Works of Jules Verne/Round the World in Eighty Days/Chapter 30
CHAPTER XXX
IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SIMPLY DOES HIS DUTY
Three passengers, including Passepartout, had disappeared. Had they been killed in the fight? Were they taken prisoners by the Sioux? As yet it could not be told.
The wounded were quite numerous, but none mortally. The one most seriously hurt was Colonel Proctor, who had fought bravely, and who fell struck by a ball in the groin. He was carried to the station with the other passengers, whose condition demanded immediate care.
Aouda was safe. Phileas Fogg, who had not spared himself, had not a scratch. Fix was wounded in the arm—but it was an unimportant wound. But poor Passepartout was missing, and tears flowed from the young woman's eyes.
Meanwhile, all the passengers had left the train. The wheels of the cars were stained with blood. To the hubs and spokes hung ragged pieces of flesh. As far as the eye could reach long red trails were seen on the white plain. The last Indians were then disappearing in the south, along the banks of Republican river.
Mr. Fogg, with folded arms, stood motionless. He had a serious decision to make. Aouda, near him, looked at him without uttering a word. He understood her look. If his servant was a prisoner ought he not to risk everything to rescue him from the Indians?
"I will find him dead or alive," he said simply to Aouda.
"Ah! Mr. Fogg—Mr. Fogg!" cried the young woman, seizing her companion's hands and covering them with tears.
"Alive!" added Mr. Fogg, "if we do not lose a minute!"
With this resolution Phileas Fogg sacrificed himself entirely. He had just pronounced his ruin. A single day's delay would make him miss the steamer from New York. His bet would be irrevocably lost. But in the face of the thought, "It is my duty!" he did not hestitate.
The captain commanding Fort Kearney was there. His soldiers—about a hundred men—had put themselves on the defensive in the event of the Sioux making a direct attack upon the station.
"Sir," said Mr. Fogg to the captain, "three passengers have disappeared."
"Killed?" asked the captain.
"Killed or prisoners," replied Mr. Fogg. "That is an uncertainty which we must bring to an end. It is your intention to pursue the Sioux?"
"It is a grave matter, sir," said the captain. "These Indians may fly beyond the Arkansas! I could not abandon the fort entrusted to me."
"Sir," replied Phileas Fogg, "it is a question of the life of three men."
"Doubtless—but can I risk the life of fifty to save three?"
"I do not know whether you can, but you ought."
"Sir," replied the captain, no one here has the right to tell me what my duty is."
"Let it be so!" said Phileas Fogg coldly, "I will go alone!"
"You, sir!" cried Fix, who approached, "go alone in pursuit of the Indians!"
"Do you wish me then to allow to perish the unfortunate man to whom everyone of us that is living owes his life? I shall go."
"Well, no, you shall not go alone!" cried the captain, moved in spite of himself. "No! You are a brave heart! Thirty volunteers!" he added, turning to his soldiers.
The whole company advanced in a body. The captain had to select from these brave fellows. Thirty soldiers were picked out, and an old sergeant put at their head.
"Thanks, captain!" said Mr. Fogg.
"You will permit me to accompany you?" Fix asked the gentleman.
"You will do as you please," replied Phileas Fogg. "But if you wish to do me a service, you will remain by Aouda. In case anything should happen to me———"
A sudden paleness overcast the detective's face. To separate himself from the man whom he had followed step by step and with so much persistence! To let him venture so much in the desert. Fix looked closely at the gentleman, and whatver he may have thought, in spite of his prejudices, in spite of his inward struggle, he dropped his eyes before that quiet, frank look.
"I will remain," he said.
A few moments after, Mr. Fogg pressed the young woman's hand; then, having placed in her care his precious traveling bag, he set out with the sergeant and his little band.
But before starting, he said to the soldiers, "My friends, there are five thousand dollars for you if you save the prisoners!"
It was then a few minutes past noon.
Aouda retired into a sitting room of the station, and there, alone, she waited, thinking of Phileas Fogg, his simple and grand generosity, his quiet courage. Mr. Fogg had sacrificed his fortune, and now he was staking his life—and all this without hesitation from a sense of duty, without words. Phileas Fogg was a hero in her eyes.
The detective was not thinking thus, and he could not restrain his agitation. He walked feverishly up and down the platform of the station, one moment vanquished, he became himself again. Fogg having gone, he comprehended his foolishness in letting him go. What! Had he consented to be separated from the man that he had just been following around the world! His natural disposition got the upper hand; he criminated and accused himself; he treated himself as if he had been the director of the Metropolitan Police reproving an agent caught at a very green trick.
"I have been a silly fellow!" he thought. "The other fellow will have told him who I was! He has gone; he will not return! Where can I capture him now? But how have I so allowed myself to be fascinated when I have a warrant for his arrest in my pocket! I am decidedly only an ass!"
Thus reasoned the detective, while the hours slipped on too slowly for his liking. He did not know what to do. Sometimes, he felt like telling Aouda everything. But he understood how he would be received by the young woman. What course should he take? He was tempted to go in pursuit of this Fogg across the immense white plains. It did not seem impossible for him to find him. The footprints of the detachment were still imprinted upon the snow! But under a fresh covering every track would soon be effaced.
Fix was discouraged. He felt an almost insurmountable desire to abandon the party. This very occasion of leaving Kearney station and of prosecuting the journey, so fruitful in mishaps, was opened to him.
About two o'clock in the afternoon, while the snow was falling in large flakes, long whistles were heard coming from the east. An enormous shadow, preceded by a lurid light, slowly advanced, considerably increased by the mist, which gave it a fantastic appearance.
