well. In half an hour we shall go on board.”

“But poor Passep­artout?” urged Aou­da, who was much dis­turbed by the ser­vant's dis­ap­pear­ance.

“I shall do all I can to find him,” replied Phileas Fogg.

While Fix, in a fever­ish, ner­vous state, re­paired to the pi­lot-​boat, the oth­ers di­rect­ed their course to the po­lice-​sta­tion at Hong Kong. Phileas Fogg there gave Passep­artout's de­scrip­tion, and left a sum of mon­ey to be spent in the search for him. The same for­mal­ities hav­ing been gone through at the French con­sulate, and the palan­quin hav­ing stopped at the ho­tel for the lug­gage, which had been sent back there, they re­turned to the wharf.

It was now three o'clock; and pi­lot-​boat No. 43, with its crew on board, and its pro­vi­sions stored away, was ready for de­par­ture.

The Tankadere was a neat lit­tle craft of twen­ty tons, as grace­ful­ly built as if she were a rac­ing yacht. Her shin­ing cop­per sheath­ing, her gal­vanised iron-​work, her deck, white as ivory, be­trayed the pride tak­en by John Buns­by in mak­ing her pre­sentable. Her two masts leaned a tri­fle back­ward; she car­ried brig­an­tine, fore­sail, storm-​jib, and stand­ing-​jib, and was well rigged for run­ning be­fore the wind; and she seemed ca­pa­ble of brisk speed, which, in­deed, she had al­ready proved by gain­ing sev­er­al prizes in pi­lot-​boat races. The crew of the Tankadere was com­posed of John Buns­by, the mas­ter, and four hardy mariners, who were fa­mil­iar with the Chi­nese seas. John Buns­by, him­self, a man of forty-​five or there­abouts, vig­or­ous, sun­burnt, with a spright­ly ex­pres­sion of the eye, and en­er­get­ic and self-​re­liant coun­te­nance, would have in­spired con­fi­dence in the most timid.

Phileas Fogg and Aou­da went on board, where they found Fix al­ready in­stalled. Be­low deck was a square cab­in, of which the walls bulged out in the form of cots, above a cir­cu­lar di­van; in the cen­tre was a ta­ble pro­vid­ed with a swing­ing lamp. The ac­com­mo­da­tion was con­fined, but neat.

“I am sor­ry to have noth­ing bet­ter to of­fer you,” said Mr. Fogg to Fix, who bowed with­out re­spond­ing.

The de­tec­tive had a feel­ing akin to hu­mil­ia­tion in prof­it­ing by the kind­ness of Mr. Fogg.

“It's cer­tain,” thought he, “though ras­cal as he is, he is a po­lite one!”

The sails and the En­glish flag were hoist­ed at ten min­utes past three. Mr. Fogg and Aou­da, who were seat­ed on deck, cast a last glance at the quay, in the hope of es­py­ing Passep­artout. Fix was not with­out his fears lest chance should di­rect the steps of the un­for­tu­nate ser­vant, whom he had so bad­ly treat­ed, in this di­rec­tion; in which case an ex­pla­na­tion the re­verse of sat­is­fac­to­ry to the de­tec­tive must have en­sued. But the French­man did not ap­pear, and, with­out doubt, was still ly­ing un­der the stu­pe­fy­ing in­flu­ence of the opi­um.

John Buns­by, mas­ter, at length gave the or­der to start, and the Tankadere, tak­ing the wind un­der her brig­an­tine, fore­sail, and stand­ing-​jib, bound­ed briskly for­ward over the waves.