Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/295

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE VOYAGE ACROSS THE PACIFIC
271

who told him then how the voyage had been made from Hong Kong to Yokohama, in company of a Mr. Fix, on the schooner Tankadere.

At the name of Fix, Passepartout did not change countenance. He thought that the time had not come to tell his master what had passed between the detective and himself. Thus, in the story which Passepartout told of his adventures, he only accused and excused himself of having been overcome by the intoxication of opium in a smoking house in Hong Kong.

Mr. Fogg listened coldly to this narrative, without replying; then he opened for his servant a credit sufficient for him to procure on board more suitable garments. And, indeed, an hour had not passed, when the good fellow, having cut off his nose and shed his wings, had nothing more about him which recalled the sectary of the god Tingou.

The steamer making the voyage from Yokohama to San Francisco belonged to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and was named the General Grant. She was a large sidewheel steamer of two thousand five hundred tons, well equipped and of great speed. The General Grant was rigged as a three-masted schooner, and she had a large surface of sails, which aided her steam power materially. By making twelve miles an hour the steamer would only need twenty days to cross the Pacific. Phileas Fogg then had good reasons for believing that, landed at San Francisco on the 3d of December, he would be in New York on the 11th, and in London on the 20th, thus gaining some hours on the fatal date of the 21st of December.

The passengers aboard the steamer were quite numerous—some Englishmen, many Americans, a genuine emigration of coolies to America, and a certain number of officers of the Indian army, who made use of their leave of absence by making the tour of the world.

During this voyage there was no nautical incident. The steamer, borne up on its large wheels, supported by its large amount of canvas, rolled but little. The Pacific Ocean justified its name sufficiently. Mr. Fogg was as calm and non-communicative as usual. His young companion felt herself more and more attached to this man by other ties than those of gratitude. This silent nature, so generous in short, made a greater impression upon her than she thought, and almost