But no train was expected yet from the east. The help asked for by telegraph could not arrive so soon and the train from Omaha to San Francisco would not pass until the next day. They were soon enlightened.
This locomotive, moving under a small head of steam, and whistling very loud, was the one which, after being detached from the train, had continued its course with such frightful speed, carrying the unconscious fireman and engineer. It had run on for several miles; then the fire had gone down for want of fuel; the steam had slackened, and an hour afterwards, relaxing its speed by degrees, the engine finally stopped twenty miles beyond Kearney station.
Neither the engineer nor the fireman was dead, and after a very long swoon they revived. The engine had stopped. When he saw himself in the desert, and the locomotive without cars attached to it, the engineer understood what had happened. He could not guess how the locomotive had been detached from the train, but he did not doubt that the train, left behind, was in distress.
The engineer did not hesitate as to what he ought to do. To continue his course in the direction of Omaha was prudent, to return towards the train, which the Indians were perhaps yet robbing, was dangerous. No matter! Coal and wood were thrown into the furnace, the fire started up again, the head of steam increased again, and about two o'clock in the afternoon the engine returned, running backwards to Kearney station. This was the whistling they heard in the mist.
It was a great satisfaction for the travelers, when they saw the locomotive put at the head of the train. They were going to be able to continue their journey so unfortunately interrupted.
On the arrival of the engine, Aouda came out of the station, and addressing the conductor she asked:
"You are going to start?"
"This very instant, madame."
"But the prisoners—our unfortunate companions———"
"I cannot interrupt the trip," replied the conductor.
"We are already three hours behind time."
"And when will the next train coming from San Francisco pass?"
"To-morrow evening, madame."
"To-morrow evning! But it will be too late. We must wait———"
"Impossible," replied the conductor. "If you are going, get aboard the car."
"I will not go," replied the young woman.
Fix heard this conversation. A few moments before, when every means of locomotion failed him, he had decided to quit Kearney, and now that the train was there ready to continue its course, and he only had to seat himself again in the car, an irresistible force fixed him to the ground. The platform of the station burned his feet, and he could not tear himself away from it. The conflict within himself recommenced. His anger at his want of success choked him. He was going to struggle on to the end.
Meanwhile the passengers and some of the wounded—among others Colonel Proctor, whose condition was very serious—had taken seats in the cars. The buzzing of the overheated boiler was heard; the steam escaped through the valves; the engine whistled, the train started, and soon disappeared, mingling its white smoke with the whirling of the snow.
The detective Fix had remained.
Some hours passed. The weather was very bad, the cold very keen. Fix, seated on a bench in the station, was motionless. It might have been supposed that he was sleeping. Notwithstanding the storm, Aouda left every moment the room which had been placed at her disposal. She went to the end of the platform, trying to look through the tempest of snow, wishing to pierce the mist which narrowed the horizon around her, listening if she could hear any sound. But there was nothing. She went in then, chilled through, to return a few moments later, and always in vain.
Evening came. The little detachment had not returned. Where was it at this moment? Had it been able to overtake the Indians? Had there been a fight, or were these soldiers, lost in the mist, wandering at a venture? The captain of Fort Kearney was very uneasy, although he did not wish to let his uneasiness appear.
Night came; the snow fell less heavily, but the intensity of the cold increased. The most intrepid glance would not have looked at this vast, obscure space without terror. An absolute silence prevailed over the plain. Neither the flight of a bird nor the passage of a wild beast disturbed the unbroken quiet.
During the whole night Aouda, her mind full of dark presentiments, her heart filled with anguish, wandered on the border of the prairie. Her imagination carried her afar off and showed her a thousand dangers. What she suffered during those long hours could not be expressed. Fix, still immovable in the same spot, did not sleep. Once a man approached and spoke to him, but the detective sent him away, after replying to him by a negative sign.
Thus the night passed. At dawn, the half-concealed disk of the sun rose from a misty horizon. Still the eye might reach as far as two miles. Phileas Fogg and the detachment had gone to the south. The south was entirely deserted. It was then seven o'clock in the morning.
The captain, extremely anxious, did not know what course to take. Ought he to send a second detachment to help the first? Ought he to sacrifice fresh men with so few chances of saving those who were sacrificed at first? But his hesitation did not last, and with a gesture calling one of his lieutenants, he gave him the order to throw out a reconnoissance to the south, when shots were heard. Was it a signal? The soldiers rushed out of the fort, and half a mile distant they perceived a small band returning in good order.
Phileas Fogg marched at the head, and near him Passepartout and the two passengers, rescued from the hands of the Sioux.
There was a fight ten miles south of Fort Kearney. Passepartout and his two companions were already struggling against their captors, and the Frenchman had knocked down three of them with his fist, when his master and the soldiers rushed to their rescue.
All—the deliverers and the delivered—were received with cries of joy, and Phileas Fogg divided among the soldiers the reward he had promised them, whilst Passepartout repeated to himself, not without reason, "I must confess that I am certainly costing my master very dearly."
Fix, without uttering a word, looked at Mr. Fogg, and it would have been difficult to analyze the impressions struggling within him. As for Aouda, she took the gentleman's hand, and pressed it in hers, without being able to utter a word!
In the meantime Passepartout, upon his arrival, was looking for the train at the station. He thought he would find it there, ready to start for Omaha, and he hoped they could still make up the lost time. "The train, the train!" he cried.
"Gone," replied Fix.
"And when will the next train pass?" asked Fogg.
"Not until this evening."
"Ah!" simply replied the impassible gentleman.