Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter XXXIV

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AT LAST REACH­ES LON­DON

Phileas Fogg was in prison. He had been shut up in the Cus­tom House, and he was to be trans­ferred to Lon­don the next day.

Passep­artout, when he saw his mas­ter ar­rest­ed, would have fall­en up­on Fix had he not been held back by some po­lice­men. Aou­da was thun­der­struck at the sud­den­ness of an event which she could not un­der­stand. Passep­artout ex­plained to her how it was that the hon­est and coura­geous Fogg was ar­rest­ed as a rob­ber. The young wom­an's heart re­volt­ed against so heinous a charge, and when she saw that she could at­tempt to do noth­ing to save her pro­tec­tor, she wept bit­ter­ly.

As for Fix, he had ar­rest­ed Mr. Fogg be­cause it was his du­ty, whether Mr. Fogg were guilty or not.

The thought then struck Passep­artout, that he was the cause of this new mis­for­tune! Had he not con­cealed Fix's er­rand from his mas­ter? When Fix re­vealed his true char­ac­ter and pur­pose, why had he not told Mr. Fogg? If the lat­ter had been warned, he would no doubt have giv­en Fix proof of his in­no­cence, and sat­is­fied him of his mis­take; at least, Fix would not have con­tin­ued his jour­ney at the ex­pense and on the heels of his mas­ter, on­ly to ar­rest him the mo­ment he set foot on En­glish soil. Passep­artout wept till he was blind, and felt like blow­ing his brains out.

Aou­da and he had re­mained, de­spite the cold, un­der the por­ti­co of the Cus­tom House. Nei­ther wished to leave the place; both were anx­ious to see Mr. Fogg again.

That gen­tle­man was re­al­ly ru­ined, and that at the mo­ment when he was about to at­tain his end. This ar­rest was fa­tal. Hav­ing ar­rived at Liv­er­pool at twen­ty min­utes be­fore twelve on the 21st of De­cem­ber, he had till a quar­ter be­fore nine that evening to reach the Re­form Club, that is, nine hours and a quar­ter; the jour­ney from Liv­er­pool to Lon­don was six hours.

If any­one, at this mo­ment, had en­tered the Cus­tom House, he would have found Mr. Fogg seat­ed, mo­tion­less, calm, and with­out ap­par­ent anger, up­on a wood­en bench. He was not, it is true, re­signed; but this last blow failed to force him in­to an out­ward be­tray­al of any emo­tion. Was he be­ing de­voured by one of those se­cret rages, all the more ter­ri­ble be­cause con­tained, and which on­ly burst forth, with an ir­re­sistible force, at the last mo­ment? No one could tell. There he sat, calm­ly wait­ing--for what? Did he still cher­ish hope? Did he still be­lieve, now that the door of this prison was closed up­on him, that he would suc­ceed?

How­ev­er that may have been, Mr. Fogg care­ful­ly put his watch up­on the ta­ble, and ob­served its ad­vanc­ing hands. Not a word es­caped his lips, but his look was sin­gu­lar­ly set and stern. The sit­ua­tion, in any event, was a ter­ri­ble one, and might be thus stat­ed: if Phileas Fogg was hon­est he was ru­ined; if he was a knave, he was caught.

Did es­cape oc­cur to him? Did he ex­am­ine to see if there were any prac­ti­ca­ble out­let from his prison? Did he think of es­cap­ing from it? Pos­si­bly; for once he walked slow­ly around the room. But the door was locked, and the win­dow heav­ily barred with iron rods. He sat down again, and drew his jour­nal from his pock­et. On the line where these words were writ­ten, “21st De­cem­ber, Sat­ur­day, Liv­er­pool,” he added, “80th day, 11.40 a.m.,” and wait­ed.

The Cus­tom House clock struck one. Mr. Fogg ob­served that his watch was two hours too fast.

Two hours! Ad­mit­ting that he was at this mo­ment tak­ing an ex­press train, he could reach Lon­don and the Re­form Club by a quar­ter be­fore nine, p.m. His fore­head slight­ly wrin­kled.

At thir­ty-​three min­utes past two he heard a sin­gu­lar noise out­side, then a hasty open­ing of doors. Passep­artout's voice was au­di­ble, and im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter that of Fix. Phileas Fogg's eyes bright­ened for an in­stant.

The door swung open, and he saw Passep­artout, Aou­da, and Fix, who hur­ried to­wards him.

Fix was out of breath, and his hair was in dis­or­der. He could not speak. “Sir,” he stam­mered, “sir--for­give me--most--un­for­tu­nate re­sem­blance--rob­ber ar­rest­ed three days ago--you are free!”

Phileas Fogg was free! He walked to the de­tec­tive, looked him steadi­ly in the face, and with the on­ly rapid mo­tion he had ev­er made in his life, or which he ev­er would make, drew back his arms, and with the pre­ci­sion of a ma­chine knocked Fix down.

“Well hit!” cried Passep­artout, “Par­bleu! that's what you might call a good ap­pli­ca­tion of En­glish fists!”

Fix, who found him­self on the floor, did not ut­ter a word. He had on­ly re­ceived his deserts. Mr. Fogg, Aou­da, and Passep­artout left the Cus­tom House with­out de­lay, got in­to a cab, and in a few mo­ments de­scend­ed at the sta­tion.

Phileas Fogg asked if there was an ex­press train about to leave for Lon­don. It was forty min­utes past two. The ex­press train had left thir­ty-​five min­utes be­fore. Phileas Fogg then or­dered a spe­cial train.

There were sev­er­al rapid lo­co­mo­tives on hand; but the rail­way ar­range­ments did not per­mit the spe­cial train to leave un­til three o'clock.

At that hour Phileas Fogg, hav­ing stim­ulat­ed the en­gi­neer by the of­fer of a gen­er­ous re­ward, at last set out to­wards Lon­don with Aou­da and his faith­ful ser­vant.

It was nec­es­sary to make the jour­ney in five hours and a half; and this would have been easy on a clear road through­out. But there were forced de­lays, and when Mr. Fogg stepped from the train at the ter­mi­nus, all the clocks in Lon­don were strik­ing ten min­utes be­fore nine.

Hav­ing made the tour of the world, he was be­hind-​hand five min­utes. He had lost the wa­ger!