Works of Jules Verne/Round the World in Eighty Days/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
IN WHICH THE BAG WITH THE BANK-NOTES IS RELIEVED OF A FEW THOUSANDS POUNDS MORE!
The train stopped at the station. Passepartout first got out of the car, and was followed by Mr. Fogg, who aided his young companion to descend. Phileas Fogg counted on going directly to the Hong Kong steamer, in order to fix Aouda there comfortably. He did not wish to leave her as long as she was in this country, so dangerous for her.
At the moment that Mr. Fogg was going out of the station a policeman approached him and said, "Mr. Phileas Fogg?
"I am he."
"Is this man your servant?" added the policeman, pointing to Passepartout.
"Yes."
"You will both be so kind as to follow me."
Mr. Fogg made no movement indicating any surprise. This agent was a representative of the law, and for every Englishman the law is sacred. Passepartout, with his French habits, wanted to discuss the matter, but the policeman touched him with his stick, and Phileas Fogg made him a sign to obey.
"This young lady can accompany us?" asked Mr. Fogg.
"She can," replied the policeman.
The policeman conducted Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and Passepartout to a palki-ghari, a sort of four-wheeled vehicle with four seats, drawn by two horses. They started. No one spoke during the twenty-minutes' ride.
The vehicle first crossed the "black town," with its narrow streets, its huts in which groveled a miscellaneous population, dirty and ragged; then they passed through the European town, adorned with brick houses, shaded by cocoa-nut trees, bristling with masts, through which, notwithstanding the early hour, were driving handsomely dressed gentlemen, in elegant turn-outs.
The palki-ghari stopped before a dwelling of plain appearance, but not used for private purposes. The policeman let his prisoners out, for they could, indeed, be called thus, and he led them into a room with grated windows, saying to them, "At half-past eight you will appear before Judge Obadiah."
Then he left, and closed the door.
"See! we are prisoners!" cried Passepartout, dropping into a chair.
Aouda, addressing Mr. Fogg immediately, said in a voice whose emotion she sought in vain to disguise, "Sir you must leave me! It is on my account that you are pursued! It is because you have rescued me!"
Phileas Fogg contented himself with saying that that could not be possible. Pursued on account of this suttee affair! Inadmissible! How would the complainants dare present themselves? There was a mistake. Mr. Fogg added that, in any event, he would not abandon the young woman, and that he would take her to Hong Kong.
"But the steamer leaves at noon!" remarked Passepartout.
"Before noon we shall be on board," was the simple reply of the impassible gentleman.
This was so flatly asserted that Passepartout could not help saying to himself, "Parbleu! that is certain! before noon we will be on board!" But he was not at all reassured.
At half-past eight the door of the room was opened. The policeman reappeared, and he led the prisoners into the next It was a court-room, and quite a large crowd, composed of Europeans and natives, already occupied the rear of the room.
Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and Passepartout were seated on a bench in front of the seats reserved for the magistrate and the clerk.
This magistrate, Judge Obadiah, entered almost immediately, followed by the clerk. He was a large, fat man. He took down a wig hung on a nail and hastily put it on his head. "The first case," he said.
But putting his hand to his head, he added, "Humph! this is not my wig!"
"That's a fact, Mr. Obadiah, it is mine," replied the clerk.
"My dear Mr. Oysterpuff, how do you think that a judge can give a wise sentence with a clerk's wig?"
An exchange of wigs had been made. During these preliminaries, Passepartout was boiling over with impatience, for the hands appeared to him to move terribly fast over the face of the large clock in the court-room.
"The first case," said Judge Obadiah again.
"Phileas Fogg?" said Clerk Oysterpuff.
"Here I am," replied Mr. Fogg.
"Passepartout?"
"Present!" replied Passepartout.
"Good!" said Judge Obadiah. "For two days, prisoners, you have been looked for upon the arrival of all the trains from Bombay."
"But of what are we accused?" cried Passepartout impatiently.
"You shall know now," replied the judge.
"ir," said Mr. Fogg then, "I am an English citizen, and have the right———"
"Have you been treated disrespectfully," asked Mr. Obadiah.
"Not at all."
"Very well, let the complainants come in."
Upon the order of the judge a door was opened, and three Hindoo priests were led in by a tipstaff.
"Well, well!" murmured Passepartout, "they are the rascals who were going to burn our young lady!"
The priests stood up before the judge, and the clerk read in a loud voice a complaint of sacrilege, preferred against Mr. Phileas Fogg and his servant, accused of having violated a place consecrated by the Brahmin religion.
"You have heard the charge?" the judge asked Phileas Fogg.
"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Fogg, consulting his watch, "and I confess it."
"Ah! You confess?"
"I confess and expect these three priests to confess in their turn what they were going to do at the pagoda of Pillaji."
The priests looked at each other. They did not seem to understand the words of the accused.
"Truly!" cried Passepartout impetuously, at the pagoda of Pillaji, where they were going to burn their victim!"
More stupefaction of the priests, and profound astonishment of Judge Obadiah.
"What victim?" he answered. "Burn whom? In the heart of the city of Bombay?"
"Bombay?" cried Passepartout.
"Certainly. We are not speaking of the pagoda of Pillaji, but of the pagoda of Malebar in Bombay."
"And as a proof here are the desecrator's shoes," added the clerk, putting a pair on his desk.
"Those are my shoes!" cried Passepartout, who, surprised at the last charge, could not prevent this involuntary exclamation.
The confusion in the minds of the master and servant may be imagined. They had forgotten the incident of the pagoda of Bombay, and that was the very thing which had brought them before the magistrate in Calcutta.
In fact, Fix understood the advantage that he might get from this unfortunate affair. Delaying his departure twelve hours, he had taken counsel with the priests of Malebar Hill, and had promised them large damages, knowing very well that the English Government was very severe upon this kind of trespass; then by the following train he had sent them forward on the track of the perpetrator. But, in consequence of the time employed in the deliverance of the young widow, Fix and the Hindoos arrived at Calcutta before Phileas Fogg and his servant, whom the authorities, warned by telegraph, were to arrest as they got out of the train. The disappointment of Fix may be judged of, when he learned that Phileas Fogg had not yet arrived in the capital of India. He was compelled to think that his robber, stopping at one of the stations of the Peninsular Railway, had taken refuge in the northern provinces. For twenty-four hours, in the greatest uneasiness, Fix watched for him at the station. What was his joy then when, this very morning, he saw him get out of the car, accompanied, it is true, by a young woman whose presence he could not explain. He immediately sent a policeman after him; and this is how Mr. Fogg, Passepartout, and the widow of the rajah of Bundelcund were taken before Judge Obadiah.
And if Passepartout had been less preoccupied with his affair, he would have perceived in a corner of the room the detective, who followed the discussion with an interest easy to understand, for at Calcutta, as at Bombay, and as at Suez, the warrant of arrest was still not at hand!
But Judge Obadiah had taken a note of the confession escaped from Passepartout, who would have given all he possessed to recall his imprudent words.
"The facts are admitted?" said the judge.
"Admitted," replied Mr. Fogg coldly.
"Inasmuch," continued the judge, "as the English law intends to protect equally and rigorously all the religions of the people of India the trespass being admitted by this man Passepartout, convicted of having violated with sacrilegious feet the pavement of the pagoda of Malebar Hill in Bombay, on the 20th day of October, I sentence the said Passepartout to fifteen days' imprisonment, and a fine of three hundred pounds."
"Three hundred pounds!" cried Passepartout, who was really only alive to the fine.
"Silence!" said the tipstaff in a shrill voice.
"And," added Judge Obadiah, "inasmuch as it is not materially proved that there was not a connivance between the servant and the master, the latter of whom ought to be held responsible for the acts and gestures of a servant in his employ, I detain the said Phileas Fogg and sentence him to eight days' imprisonment and one hundred and fifty pounds fine. Clerk, call another case!"
Fix, in his corner, experienced an unspeakable satisfaction. Phileas Fogg, detained eight days in Calcutta! It would be more than time enough for the warrant to arrive.
Passepartout was crushed. This sentence would ruin his master. A A wager of twenty thousand pounds lost, and all because, in the height of folly, he had gone into that cursed pagoda!
Phileas Fogg, as much master of himself as if this sentence did not concern him, did not even knit his eyebrows. But at the moment that the clerk was calling another case, he rose and said, "I offer bail."
"It is your right," replied the judge.
Fix felt a cold shudder down his back, but he recovered himself again, when he heard the judge, "in consideration of the fact of Phileas Fogg and his servant both being strangers," fix the bail for each at the enormous sum of one thousand pounds.
It would cost Mr. Fogg two thousand pounds, unless he was cleared from his sentence.
"I will pay it," said that gentleman.
And he took from the bag which Passepartout carried a bundle of bank-notes, which he placed on the clerk's desk.
"This sum will be returned to you on coming out of prison," said the judge. "In the meantime, you are free under bail."
"Come," said Phileas Fogg to his servant.
"But they should at least return me my shoes," cried Passepartout, with an angry movement.
They returned him his shoes.
"These are dear!" he murmued; "more than a thousand pounds apiece! Without counting that they pinch me!"
Passepartout, with a very pitiful look, followed Mr. Fogg, who had offered his arm to the young woman. Fix still hoped that his robber would not decide to surrender this sum of two thousand pounds, and that he would serve out his eight days in prison. He put himself, then, on Fogg's tracks.
Mr. Fogg took a carriage, into which Aouda, Passepartout, and he got out immediately. Fix ran behind the carriage, which soon stopped on one of the wharves of the city.
Half a mile out in the harbor the Rangoon was anchored, her sailing flag hoisted to the top of the mast. Eleven o'clock struck. Mr. Fogg was one hour ahead. Fix saw him get out of the carriage, and embark in a boat with Aouda and his servant. The detective stamped his foot.
"The rascal!" he cried: "he is going off! Two thousand pounds sacrificed! Prodigal as a robber! Ah! I will follow him to the end of the world, if it is necessary; but, at the rate at which he is going, all the stolen money will be gone!
The detective had good reason for making this remark. In fact, since he left London, what with traveling expenses, rewards, the elephant purchase, bail, and fines, Phileas Fogg had already scattered more than five thousand pounds on his route, and the percentage of the sum recovered, promised to the detectives, was constantly diminishing.